Victor Davis Hanson // National Review
Democrats by 2004 had become obsessed with defeating incumbent President George W. Bush.
Four years earlier, in the 2000 election, Bush had won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote. Democrats were still furious that Bush supposedly had been “selected” by the Supreme Court over the contested vote tally in Florida rather than “elected” by the majority of voters.
By late 2003, Bush’s popularity had dipped because of the unpopular Iraq War, which a majority in both houses of Congress approved but had since disowned.
Bush was attacked nonstop as a Nazi, fascist, and war criminal. “Bush lied, people died” was the new left-wing mantra.
Talk of Bush’s impeachment was in the air. Democrats remembered that his father, George H. W. Bush, had lost his reelection bid in 1992. They hoped the same fate awaited his son.
