Actually, they're both Cambridge elites. They both came from Yale. In fact, the both Bush presidents are from Yale. They didn't get there by being at the top of their class and receiving scholarship money, either. They're both super rich. Both of them could buy all our parents' houses and turn them into golf courses, like in The Goonies. Actually, only Kerry would turn your house into a golf course. Bush would prefer to use it as an illegal internment camp.
Bush is actually a pretty nice guy. The only real reasons not to like him mostly stem from things that the average American isn't too interested in hearing about.
A well-reasoned list of those things is here:
http://www.sensibleforeignpolicy.net/letter.html
I don't blame the politicians for the way our country is, I blame the people. When the culture emphasizes style (reality TV, media lunacy, corny nationalism, and flag-waving military adventures) over substance (a basic understanding of foreign and domestic policy) you have a problem.
Example? How many clicked on the link above and saw the paragraphs of text and just scrolled to the bottom to see how long it was? Hmm... not a good sign.
However, this is not an easy thing to fit into a 15 second sound bite. How do you tell people to turn off the TV and go help their kids with their homework? You don't. No one likes a lecture, but some people are in dire need of one. Your other choice? A real political weasel. Would he be just as crooked as the current prez? You bet. You either have bad policy making or confused policy making. Neither is a very palatable option.
Much of Bush's cabinet is changing this administration. I wasn't a big fan of Bush, but I am very strongly against various policies that clearly came from some of his henchmen. With those gone, our country has a fighting chance to charm its way out (in lack of a better word) of the current global situtation.
And the Christian right is no more evil than various extreme sectors of the society, many of whom insist that, well, the Christian right is inherantly evil. The extreme right is no more evil than the extreme left is lazy and uneducated.... which is to say, it comes down to individuals. The people in charge on both sides can be fairly nasty, but the people themselves are just trying to get by. (C'mon, you've seen enough giant robot political dramas to know it's true.) No one wants to hear that though, they want to hear the sound bites, one-liners, and zingers.
So, as I said, the worst part of the whole thing is 50% of the people hate the other 50%. What's worse is that most of these 95% don't have a very good reason to do so.
