The virulence of the anti-Bush movement feeds on itself, and of course is fed by bad news. The most copious source of this is the Middle East. The mode of execution of Paul Johnson had the effect the terrorists wanted. If he had simply been shot, repercussions would have been formalistic. The announcement that he would be killed, followed quickly by the execution, followed by the posting of photos of the event, had the special effect.
It may help to recall that beheadings were conventional within living memory. They were the standard means of capital punishment in France, for instance, up until World War II. Even so, the sanguinary exercise chills the mind, and we are asked, however indirectly, to blame George Bush for it, as for practically everything else going sour in the world.
A broad search of anti-Bush Web sites suggests the scope of festering animosity toward Bush. We have, e.g., BartCop, described by a compendium of Web sites as "Dedicated to hammering Bush and right-wing hypocrisy, featuring cartoons, daily news update." The Smirking Chimp gives "news, rants, activism and other things anti-Bush," while the utilitarian Wage Slave Journal gives the George W. Bush Scorecard of Evil. BushAndCheneySuck.com is modestly "dedicated to licking Bush in 2000 and beyond."
That last brings to mind the temper of dissenters in the period of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was a take-it-to-bed relief, after the disastrous defeat of Alfred Landon in 1936, that at least the two-term convention established by George Washington would mean an end to FDR in 1940; but of course he decided to run for a third term. Then Pearl Harbor happened, and there was distraction in the critical community, which paused to fight a war. By the time 1944 came around, re-electing FDR had become something of a routine, and the world went on.
As it will in 2005, with the re-election of George W. Bush?