Where does the extreme hatred of American presidents (in America) stem from?

I'm sure there are and will be a lot of responses about Bush and what a horrible president he is, how if voting wasn't screwed with he wouldn't never have won and how tricked people into thinking it was okay to go into Iraq as well as forcing his religious agenda on the people. I agree with all of that but I wanted to take another look at things.

The media. The media today isn't what it used to be back them. The media today seems to go for anything that will make a person look bad, which in turn riles the people into more hatred than in years past. This goes both ways. You'll be hard pressed to find a truly unbiased new station, paper or magazine now days. They all have a slant or a spin they like to put on all things. Unfortunately I believe the days of honest reporting are gone. Instead, people look to Bill Reily like he's a serious news anchor. People don't realize he's a 'pundit'.

The definition of a 'pundit' is: A source of opinion; a critic: a political pundit. This is not a real news person reporting facts, its a person reporting their opinion on a situation. Yet people don't seem to realize that or want to look at that. This goes for all others out ther with shows like his both conservative and otherwise.

When people look at a sourse like that and see it as 'fact' instead of one persons opinion it helps to inspire anger and stronger opinion. These things weren't around years ago for other presidents.

Another think you have to look at with media is who owns the media. Viacom and Clear Channel are owned by extreme republican christians so they limit what they show to their views. This goes for your local news and other outlets so people aren't getting the straight facts like they used to. This buts a conservative bias on whats going on in the world today and it pisses of liberals and it snow balls. Then the liberals have to counter that in someway and it pisses off the conservatives and it snowballs.

Add in the internet making information available on demand and creating an network of like minded people who can get together and get angry together and you have quite the ugly and angry machine on both ends.

I'm sure there are many more reasons but I think the media plays a HUGE part in it. I just wanted to add in a different reason and outlook.

Thanks!

Thank you for the interesting questions and thank you to those who have responded so far for giving intelligent answers. I am getting tired of reading answers to other questions that are simple people bashing with no legitimate arguments to back up their statements.

Now, on to the question. I agree that the recent presidents have come under a lot more scrutiny than in the past. I think part of this is due to the more widespread access to news media and the more intense media coverage of daily events. Like a previous responder stated, several presidents have had their problems, but their problems weren't dissected 24 hours a day/ 7 days a week on TV, radio, and most importantly the internet. In addition, I think the media has started to take a slant towards drudging up negatives in an effort to boost ratings and sales.

But, I think the media involvement is only the tip of the iceberg but I have taken up enough space and your time for now.

Thanks

Presidents are obviously in the public eye, and therefore subject to an intense amount of scrutiny. I don't agree that there is "hatred" per se, but the critisism is part of the job.

Every president has had to endure an amount of critisism - from Washington to Bush. Jefferson owned slaves, Grant was a drunk, Andrew Johnson was impeached, Lincoln threw out the writ of habeas corpus and imprisoned people without charging them with a crime, the list goes on...

Here's what I think:

As for the hatred of American presidents, it's extremely easy to hate the president. He (maybe someday, she) is a prominent figure in our society. He is viewed as large and in charge, and people who are unhappy with the way things are in this country will be able to think of plenty of things to blame him for. As for the change, a couple reasons come to mind. One, in recent decades, much more of presidents' personal lives have been open to public scrutiny. Newspapers eat up stories about scandals and presidential faux pas, and this was not always the case. This gives president-haters more fuel. It gives people motivation to dislike the president for personal or moral reasons. Second, also in recent decades, people have become increasingly open, I think, with their views of the president. They may feel freer both to dislike the president and to loudly voice their disapproval. This change is based in societal attitudes, and not really in the actions or attitudes of our Commander in Chief. It also could simply be that more people are unhappy with the way things are in this country, and are placing the blame on the president.

Thanks for the thoughtful question.

I do not think we hate the presidents,, personally,,but what they stand for..or don't. people are tired of lies and deceit. people are tired of leaders working for their own personal gain.. and presidents such as bush.. display an arrogance..whether intentional or not that makes u sick. it is like in your face. finally people hate having their intelligence insulted. we are tired of confusion.. chaos. lets have a little peace and prosperity already,.

I nominate Deval Patrick (governor of Massachusetts). I only desire he doesn't fall sufferer to the Dukakis-Kerry-Romney curse that has plagues applicants from Massachusetts.

Two places, White House and Pentagon.

The answer is America is the opposite to Canada

we all tend to hate the things that differ in what we believe in, and to see all those young men dying for oil not wdm's it makes us hate mr. bush slightly more than we heted any since the last conflict

look up something called "war weariness"... people hated the president during the vietnam war too