Tuesday, George W. Bush held his final cabinet meeting where he said:
I tell people I leave town with a great sense of accomplishment and my head held high.
The problem with that is, well, obvious.
George W. Bush in a rare moment of introspection
As the worst president in US history winds down his delusional legacy protection tour, he continues to downplay the few mistakes he’ll admit to, referring to them as “disappointments.” For example, his “disappointment” that WMDs were never found in Iraq.
(Imagine expressing “disappointment” after torching your neighbor’s home and finding out that it really didn’t contain armed gang members but rather a defenseless family.)
The one “accomplishment” that he and his enablers keep touting above all others is the fact that the US hasn’t been attacked on its own soil since 9/11. One has to wonder when one of these interviewers will ask him about the August 6, 2001 presidential briefing titled “Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside US.”
Let me address a point I haven’t heard discussed yet. Seems I recall that al-Qaeda statement that their post-9/11 strategy was twofold: to hurt the US where it would count the most, its economy; and, after Bush’s invasion of Iraq, to punish its allies who supported it with troops of their own.
Regarding the latter, terrorist attacks were indeed launched against two such countries on their home soil, Britain and Spain. Spanish voters dumped their president and the large Spanish military contingent was withdrawn shortly thereafter. Britain is all but gone, with the US forced to allocate additional troops to maintain their strategic base outside Basra.
Think about it: Why attack the American homeland again, when the world, including Iran, rallied around the US after the first attack? That alone would have been sufficient reason to direct its fire elsewhere. And when the Oedipally challenged Bush Jr. decide to one-up his dad and invade Iraq (a goal of W’s before he even won the presidency) using 9/11 as an excuse, “the Qaidas” reaped a propaganda and recruitment bonanza that continues to this day. Israel’s attack on Lebanon in 2006 and its current slaughter of the inhabitants of Gaza, executed with the full approval of the Bush Administration, is sure to amp their numbers up even further.
Regarding attacking the US economy, recall Bush’s exhortation to Americans to “go shopping” right after 9/11, to show them thar terrarists that they couldn’t win. Given the current US economic crisis (and the world’s by extension), no help needed there.
In other words— Mission Accomplished.
I really can’t yet determine which Bush action was worse: his decision to invade Iraq; or his destruction of the world’s economy. (Katrina, as bad as it was, has to rank a distant third though otherwise notable as the tipping point where Bush’s popularity began to plummet to the worst levels in modern polling history [CNN], never to recover.)
Said Bush at his final presser (where two of the seven rows in the White House briefing room were empty until filled at the last moment by wide-eyed White House interns.
“When I get out of here, I am getting off the stage,” he said. “I have had my time in the Klieg lights.”
Well Georgie, don’t let door hit ya where the good Lord split ya.
Then again….
