I have heard a lot of things about this speech (not just here), including that it meant nothing important to anyone, and that its ideas were irrelevant.

As for the latter statement, it covers a lot of territory here besides Bush's speech, and I should have made that clearer.

Generally, in any conflict between America and any other nation or group, the Left has sided with, or at least sympathized with, the opposition. Conversely, if any nation or group has sided with America and Western values, the Left has opposed it. I have seen no exceptions to this since I was old enough to care about politics.

Your consistent enthusiastic defense of the insurgency in Iraq is a classic extreme example, but most liberals are more subtle, vague, or even confused than this, operating mostly on the level of cutting those who oppose America a lot of slack--and the Americans and their allies none--in any given controversy or argument.

I honestly think there's no real hostility to America in this for most people. But somewhere along the line, in the field of values and culture, it became a truism that it is a sign of maturity, complexity, intelligence and sophistication to crap where you eat.

Nobody on the left ever lost the respect of his peers in America by pointing out America's flaws.

Criticism as the ultimate value. Try and imagine a personal relationship based on this idea.