I've noticed a frustrating trend lately in various conservative forums in which criticism of the Bush administration's policies are brushed aside by simply labeling the critic a "Bush-hater", insinuating the person has a pathological hatred of Bush which automatically invalidates their thoughts.

While I'm sure there are rare cases in which people do irrationally despise Bush with no real argument to back up the feeling, the majority of the time the "Bush-hater" label is just a tactic used to stifle the debate without actually addressing well-presented criticisms of Bush's policies and actions. The people wielding this label often have a misguided idea that criticizing the president is unpatriotic, or are simply trying to cover for an inability to address opposing viewpoints.

Even if every single critic of Bush did personalize the issues and feel actual contempt for the man behind the policies, as long as a rational argument was presented why should that matter? In the face of such debate tactics how could anyone have ever criticized Hitler's policies (not comparing Bush to Hitler) without being labeled a "Hitler-hater"? I most certainly would have been seething...