The George W. Bush Anti Fan Club

I've noticed this too.

People who hate Bush don't hate him because of all his bad policies and mistakes. They've hated him from the get-go, and so if there's any doubt at all, they regard anything he does as a mistake or a bad policy.

In fact, Bush was loathed by the British and European Left-liberals before he had done anything in office. He was detested purely and simply for what he was - a point to which I shall return. But the idea that the most recent wave of rabid anti-Americanism stems from mistakes in Iraq is simply absurd. Anyone whose historical memory goes back more than 10 minutes should recall the extraordinary effusion of hatred that spewed from sections of the opinion-forming class as a consequence of America being attacked. <snip> The choir began singing this tune almost immediately after 9/11: America will "rush in" and take precipitate action to remove the Taliban regime even though it is what the Islamic people of that country want. Well, they didn't rush in - they waited and planned for what seemed an unconscionable length of time. Then they liberated Kabul from a regime which - as it turned out - even most Muslims in Afghanistan hated. The Afghans have just had their first free elections without any terrorist disruption from al-Qa'eda. But the Bush-haters have largely forgotten their opposition to that venture, so happily immersed are they in the more troubled outcome in Iraq. I wonder how quickly amnesia will set in if the Iraqi elections in January go surprisingly well? So, no - George W Bush is not hated here and in Europe because he removed a genocidal tyrant in Iraq and failed to anticipate the chaos that followed. He is hated because he is the embodiment of everything that the United States is, and Europe is not: not just enormously powerful, militarily and economically, but brashly confident and fervently patriotic. Where Europe is steeped in historical guilt and self-loathing - so immersed in its own unforgivable past that it is trying to fashion a constitution that actually prohibits national pride - America is profoundly proud of the success of its own miraculous achievement.