I disliked Reagan because he was so charming, adept and clever at promoting his political poison and rallying together the mouth-breathers. And I always thought Dubya was a profoundly ignorant and inept man, but not necessarily an evil one, in fact, I thought he was basically a nice guy I wouldn't mind having the proverbial beer with. It was his evil counselors, Cheney and Rumsfeld, who I loathed, but at least I respected them. Even Nixon had a sort of cunning and instinctive political skill you couldn't help but admire even while you hated him.

But the Right feels about Obama exactly the same way the Nazis felt about Jews, or the way I feel about palmetto bugs; irrational, pathological, malignant hate, hatred so powerful they don't even bother to hide it; hatred so enormous they are not even aware how obvious, and disturbing, it is to those who are forced to witness it.