Of course, everyone remembers the left’s respectful and thought-provoking criticism of George W. Bush.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: There was a real difference between the normal partisanship that faced George W. Bush — by the way, that’s with all his limitations — and the nasty hatred of the Republican rand-and-file of this president to the point of something like 4 out of 5 want him to go down in the dirt, fail on everything single thing he tries to do. And sometimes even when they agree with him they want him to fail.