I’m a Democrat. When I watched the presidential debates between Al Gore and George W. Bush in 2000, I was rooting for Gore, but I came out of the debates believing that neither candidate would be a total disaster for America.

It wasn’t the first time I’ve been wrong.

I wasn’t dazzled by Bush’s intellect, but I knew he would be surrounded by smart people if he won the election. I couldn’t have imagined where those advisers were going to lead the country.

On September 12, 2001, while a pall of smoke still hung over the Pentagon, while fire still raged deep in the rubble of the fallen towers of the World Trade Center, when most Americans still felt physically shaken by shock and horror and rage, Donald Rumsfeld argued that, rather than the al Qaeda murderers, we should be targeting Iraq. Richard Clarke, the Administration’s counterterrorism chief, responded that “Having been attacked by al Qaeda, for us now to go bombing Iraq in response would be like our invading Mexico after the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor.” From Clarke’s book, Against All Enemies:

Powell shook his head. “It’s not over yet.”

Indeed, it was not. Later in the day, Secretary Rumsfeld complained that there were no decent targets for bombing in Afghanistan and that we should consider bombing Iraq, which, he said, had better targets. At first I thought Rumsfeld was joking. But he was serious and the President did not reject out of hand the idea of attacking Iraq.

At the time, I didn’t know about this. In the weeks and months following the terrorist attacks, I fell in line behind the President, along with Americans from across the political spectrum. Our differences with Bush on other issues were secondary—we were Americans first. After a shaky start, Bush seemed to be rising to the challenge. I said it would be hard to imagine a better team for this crisis: the many advisers who had been involved in the Gulf War would understand the complexities of a region with a different culture, and having learned from earlier mistakes, would avoid the missteps that less experienced people might make. I really believed that.

Now I’m against Bush. I’m not middle-of-the-road about it, either. I’m ranting. I’m raving. It’s not because of his tax and economics policies, or his record-busting deficits, or his education policies, or his environmental policies, or his unilateral abandonment of international treaties, or any of the other issues where civilized gentlemen may respectfully disagree. I’ve been betrayed. I put my trust in Bush and his team, and they used that trust dishonorably. That’s why I rant and rave against Bush.

Richard Cohen, a columnist I respect, takes Bush-haters to task. Referring to the so-called Red states and Blue states, he says, “I live in a state of my own… My own state of mind combines some of the blue with some of the red to produce my own political hue. Color me purple.”

I nevertheless cannot bring myself to hate Bush or, as someone here told me, to consider his possible reelection as a reason to leave the country. In fact, Bush haters go so far they wind up adding a dash of red to my blue, pushing me by revulsion into a color I otherwise would not have…

The demonization of Bush is going to cost John Kerry plenty if it hasn’t already. It so overstates the case against Bush that a levelheaded listener would be excused for thinking that there isn’t one in the first place. It squeezes the middle, virtually forcing moderates to pick which bunch of nuts they’re going to join.

He has a point. I’ve read a lot of anti-Bush blogs lately. Some of them scare me.

I’m convinced that George W. Bush is bad for America. One reason is that he seems to lack that tiny little nugget of self-doubt that allows one to entertain the possibility that he is wrong.

I don’t want to be like that.