In this paper I look at the notion of hate in relation to what we call reason and unreason. In particular I focus on events leading up to the war in Iraq and the political media coverage of it. Using the work of Jurgen Habermas and drawing on psychoanalytic ideas I argue that ‘our’ form of reason often makes people hate on the one hand, on the other, reason and unreason are often cast in such a way as to evoke an emotional response that leads us to feel hatred for the Other — to make unreason seem reasonable.