Did you ever think that in your lifetime you would see

[drdtroit]

Such an extreme and palatable hate for the President of the United States?

I am 50 years old and have traveled the globe extensively for 30 of it. Never, ever have I seen anything like it.

Watching Cspan right now which is showing an RTE Ireland feed and it is astounding to me to see how much the Irish hate the Shrub!

[malatesta1137]

1. like Bill Clinton said

on Al Franken's show today, we don't need to hate Bush, we need to defeat him.

[Soup Bean]

4. I agree.

I think it's very sad that the American President is really, truly despised by most thinking people. That can't be good for our country OR the world.

America is a wonderful place. We have to show that we can correct our mistakes. I believe Bush will be voted out. Beyond that, I bid him goodbye and hope history records his time in office as a gigantic brain fart of an otherwise great People.

[Blecht]

2. This is the second one in my lifetime

Reagan was detested in much of the world, too.

[drdtroit]

10. But Reagan didn't diminish the worlds view

of America and Americans in general.

The ring of repugnance encircling this administration encroaches upon every American.

I don't remember Reagan as having the ability to mobilize 100's of millions of people in protest. Maybe in wrong, it was the 80's after all. :hangover:

[DBoon]

18. Anti nuke protests in Europe were huge!

Protesting the cruise missile deployment in Europe brought huge numbers to the streets.

[testing123]

3. He is hated more then Hitler

[Journeyman]

21. Somehow, I imagine you've never stood. . .

on the steps of the Memorial Monument to the Great Patriotic War near Moscow, or trod in quiet shock and awe among the mass graves of the Piskaryovo Memorial Cemetery in St Petersburg (fomerly Leningrad) where more than a million victims of the 900 Days' first winter are interred. They say more than 20 million Soviet citizens died in the struggle against hitlerian Germany, but they could be wrong. It could easily have been many, many more.

www.vor.ru/55/Monument/9.html
http://www.vor.ru/55/Monument/25.html

[salinen]

5. Being despised

by the entire world makes republicans feel justified. Crazy.

[shadu]

7. perhaps it brings out the KKK in them

they almost seem to savor the hatred

[Kanary]

9. And, RW Christians seem to like to feel persecuted

Think there's a connection?

Interesting....

Kanary

[LTR]

6. I'm too young to remember Nixon

But my family certainly had no love for him.

[Cleita]

8. I remember Roma Downey the Irish actress of

the "Touched By An Angel" series defending Bill Clinton in the middle of the Ken Starr inquisition. She said that he had done so much in negotiating peace in Ireland that she couldn't understand why they were on the witch hunt they were pursuing. I can't remember which show it was but she was slightly boo'ed and the host of the show didn't help her out.

Good for the Irish. No one has ever told them how to think no matter how much they have been persecuted.

[Baltimoreboy]

11. Not new

People hated Nixon. People hated Reagan and in the U.S. people hated Clinton.

In fact, most of the presidents of my life it seems have been much hated.

[drdtroit]

14. I'm speaking of global hatred

There are always people that hate their own leaders but to have the motivation to hate anothers countries leaders is a whole other level.

[Baltimoreboy]

19. Reagan was pretty hated in Europe

[FloridaPat]

12. I always wondered how Hitler got in power. At least the Germans

were starving at the time. How this could happen in our country when he have access to so much information is totally beyond me, even today. How half the population can think this idiot and his ship of fools is doing a good job is beyond me.

[Curious Dave]

13. When he was VP

In the late 50s Nixon's motorcade was attacked in Venezuela. From what I've read he barely escaped with his skin intact.

I've traveled extensively too and my experiences (starting from the 70s on) led me to believe that the u.s. wasn't very popular overseas even then. If you could sort of distance yourself from the stupidities of our government and fucked up country people were more open and friendly, but the initial reaction tended toward skepticism. But you can't really blame the rest of the world for feeling this was toward us. As a country we haven't done anything right internationally since WWII and even there we did a lot of things wrong.

[SheilaT]

16. Apparently in the last year or so

of Nixon's presidency he was not getting a good reception in much of the country. My brother has told me of seeing a photographer's exhibit at the Library of Congress around the time Nixon resigned which was full of pictures showing crowds of people clearly disliking Nixon.

I know that's not a very good description, but I never saw the photos myself, but I was quite impressed at the time -- some thirty years ago now -- by what my brother told me about them.

[Skittles]

15. it chilled me when someone as stupid and evil as Reagan was elected TWICE

so ya, I figured it could happen again. It shocks me how badly this one pretends to be president though.

[Rabrrrrrr]

17. No, I didn't, until ToiletBrain was "elected" and then I knew, oh, I knew

that the world would (rightfully) turn on us.

[prodigal_green]

20. What I noticed in Control Room

(the movie about Al Jazeera at the start of the Iraq war) is that the people they showed protesting the war or screaming about the fact that their homes were destroyed or family members killed directed their anger at "Mr. Bush" not America in general. For now, I think anger is directed at him. I've heard from many international sources that if we (re)elect him this time, that will change--they'll be angry at all of us.

[Columbia]

22. A lot of people sure disliked Abraham Lincoln

And over 600,000 Americans died for it.

Just to keep things in perspective...