POLITICS: Bush Hatred Prevails Over Obama Love. “The legacy of the Left’s extreme Bush hatred, which led them to caricature Bush and scorn and misrepresent the great majority of his policies, policies they otherwise might have found reasonable, has had profound consequences for Obama. First, when he takes the same course of action that Bush took, however pragmatic it might be, he looks like a sellout to his most ardent supporters and he looks spineless or unprincipled to moderates. They begin to ask: What does Obama really stand for? Thus, second, Obama lost, quite early in his administration, a President’s most precious commodity: the trust of the American people. They no longer knew whether he said what he meant and meant what he said. And third, this puts him in a tough position entering the election contest. Obama can deliver the same soaring speeches, but soaring speeches swiftly turn sour when the speaker’s actions contradict his words.”