I began to acquire political consciousness in the Carter-Reagan era -- the first strong political feeling I can recall having was that this terrible man, Reagan, had been elected, and he would be the destruction of our dear country.

So much for my conservative roots! :-)

Over time, however, the left began to talk me into the right. Most of the criticism of Reagan I heard from the media seemed derived from mind-reading abilities: "Reagan hates women... [Doesn't he like that Nancy woman? She doesn't seem to think he mistreats her.] Reagan is denying AIDs funding because he hates gays... Reagan wants to drag us into war with the USSR. Reagan is lying about his views on X..." It seemed so many were desperate to find the worst in him, even if it meant resorting to unprovable theories about his deepest inner thoughts.

I noticed the same thing under the ensuing Bush 41 presidency, in particular towards Dan Quayle, who, yes, had a few public gaffes, but not nearly as many as the press implied. In particular, I remember being told that he really thought they spoke Latin in Latin America because he had joked about "I'll have to brush up on my Latin" before departing there. The media insisted we take that as an actual statement of his beliefs, despite the fact it was a pretty obvious joke.

Of course, there were people on the right who wanted to see the worst in Clinton too. Yet as I began to look into some of their claims, they seemed far more plausible. I read, for example, The Boys on the Tracks, written by a mainstream journalist about her efforts to understand the killing of two boys in Arkansas. She had copious documentation that Clinton's administration had done everything possible to cover up the incident. Looking into several other Clinton-era debacles (Whitewater, Waco, allegations of others involved in Oklahoma, the handling of the Elian Gonzales affair, Vince Foster's death) -- it seemed there was a similar pattern: Lots of odd disconnects, troubling appearances, and lots important unanswered (and often un-investigated) questions and bits of evidence. And there were things which were proven (such as taking Chinese money, in return for transferring missile guidance tech into their hands) which we were, puzzlingly, never done anything about.

So it wasn't as clear at all to me that some people's charges against Clinton were as absurd and insubstantial (much less well-publicized) as the myriad claims of Reagan as a woman-hater, gay-hater, deliberate polluter, warmonger, etc. History clearly shows Reagan really wanted peace and freedom in the world. History does not clearly show that there was nothing at all odd about several hundred FBI files of Clinton enemies ending upon Hillary's desk.

Then came Bush derangement syndrome, which I witnessed, with more political awareness, firsthand. My relatives claimed Bush attacked Iraq because his Daddy had lost there, and he needed to save his daddy's name. Conversely, after saying much the opposite through the 90s, the press claimed Bush failed to live up to his father's more mature example in that region. We were there, I was told, for oil. (What oil?) Or Israel. (Always the Jews' fault, isn't it?) Or because of the Bush families' many close connections and loyalty to the house of Saud (Michael Moore). (Maybe Saudi Arabia is an Israeli puppet too?) Bush was a moron. And an evil genius. He was utterly incompetent. And Karl Rove was behind the scenes, pulling all the strings with deft political precision.

It was hard to keep track of what the charges against him were supposed to be. But we were pretty sure he deserved impeachment, if not far worse. For something, I'm sure. Few, if any, of the key charges panned out: Iraq has her oil, and we have to buy it, like everyone else. Yes, Halliburton did well for a while, but not during Bush's first term (when the charges were leveled), and nobody's shown a monetary connection to Bush or Dick Cheney. We never went to war with Iran. It turned out Plame was revealed to the press by Bush-hater Richard Armitage. Bush didn't produce OBL's dead body before this election, and OBL's pro-Kerry pre-election 2004 announcement turned out to be genuine. "Yes", competent scientists explained patiently, repeatedly, "a jet fuel fire really can weaken steel."

It was amazing what people would believe, based on what.

And note that these charges weren't leveled by the plebes -- they came from famous talking heads and Democratic leaders. Dan Rather and his Bush-AWOL story. Numerous media claims that Bush was plotting war with Iraq. And that he'd somehow fabricated Iraqi WMD evidence. Top Democratic Congressional leaders even held mock impeachment trials in the basement of the Capitol!

As luck would have it, all four of the witnesses agreed that President Bush lied to the nation and was guilty of high crimes -- and that a British memo on "fixed" intelligence that surfaced last month was the smoking gun equivalent to the Watergate tapes. Conyers was having so much fun that he ignored aides' entreaties to end the session. [Dana Milbank, The Washington Post]

So now Obama's taking office. I've seen some minor-league silliness on the right: A rambling, obviously-fake column by Thomas Sowell being e-mailed around. There's also probably an e-mail out there which claims Obama's really a Muslim (though I've never seen the press quite so interested in a chain letter). And a few voters on the right doing the "He's not my president" routine -- which I personally reject. (Obama is my president.)

But among the right-leaning punditocracy, this has been more typical of what I've personally seen so far:

Pray that President Obama achieves greatness in office. Our overriding concern must always be the country we love, not the success of a party or an ideology.

Don't assume that Obama is always wrong. Judge all of his positions on the merits; don't conclude that a position is wrong just because he takes it....

Be loyal in your opposition. As my blog partner Scott Johnson puts it, paraphrasing Steven Decatur: "May he always be in the right; but our president, right or wrong."....

Be skeptical in your opposition. Obama's campaign was fueled by a broken promise that he would finance it through public funding. Obama also dissembled when he minimized his relationship with William Ayers.... But the skepticism should run both ways, extending to attacks on Obama as well. The temptation to invent or misrepresent facts for political gain, or just out of sheer spite, is a bi-partisan phenomenon.

The same tone has been adopted by Prager, Medved, Hugh Hewitt, Glenn Reynolds, and others. Even before the election, at the church I currently attend (which apolitical, but is mostly composed of, one can intuit, people who tend rightward) the pastor repeatedly stressed the biblical importance of honoring and respecting all our elected leaders (Romans 13), even those of the other party, and praying that they do well, so that we can all live in peace.

Do I think there are reasonable people on the left too? Of course: I cited Dana Milbank's opposition to the Senate show-trials, for example. And are there nut-jobs on the right? Yes, of course. (Michael Savage is still on the radio, sadly. And some are hoping Obama will fail, even if it hurts all.) But there are also trends: the longer I've watched, the more I see there really is a significant difference in tone. I would loved to have seen Paul Krugman or Janine Garofalo tell their audiences to treat Bush the same way Dennis Prager and the guys at Powerline have told their audiences to treat Obama.

This difference is often explained by saying the conservative deserves bad treatment, where the liberal doesn't.

For example, speaking to a friend, I contrasted the Republican civil treatment and acceptance of Ruth Bader-Ginsburg (a director of the ACLU) with say, Bork or Roberts (whom Democrats threated to filibuster because he wouldn't promise to rule as they wished; accompanied by much personal invective against the candidate). My friend claimed (I kid you not) this was because Republicans knew full well that Bader-Ginsburg was incredibly competent, but conservative nominees like Roberts were not.

The large difference in numbers of conservatives versus liberal in academia is similarly justified: Conservatives just aren't as smart, or curious, so they can't handle the "rigors" of modern academia. (Which have degraded, in many humanities departments it seems, to mere postmodernist partisan diatribes.)

Yet perhaps this trend also offers hope: If Obama does come out as a "moderate", and do sensible things which really work, perhaps at least these kinds of conservatives will be glad and praise him, and meanwhile the left will remain loyal anyway, because he's their guy. When a leftist runs a bit towards right (Tony Blair, for example, or some of Clinton's economic policies) there really is a reduction in political acrimony, at least on those issues, due to, I suspect, this difference.

But the same is not true when the right reaches out to or takes up the causes proclaimed by the left: When Bush allowed an unprecedented number of Democrats to remain on his cabinet, the press ignored his bipartisanship. Instead, we were repeatedly given a false contrast with Abraham Lincoln who, we were told, worked with his political rivals. (Even though those "rivals" were generally of the same party, not from across the aisle.)

When Bush partnered with Ted Kennedy on No Child Left Behind, we heard all kinds of false things about it (it was an "unfunded mandate"), and the press conveniently forgot that it was at least 50% the brainchild of the Democrats' stalwart hero. Likewise, when Bush followed up Al Gore claims about Social Security insolvency, the press and left again developed sudden amnesia, and claimed nothing was amiss. Rather than praising Bush for creating new Medicare benefits for seniors, the press suddenly turned fiscally conservative, fingering the Bush administration for increasing domestic spending, in addition to Iraq war costs.

Perhaps it's really true, as the left implies, that only a leftist can "unify" the country. When leftists move right, the right generally praises at least those parts of their policy. When rightists move left, the left changes its tune.

So here's to Obama: May he do our country well, may I have ample reason to be proud of him, and may he actually unify our country by making correct choices which the right will praise, and the left will be quietly patient with. I honestly do wish him well, because we're all in the same boat together.