George W. Bush's presidency was already stalled and stagnating on 10 September 2001. Nine months after having stolen the presidency and eight months after having been sworn in, Bush was hovering at 50% approval and his program was languishing. Then came the horrible events of the next day. Bush performed wretchedly on 9/11, sitting like a helpless idiot for long minutes after America had come under attack, fleeing across the country afterward and keeping his head down (contrary to the right wing mythology propagated later) like the pathetic, incompetent coward he is. But he recovered his equilibrium and the nation overwhelmingly rallied to him. Americans of all political persuasions supported him, and the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan received near unanimous support. So what did Bush do with our national unity and resolve? He turned 9/11 into a cudgel to attack the Democrats and smear the patriotism of anyone who dared to question him and his vicious, snarling vice president. By early 2002, Karl Rove, Bush's top political advisor, was already urging Republicans to use 9/11 to their electoral advantage.
Aided and abetted by Fox "News" and the rest of the right wing slime machine, all dissent was mercilessly attacked. War veterans were called traitors for criticizing Bush, aka Dear Leader, in the tradition of North Korea's Kim Jong-il. The Republicans shamelessly campaigned on the corpses of the 9/11 dead, using their charred and mangled bodies as GOP campaign fodder. The lunatic right shouted that Saddam Hussein was connected to 9/11--on the basis of no evidence whatsoever. The attacks were used to help justify the tragically wrong decision to invade Iraq, an invasion which was also brutally politicized by the radical right. And above all, the constant fear mongering by the Bush Administration, supported by a compliant, groveling press corps, allowed Bush to win the narrowest reelection of any incumbent since 1916. In other words, the Al Qaeda attacks on America of 11 September 2001 were a godsend to Bush. They rescued his miserable, failing presidency and gave him an enormous weapon with which to ram through the program of far-right extremism which threatens this country's very survival as a free nation. They were, in short, the best thing that ever happened to him. They allowed this utter loser to present himself as a great statesman, when in fact he has failed at everything he has ever done in his life.
So remember, when you hear the right wing screaming for blood in Iran and using the Iraq war as a way to attack the Democrats, where it all began. It began when Bush and Cheney started thanking their lucky stars for Osama Bin Laden, the greatest gift the Republican Party has ever received--and vice versa.
(By the way, be sure to check out Eschaton's thoughts on all of this right here. It's a list of things we must do to help stop the madness the right wing Republicans have unleashed on us. And by God, don't let that lying SOB Giuliani keep using 9/11 to gain the White House. We're not going to allow another Republican fraud to fail his way upward.)
3 comments:
Good stuff, Joe.
so your saying that it is justifiable to let hundreds of thousands of people die at the hands of an evil dictator? now i dont claim to have all the answers, nor am i nearly as well researched into this topic, but i was there. from my memory (which, i acknowledge may be faulty), George Bush gave a speech on the same day as the attacks, he did not stay in his office and huddle in fear. i will be the first to admit that Geroge W. Bush is by no means a great president. he has had many blunders, and i do believe that it is long past the time to get out of there, but Bush was hailed as a great president not just becuase he was the "dear leader" who led us out of a crisis, but becuase he was willing to, and did, take action to avenge the deaths of Americans, unless you dispute that Osama Bin Laden did not attack the United States on September 11, 2001. i have the utmost respect for you mr. miller, but i feel that your opinions of george bush and all republicans and right-wing conservatives is a damn shame. in your eyes, they can do no right. i feel that to be a truly enlightened and wise person, one must not only research the facts meticulously (as you have done), but they must also remain open-minded and non-opinionated so that they are able to decide what is best for our country. i dont claim to know how you vote, but the people who go out and vote republican, or vote democrat every election is not what this country is about. we are about getting the facts and making an educated decision as to who would be the best candidate (or at least thats how it is intended to be). it's a damn shame that the country is full of uneducated and opinionated people, but when someone who is educated and shares some of the very same opinions as them, its like a validation of their entire existence. im not blaiming you or anything, like i said, i have the utmost respect for you and your opinions. i think you are a wonderful person and you were, without a doubt, the best teacher i ever had, but you break my heart when you bash everybody who doesnt agree with your ideals. again, not accusing you of anything, but isnt that how the holocaust started, how the armenians were wiped out. they started as indifference towards their beliefs (armenians were christian, jews were jewish) and escalated into the genocides that are in the history books.
with the utmost respect,
Zach DiMiele
Zach--Osama the Butcher still walks free today, six years after "Dead or Alive" Bush said he was going to be destroyed. The Iraq War, (which Colin Powell helped bamboozle me into supporting), has been a disaster and a complete diversion from our war against Al Qaeda. Indeed, the Iraq war has been a godsend to Bin Laden and his murderous cohorts.
Bush made one brief statement on 9/11. As I recall, his major address on the subject was some days later. He DID skip across the country on that day, and Cheney pretty much ran the U.S. response on 9/11.
I used to be a conservative Republican, Zach. Voted for Reagan twice and everything. I started to become seriously disillusioned in the early 90s, as it appeared to me that the GOP had been taken over by people I can only call radicals. Many of them demand a theocracy in America, which frightens me out of my wits. Many others want America to be an empire, ruling the world, which appals me. And 70%--yes, SEVENTY PER CENT--of our national debt has been rung up by just three Republican presidents, two of them named Bush. Our country is doing shocking, morally wrong things to "win"--rendition, torture, suspension of civil liberties, you name it. And this can be traced to Bush and Cheney, perhaps the two most dangerous, incompetent, and dishonest people who have ever run our country.
Al Qaeda is STRONGER now than it was in 2001. The Iraq disaster has aided it like nothing else. Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. It was if FDR had declared war on Mexico after Pearl Harbor. Yes, Saddam was vile and cruel. Unfortunately, there are lot of such monsters on our planet. We had him contained and boxed up in 2001. We didn't need to invade.
Go back and read the archives ofg my blog by putting the search term Iraq in the search box. You'll see my thinking more completely.
I value you, Zach. You're a wonderful person. Don't let these shady people in our government fool you.
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