The left has no monopoly on hatred.

I think there's a difference with Clinton and Obama- Clinton's failings were mostly in his personal character- he was still able to do a reasonably good job as president- There's really no comparison between the US in 2000 and the US of 2008. Clinton was impeached and still had a 70% approval rating when he left office- while GWB's hovers around 11%

– Obama has not even taken the oath of office yet-so any hatred of him seems premature.

Subsequently, we have witnessed a Iraq war authorization drafted by Richard Gephardt and passed with support of the majority of the Democrats in congress, You Tube videos documenting the unequivocal statements by Democrats like Hillary Clinton, John D. Rockefeller, John Edwards, Al Gore etc. in 2002-2003 making exactly the same claims that Bush did about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. John Edwards and Hillary Clinton both admitted that they consulted with former Clinton administration officials before casting their votes in favor of the war authorization and that the Clinton officials also told them that Saddam had WMD and posed a threat [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16903253] [http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/157wjmhn.asp].

Then despite the findings of the Silberman-Robb Report and two Senate Intelligence committee investigations showing that the Bush Administration did not lie about the WMD intelligence, Democrats are intent on pretending that Bush lied. And, despite John Rockefeller's false claims on the Senate floor that the second Sen. Intelligence committee investigation (issued June 5, 2008) proved that Bush lied us into the war, the actual report signed by the Democrat majority found that Bush's claims about Iraq's chemical, nuclear, biological and WMD programs in general were “substantiated by the intelligence information” [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/08/AR2008060801687.html].

I know that none of those facts matter to the commenters herein. The facts listed above are only a small fraction of the history of Democrats' visceral hate for George Bush. Democrats have created a caricature of Bush that has almost no relationship with reality. They hated him before the election and they have only grown more shrill. The idea that Obama has been subjected to the same level of vitriol is laughable. Jonathan Chait wrote an op-ed piece admitting that he hated George Bush and that many liberals he knew got sick when they heard his voice on television. Howard Kurtz had a pretty detailed run down of how widely he was hated by the left [http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46805-2003Oct18?language=printer].

James Carville summed it up when he said he hated Ken Starr. He said that this is a free country and he could hate Ken Starr if he wanted. In the same vein, Democrats could and do hate George Bush. Democrats set a vicious standard over the last eight years. You can whine all you want, but the standard has been set and Obama doesn't get a free pass just because you like him. Obama has already lied about getting the troops out of Iraq in 16 months, his campaign admitted that it turned off the security settings on its web site and then refused to disclose its sub $200 donors, he lied when he said no one in his camp had talked to Blagejovich about the Senate appointment, etc., etc. I now that dissent is patriotic because Democrats have told us so for last eight years so get ready for some dissent. The only difference will be that conservatives won't repeatedly lie about Obama like Democrats have about Bush.

Both sides are guilty of this, and to pretend otherwise is to make a mockery of the blog's name.

It wouldn't be the first time, of course, however with Obama there would be the additional fear of igniting racial tensions.

I think you meant “down WITH”.

Tony Blair remained very popular for a long time. The biggest problem for Tony Blair was his support for the invasion of Iraq.

When Tony Blair and the Labour party came to power the economy was in quite good shape. Their Conservative party predecessors had looked after the UK state well economically speaking. Their unpopularity was for different reasons.

Barack Obama does have a very much greater job that Tony Blair had in that the US economy has been left by George Bush in a dangerously bad shape.

Barack Obama might well be the one who will be taking the blame for mismanagement of the economy by his predecessor. Soon the public will have forgotten George Bush and the economic bust will happen in Barack Obama's Presidency. That bust is George Bush's legacy, but when it manifests itself he will be happily off stage.