Like comparing apoplectic apples and enraged oranges

In the broad spectrum of human emotions, anger is a gimme. While it can take us years to get a handle on complex emotions such as love, shame, empathy or hope, anger often fuels the first human sound made during our evacuation from the comfort of the womb.

Anger is easy and, especially now, plentiful.

"Impeach him now before he (blanks) something else up!!!" spews one of the first readers to comment online in response to our story about President Obama signing the historic health-care bill.

The angry online mob lashes out at Barack Hussein Obama and his plan to establish a socialist, nope, make that brutal, Communist, Stalin-like dictatorship that all liberals want as part of our evil plot to "ruin America."

"There will be no cooperation for the rest of the year," promised a snarling Sen. John McCain after he and his Republican minority couldn't stop Democrats from passing the health-care bill.

Whew. Even Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a fierce Bush opponent, stopped short of promising to fight all Republican plans all the time regardless of whether or not they would benefit Americans.

Obama, the candidate some of you still think was born in Africa, campaigned on a platform of hope, promising Americans that he would reform the health-care system. He won a convincing Electoral College and popular victory with a record-setting 69 million votes, and then actually made good on a promise to reform health care.

I remember being disappointed in 2000 when my presidential candidate got more votes than his opponent, ended up in a Supreme Court battle and lost to a guy who promised to be a "uniter." But I thought it best to write a Dec. 12, 2000, column headlined "People should stand behind new leader" in which I urged liberals of my ilk to accept President Bush "without an ounce of hate."

Compare the apoplectic apples of Obama-haters with the enraged oranges of Bush-haters and you risk getting bogged down in sour grapes. Outside of war, murder and possibly mixed martial arts, the blinding rage of hate usually backfires.

Bill and Hillary Clinton-haters spent eight years searching for the Holy Grail that would convince everybody else to hate the Clintons. They found it in a scandal too irresistible for anyone to ignore. And yet, eight years of Clinton hate didn't do anything but enrich the pockets of talk-radio hosts who still make a living hawking it.

When the Bush Administration made it seem as if Iraq had something to do with 9-11, and was hiding weapons of mass destruction that would leave a mushroom cloud over New York City if we didn't start a pre-emptive war, I thought he was wrong. When he couldn't tell us how long war would last or how much it would cost, I worried. When Bush pretended to look for the WMDs in his office as part of a joke, I was infuriated. But I still rooted for our troops to find those WMDs in Iraq because I thought that would be best for America.

So Obama-haters, think about how your love of America is greater than your hate for the president. Realize that passing legislation to help a sick child get treatment or provide an insurance option for a small-business owner with a pre-existing condition isn't the same as locking taxpayers in a Stalinesque gulag to await execution.

Put the nation first, even if it hurts to do so. In the words of a past American president (no, not Teddy Roosevelt, Richard Nixon or some other Republican who fought to reform health care), I can assure you, "I feel your pain."