The Anti-Bush Majority

According to a Fox News poll taken in late June, 58 percent of Americans are still angry about the 2000 presidential election. That's Fox News, TV's most conservative network. And that's June, more than six months after the Supreme Court handed over the presidency to George W. Bush.

Polls often aren't reliable. They can be easily manipulated. But a 58 percent anger rating among Americans toward an election that has widely been called a stolen election, an illegitimate election and an undemocratic election feels right. Americans that reside in the blue states, to put it bluntly, are pissed.

Still, there has been very little press attention on anger toward the Florida ballot debacle. No major news documentaries have been made on the subject. A senior producer at Frontline proposed one this spring, but supposedly it was shelved because "there was no story" in it. (However, Globalvision, the New York-based independent media company, is completing an investigative film, to be called "Counting on Democracy.")

The corporate-owned media also has been working extra hard to avoid the subject. Only the briefest coverage was given to the June Civil Rights Commission report on the election, which found, among other voting disasters, that black voters' ballots were 10 times more likely to be thrown out than those of white voters.

But log onto the Internet and type "anti-Bush" into any search engine, and you will be faced with a different vision of American public opinion. There are now approximately 800 sites whose mission is to analyze, attack and especially ridicule the 43rd president of the United States. Sites critical of Bush may not be visited by all the Americans of the Fox News poll, but they do show the Internet has become home to the largest, most underreported political coalition in the United States -- the anti-Bushies.

First stop on the anti-Bushie Web tour should be Anti-Bush.com. There you will find links to hundreds of sites that not only give in-depth accounts of Dubya's past and current dealings (often barely reported by the mainstream press) but offer information about protests, letter-writing campaigns and strategies to "take back the dark night of American politics." Or go to Hated.com, another top anti-Bush hub, whose tag line is "The Will of the People vs. the Never-Elected President," and from there embark on what amounts to a cathartic online journey for those who loathe the President. Sites of this sort include GoBackToTexas.com, BushonCrack.com and LickBush-2000.com, the latter of which seeks to put "racy back in democracy."

What's amazing about anti-Bush Web sites is not just their sophomoric humor but the steadfastness with which some follow the President. BushReport.com, for example, offers on a daily basis 20 to 40 "handmade, linked headlines" on any gaffe or guarantee the President makes. And there are a few more, such as DemocraticUnderground.com and Democrats.com, which not only aim to skewer Bush but do so in a sophisticated, hard news fashion, with tiny staffs who often get no pay. The editors of these sites say they receive on average 200,000 monthly visits. Sites like BuzzFlash.com and MediaWhoresOnline.com claim to to get even more.

Why is the readership of these one- or two-year old zines so high? Well, according to the editor of BartCop.com, one of the most irreverant anti-Bush sites, it's because "people can't believe the media is giving Bush such a free ride."

David Allen, the editor of DemocraticUnderground.com, also is fueled by anger at the press, which he says is one of the reasons anti-Bush Web sites are so acerbic."At first we were typical liberals," says Allen, "bent on being fair and understanding the opposition's point of view. But then we said to ourselves: 'Why should we, when they don't bother to understand ours?'" Democratic Underground's most popular feature is a weekly column called "The Top 10 Conservative Idiots," which Allen says is a joy to publish.