The Bush Legacy
Ed Gillespie’s RealClearPolitics article on “Myths and Facts About the Real Bush Record” is about as stupid and dishonest as you’d expect. But after “debunking” five perfectly accurate alleged myths, Gillespie gets into the whopper that really gets my goat:
And one last fact: Our homeland has not suffered another terrorist attack since September 11, 2001. That, too, is part of the real Bush record.
This is like saying that except for the Great Depression, Herbert Hoover had a good economic record. The vast majority of Americans to have ever been killed by foreign terrorists were killed under George W. Bush’s watch. As Gillespie says, whether or not a president succeeds in preventing foreign terrorists from murdering thousands of American citizens is an important part of that president’s record. And Bush took office on January 20, 2001. Nine or so months later by far the largest terrorist attack on American soil was perpetrated. That’s a fantastically enormous failing. If you only look at Bush’s final seven years, you’ll see that he was as good as every other president at preventing terrorist attacks. And if you include his entire presidency, you’ll see that he was by far the worst.
80 Responses to “The Bush Legacy”
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December 23rd, 2008 at 10:17 am
As atrios always likes to point out: have we all forgotten about the anthrax letters?
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:22 am
Note that Gillespie is limiting the conversation to terrorist attacks on Americans in “the homeland.” Even if you discount 9-11 entirely – and Afghanistan, too – I can’t think of a president responsible for more American deaths at the hands of terrorists.
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:24 am
the anthrax attacks don’t count because they weren’t done by Muslims.
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:24 am
Not to mention the car that was run through a pedestrian plaza on a North Carolina college campus and the shooting incidents at LAX and an LA Jewish Community Center. I believe the guys behind all three of those incidents appeared to have what you could call terrorist motivations. Heckuva job, Bushie.
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:26 am
and don’t forget richard reid, who would have blown up a plane if w. himself hadn’t teleported onto the plane, punched out reid, and commandeered the plane and flew it straight to guantanamo for some x-traordinary motherfucking rendition, baby.
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:28 am
It boggles the mind that conservatives feel justified in praising Bush for not having a terror attack after 9/11, but claim he is completely blameless FOR 9/11.
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:29 am
Ditto above, the anthrax attacks.
And doesn’t anybody remember the DC sniper attacks?
Not to mention attacks on US troops overseas…
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:34 am
All praise to President George W. Reagan II Bush Jr., who kept our nation safe from a 2nd attack by Bill Clinton. But Bill Clinton’s forces remain at large, ready to attack and destroy us by any means possible. Thankfully Bush Jr. preserved both a Strong Nation and a Strong Economy to Keepusafe.
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:37 am
Anthrax
Anthrax
Anthrax
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:39 am
Sure, he was with a different guy every night and, WOW, talk about being a terrible cook, but other than that Jeffrey Dahmer would have made a great roommate.
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:40 am
Since the Republicans blame 9/11 on Clinton, do you think that if we get attacked on 9/11/2009, they’ll blame Bush or Obama?
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:42 am
You know what kids love to play with? Liquid mercury. It’s liquid metal! You can cover you hand with it and pretend to be the T1000. Aside from the fact that its a deadly poison you can’t find a better present for children.
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:45 am
#6 is the real issue: stuff happens, as someone once said, but the question is what you did to foresee and prevent it. Bush was told it could happen, but did nothing.
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:46 am
tom c @ 10:39 am wins this thread. tom c @ 10:42, please stop piling on! We’re a nation at war.
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:51 am
Clearly, George Bush’s brilliant plan to let Osama bin Laden get away has made us all safer.
His genius is really unappreciated.
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:55 am
It would be so much easier if there wasn’t an long record of RCP and other sycophants playing human bidet for Bush. They’d just pretend they never supported the fucker. The internets can be a bastard.
I want Gallup to run a survey next month around inauguration day, asking people if they voted for Bush in 2000 or 2004. I think the numbers would be interesting.
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:57 am
pseudonymous in nc, someone did do that recently: i know i saw it, but i don’t have time to try and find it.
basically, if you ask people now, bush never won….
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:58 am
DTM: you beat me to it, The first draft of history is already written, and Bush sucks in it.
Still, on #6, there will be an attempt to claim the Iraq withdrawal as “Bush getting his victory after he leaves office”. Of course, that misses the point. That’s why it’s important not to act like the Bush era is done in January. Especially not when they’re still shredding the records and demagnetizing the email archives.
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:02 am
Yet the conservatives never give Bill Clinton any love for preventing another terrorist attack after the first World Trade Center bombing that took place six weeks after his inauguration. You know, the one whose perpetrators are all in jail. Instead, they sneer at him for trating terrorism as a “law enforcement issue.”
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:02 am
howard: thanks for the tip. Here it is.
I’d like Gallup to do it too, but my suspicions about the number of people who’d sent their votes down the memory hole seem well-grounded.
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:03 am
And the D.C. snipers, who don’t seem to have had political motives but were definitely interested in terrorizing the populace by killing civilians, which sounds pretty terroristic to me.
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:06 am
It is worth repeating: Anthrax.
Also, he caused more US deaths at the hands of terrorists overseas by invading Iraq.
But will the Bush legacy be on the war?
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:08 am
The Bush record spans completely different calendars:
Economy – *before* housing bubble bursts
Iraq – *after* surge ONLY
Terrorism – 9/12/2001 onward (Anthrax doesn’t count)
Ethical considerations are confined only to former intern oral sex. There are no other forms of ethical transgression.
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:14 am
It’s hardly surprising they don’t give him any credit for something that didn’t happen. Timothy McVeigh happened on Clinton’s watch. Not that the Republicans would give him credit if Clinton had stopped McVeigh’s attack either.
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:15 am
Actually, the simple fact that 911 occured on his watch is not enough to convict him — its the piss poor way he handled the warnings that make him responsible.
And by the same token, the mere fact that there hasn’t been another attack since then does not redound to his credit unless there is something he did that nobody else would have done that actually prevented it.
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:17 am
Tom C: Agreed, but if you want to get me something really memorable, non-liquid mercury would really impress me. And I’m not even a kid.
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:19 am
The Anthrax Anthology came out under his watch, too. Awful.
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:22 am
Perhaps it was when the death of our troops overseas in this phony war on terrorism finally exceeded, as it continues to exceed, the deaths on 9/11 that the public finally turned on Bush, the war, and argument’s like Gillespie’s irrevocably.
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:29 am
When did our “country” become a “homeland”? I have always hated that term. Reminds me of Nazi Germany.
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:30 am
“The vast majority of Americans to have ever been killed by foreign terrorists were killed under George W. Bush’s watch”
that just doesn’t make any sense – let’s see, the vast majority of americans that were killed by germans and japanese in history occured during WW2. So clearly FDR was to blame?
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:33 am
I guess the presumption is that a less manly Preznit would not have been able to show the awesome post-9/11 USA-saving skillz that Bush Jr / Cheney exhibited.
Other than blowing up Iraq and doing the security they were supposed to do anyway, what? What is this magic terror-stopping skill they’ve exhibited.
Oh — wait, that’s right — they can’t tell us else they’d reveal their USA-protectin’ secrets to the Enemy, which is, as the Republicans said openly during the election, was Democrats.
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:36 am
I don’t get why you’re all so hung up on 9/11. Ask yourselves this: Even after everything he has done, isn’t Bush still worthy enough of your benefit of the doubt to deserve a do-over? That is what “after 9/11” means: that you think he is worthy enough for everyone to forget what he failed to do to prevent 9/11.
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:42 am
Fact: more twice as many Americans were killed by the DC Snipers (13) than were killed in the 1993 WTC bombing (six). By definition, Malvo and Muhammed were Islamic terrorists. How are the beltway sniper shootings not terrorist attacks on American soil?
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:43 am
the vast majority of americans that were killed by germans and japanese in history occured during WW2. So clearly FDR was to blame?
Pat Buchanan says yes.
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:43 am
that just doesn’t make any sense – let’s see, the vast majority of americans that were killed by germans and japanese in history occured during WW2. So clearly FDR was to blame?
FDR didn’t run around bragging that he’d prevented Americans from being killed by the Germans and Japanese.
Also, FDR didn’t start the war with Germany and Japan, whereas Bush started the war against Iraq by attacking and invading that country.
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:47 am
No Comment: You rightly point out the example of Oklahoma City, which liberals rightly see as terrorism. Yet conservatives overlook all sorts of politically motivated attacks, some even fatal, that took place domestically after 9/11 when they’re compiling the Bush record. It seems its only terrorism when a foreigner does it, unless, of course a Democrat is in office.
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:50 am
The vast majority of Americans to have ever been killed by foreign terrorists were killed under George W. Bush’s watch.
If you accept the Bush regime reasoning that the Iraq War is part of the War on Terror (TM), and that the Iraqi insurgents are not in fact rebels defending their homeland against invasion by a foreign aggressor but terrorists, then doesn’t it follow that the tens of thousands of US casualties in Iraq are the result of terrorism? Therefore, by the Republicans’ own logic (or what passes as such), the US has suffered tens of thousands of terrorist attacks on George Bush’s watch.
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:52 am
“If you only look at Bush’s final seven years, you’ll see that he was as good as every other president at preventing terrorist attacks.”
Technically false. (There were terrorist attacks on US soil under other presidents, notably Clinton, who “failed to prevent” WTC1 and OKC, and even if you count Anthrax and Beltway more people died in OKC.) Hyperbole is not necessary and undercuts valid points, like “if you include his entire presidency, you’ll see that he was by far the worst.” You could have said “nearly every other president” and I’d be happy
And comment #6 has the real answer. It’s not about how many attacks happened, it’s about how many you were warned about and did nothing to prevent. “All right. You’ve covered your ass, now.”
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:55 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents
December 23rd, 2008 at 12:08 pm
That’s pretty much it Matt, how many terrorist attacks have there ever been against us? This particular framing of Bush’s “success” has been a mind screw from the beginning, it’s too bad the press is as timid and dull as they are in this country, because this should be obvious enough to poke through, and our expectations should be much higher.
December 23rd, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the show?
You have to go back to the War of 1812 to find an incident of more Americans being killed by foreign attackers on our own soil.
December 23rd, 2008 at 12:10 pm
With or without 9/11, Bush tops the terror casualty list.
There was 9/11: approx 3000
Terrorism in Iraq that killed US soldiers (car bombings, IEDs, etc.) – I’ll only give him 2,000 for this, and very charitably say that the other 2000 was from accidents, combat deaths from the taking of Iraq, and moping up actions against Bathist partisans (as opposed to Al Queda types)
Terrorism in Afghanistan: I’ll even give him a pass on this.
Then comes Regan, with a few bombings in Beruit in ‘83 and some limited stuff involving wackos like the unabomber and some bombings of European stationed American forces: about 300
Then Clinton, with World Trade 1, Oklahoma City, Al Queda embassy attacks and fringe wackos: about 240.
So even without 9/ll, Bush gave us about 10 times more casualties from terrorists than any other president, it seems.
December 23rd, 2008 at 12:11 pm
It often goes unspoken as well that there were two terrorist actions committed during the Bush administration, inside the United States, first 9-11 and then the anthrax attacks.
December 23rd, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Gillespie’s article is only one of several recent attempts to argue in favor of Bush’s legacy. From Fareed Zakaria’s Newsweek cover story, “What Bush Got Right,” to David Frum’s Foreign Policy cover story, “Think Again: Bush’s Legacy,” Bush revisionists abound, but their arguments fall flat. Politico says it well:
December 23rd, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Sarah,
I don’t believe that you “don’t understand”, I think you are making a purposeful non-sequitur to distract the debate. You say:
Your analogy to WW2 creates the assumption that “blame” is placed on the President for casualities during WW2. In this analogy one replaces FDR with Bush, and Germans and Japanese with Terrorists. This analogy is false because the original articles claims that a reduction in terrorist attacks is something Bush should be proud of. A more fitting WW2 analogy would read: FDR should brag that after Pearl Harbor no more Americans died on US soil at the hands of Japanese. This is comparable because A) it is untrue, and B) it isn’t really relevant as Americans died in far greater quantities at the hands of Japanese overseas after Pearl Harbor.
But I believe you are being deliberately obtuse anyways.
December 23rd, 2008 at 12:46 pm
In addition to the anthrax attacker who’s still at large, on December 10, 2005, a terrorist attacked an abortion clinic in Shreveport, Louisiana with a firebomb.
Not that anyone heard about it or anything, or that the word “terrorist” appeared anywhere in the (very little) news that covered the incident. But suggesting that there were no terrorist attacks on “the homeland” since 9/11 is just patently false on the face of it.
And that’s before we even get into all the ways that argument is intellectually dishonest given that the Administration characterized this as a *global* war on terror – limiting it to “the homeland” discounts attacks on Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, attacks in London and Madrid, and the inconvenient fact that terrorist attacks worldwide have actually risen since 2001.
December 23rd, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Actually in the interests of accuracy and history and the reality based community, it is quite untrue to say that Bush did “nothing”.
It has gone down the memory hole now, but on the Tuesday after Labor Day 2001 (9/4/01), the rules regarding access to military bases was suddenly changed and substantially tightened up. I remember that it caused all sorts of major traffic tieups and backups here in the DC area on any highway that had military base access.
The point is, they *knew* that something was going to happen – their response (”no one could have imagined…”) was woefully inadequate.
December 23rd, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Bush has avoided any major city being inundated by a Hurricane attack with corpses floating in the streets since 2005; you have to at least give him credit for that.
December 23rd, 2008 at 12:55 pm
I’d like Gallup to do it too, but my suspicions about the number of people who’d sent their votes down the memory hole seem well-grounded.
My dad is probably one of them. I’m 99 percent sure that I remember talking to him on the phone within days of the 2000 election and giving him a hard time about voting for Bush. By 2004, he was saying he couldn’t remember who he had voted for, and a year or two after that he was claiming to have voted for Gore. I think he might admit to it after getting teased about it and also now that Obamacons are common (and maybe, paradoxically, now that my dad is more left-wing in general), but it was funny for a while.
December 23rd, 2008 at 1:04 pm
“Bush has avoided any major city being inundated by a Hurricane attack with corpses floating in the streets since 2005; you have to at least give him credit for that”
You’re right, because Galveston doesn’t really count as a “major” city.
December 23rd, 2008 at 1:18 pm
LOVE IT. Plan to use it myself against that bush apologist line of attack.
December 23rd, 2008 at 1:21 pm
If I read these early forays into the field of Bush Apologetics correctly, the Bush Presidency began in 2002 and ended in 2007. Also, neither the Anthrax Mailer nor the Beltway Sniper were, in fact, committing acts of terrorism. What a thing this learning is!
December 23rd, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Abortion clinic bombings? Or do only foreign-born terrorists count?
December 23rd, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Lab Partner: Okay, so, yeah, 2 cities. But no more than that. Unless it’s 3. And we should be thankful for that.
December 23rd, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Let’s not also forget John Allen Mohammed and his son Malvo who went around the country shooting people from his trunk.
December 23rd, 2008 at 3:48 pm
I was under the impression that Galveston was handled in a pretty competent manner though. There’s not much you can do if people who are able to evacuate get the stupids and decide that they’re going to try and ride the storm out. If someone wanted to get out and couldn’t, then that’s a problem.
December 23rd, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Thankful and glad in all blessings bestowed by our Dear Leader indeed! And ought I mention here the infitessimally wee slim sliver of a possibility of a 4th city?
5 cities is right out.
December 23rd, 2008 at 4:49 pm
I don’t agree with everything Bush did but I voted for him twice and given everything I know and the choices I had I’d vote for him again.
Bush’s greatest mistake was over estimating the American public’s will to fight. The left doesn’t have the moral courage to even admit we are in a clash of civilizations. We’ve been fighting this war one way or another at least since Carter. If He’d had half the balls Bush had we would have declared war on Iran, crushed them and be done with it for a few generations. Scratch a liberal and a coward bleeds.
December 23rd, 2008 at 5:24 pm
To allege that the President is culpable for the horrific events of 9/11/2001 is to willfully ignore that no one (except the perpetrators) could have foreseen such an attack, which exceeded in its perfidy and destructive scale the attack on Pearl Harbor. After 9/11, however, it is certainly a record to be proud of that nothing even remotely approaching that scale of destruction has occurred on the current President’s watch.
To claim that the inevitable casualties of war being waged in the wake of those terrorist attacks as evidence that further terrorist attacks have not been preempted by the efforts of our homeland security measures is also a willfully ignorant position. And most definitely the Obama Administration would be culpable for any terrorist attacks on the scale of 9/11 if god-forbid they succeed. Any future such attacks could not be unanticipated as the first attack was.
Moreover, attacks such as the anthrax attacks and other such perversions of deranged individuals or groups of individuals, involving a small number of casualties (relative to the thousands who died on 9/11) are no more avoidable than the Columbine shootings were. Such insane behavior is an altogether different brand of insanity than that with which international terrorism is obsessed, and belongs in the province of local, state, and federal law-enforcement agencies whose best efforts at eliminating such outrageous acts has always been wanting, and probably always will continue to be so. To include such insane acts with international terrorism is not only willful ignorance but perfidious willful ignorance.
December 23rd, 2008 at 5:41 pm
This is the most absurd bullsh*t imaginable.
You mean to tell me it’s supposed to be some heroic god damn accomplishment that after the biggest surprise attack in history an American President increased security in the nation against such attacks?
This is somehow supposed to be amazing and surprising?
OMG, we were soooooooo lucky to have a President who didn’t follow the 9/11/2001 attacks by sending all security agents home and ignoring the subject altogether, ’cause if it hadn’t have been George W. Hero Reagan Bush Jr., man, no other President would have had the guts to do a minor range of bullsh*t security moves.
Take your bullsh*t, rear-end kissing sycophancy elsewhere.
If you think I as an American citizen need to act all worshipful and awed because a President did the very minimum of his f***ing job and tried to make sure that another giant attack on his watch didn’t happen, then you’re a whining douchebag.
December 23rd, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Shorter TheBigHenry: “Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?“
December 23rd, 2008 at 7:38 pm
The attack by the Korean kid at Virginia Tech was certainly a major terroristic incident by the usual definitions of the word. Granted, he wasn’t exactly on the radar screen of the federal government (and nor should the federal government be monitoring every mentally unstable person who could potentially snap, IMO) but it was a terrible event.
December 23rd, 2008 at 7:45 pm
@El Cid Says:
That isn’t possible, Mr. Cid, because I repudiate your politics and I decline your offer to fellate me.
December 23rd, 2008 at 8:04 pm
TheBigHenry: You best return to your anti-Muslimoid-sealed basement shelter hideaway, because the Homeland Security alert threat level indicator for imminent appearance of head-in-ass Republicans has been raised to “You”.
December 23rd, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Bush didn’t see that anyone at NORAD received a court martial for failing their raison de etre. He didn’t do anything remotely reasonable in response to an attack of the magnitude of 9/11. There is no indication that anything besides harassing airline passengers, hiring air marshals, and torturing souls unfortunate enough to have been sold by their countrymen for a hefty bounty, has been done to address the apparent issue of an acute vulnerability.
How is it that hijacked airplanes don’t get intercepted? Don’t tell me it’s because they turned the transponders off. That’s a big, fat CLUE— not a way to evade detection by radar. How can this “nobody could have imagined” excuse fly? No one had to imagine the threat of hijacking. Why were all four of these disparate flights not handled according to protocol? Why hasn’t there been an investigation into this failure? Why has no one been held accountable for this failure? Why isn’t 9/11 being hailed as the failure that it is? When a defense organization fails to defend against an attack in its area of responsibility, they have failed.
Cheney and Bush revel in this. It’s their greatest moment. Their trifecta.
December 24th, 2008 at 12:27 am
I think that the phrase ‘inside the United States’ is the weasel wording of a moral and intellectual retard. Raise your hand if it applies to you.
Here’s the rub: Bush was allegedly fighting international terrorism? So what does that mean?
Unless it was the policy of the United States to sit there and do nothing and not assist friends or allies in the event of terrorist plots in other nations, then I’m afraid that keeping America’s own yard clean counts for almost nothing.
So the Madrid Railway bombing was not an American failure but a Spanish one? The London subway bombing was not an American failure but a British one. The Bali Bombing, the Turkish Bank bombing, the Mumbai attack, the assassination of Bhutto?
Did these things happen because America, with its extraordinary intelligence knew about it, chose not to act on that knowledge, and let our friends and allies die?
Or was Bush as clueless as everyone else over one attack after another occurring all over the world.
So much for the battle against international terrorism.
9/11 was conceived in Afghanistan, planned in Germany, implemented by Saudi’s and Yemeni’s. And yet, we’re expected to believe that the same groups, the same constituencies who spent the next seven years blowing up everyone and everything who displeased them on the international stage, in just about any country they wanted, were stopped by George Bush’s psychic condom.
I call bullshit, and I call it dishonest bullshit.
As for protecting Americans… well, go down to New Orleans and put that to a ruined city and 2000 waterlogged corpses. Yes, it was a natural disaster and not a terrorist attack. But so what? The Hurricane was a lot easier to spot than Al Quaeda ever would be, its pathway and effects obvious and predictable. But when it came right down to it, the Bush administration was asleep at the switch for New Orleans both before and after.
So sure, if you want to endlessly parse, you can polish up Bush’s record: After 9/11, excluding Anthrax, the Freeway Sniper, various right wing shenanigans and isolated outbursts, there was no organized, planned, foreign terrorist operation taking place within the borders of the United States which caused the loss of lives. You can parse Ted Bundy and Jeff Dahmer into sainthood the same way.
December 24th, 2008 at 12:39 am
Amused Observer “scratch a liberal and a coward bleeds” Shouldn’t you be off somewhere masturbating furiously, like the rest of the conservative blowhards.
December 24th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
HE LOOKED TERROR IN THE EYE – AND BLINKED
“He thought the pair were unusual. First, they each held a $2,500 first-class, one-way ticket to Los Angeles (via Boston). “You don’t see many of those.”
The second reason is not so easy to explain.
“It was just the look on the one man’s face, his eyes,” Tuohey recently told me.
“By now, everyone in America has seen a picture of this man, but there is more life in that photograph we’ve all seen than he had in the flesh and blood. He looked like a walking corpse. He looked so angry. And he wouldn’t look directly at me.”
The man was Mohamed Atta. The other fellow (”he was young and had a goofy smile, I can’t believe he knew he was going to die that day”) was Abdul Aziz al Omari. Michael Tuohey is the individual who checked them in at the Portland airport as they began their murderous journey.
“I looked up, and asked them the standard questions. The one guy was looking at me. It sent a chill through me. Something in my stomach churned. And subconsciously, I said to myself, ‘If they don’t look like Arab terrorists, nothing does.’ ”
“Then I gave myself a mental slap. In over 34 years, I had checked in thousands of Arab travelers, and I never thought this before. I said to myself, ‘That’s not nice to think. They are just two Arab businessmen.’ ” And with that, Tuohey handed them their boarding passes.
http://www.mastalk.com/daily_news/2_24_05.htm
So we have an actual tsa screener admitting he let them go because it’s “not nice” to suspect arabs. But MY has nothing to say about this. Where exactly did Bush fail, MY? What exactly was he to do differently? If pressed he’d probably
blame things on vague Republican “inability to govern”, as if Democrats hamstrung by pc beliefs could have done better (In fact, Norman Mineta, you know the actual Secretary of Transportation, was a Democrat).
But it’s more fun to bash Bush but leave your liberal beliefs intact. Have your cake and eat it too.
If you want to know a lot more, read Steve Sailer’s articles. Google “Steve Sailer” and “racial profiling” for a start.
He has been harping on this for 8 years, and has done more than anyone to spread awareness of this. I gave you the primary sources instead of Sailer’s articles so liberals couldn’t just dismiss it all as coming from Sailer.
December 24th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Scottynix asks a serious question, where did Bush fail that lead to 9/11.
Hmmm
Could it have been in shelving the Hart Rudman report on airline and airplane security, which among other things recommended strengthening cockpit doors, and had its recommendations been even partially implemented would likely have stopped 9/11 in its tracks?
Perhaps it was in the decision to abandon Clark’s ‘plan’ to get Al Quaeda, which may have been sufficient to cripple the organization before it got that far?
The decision not to respond to the Cole bombing as it would have been merely ’swatting flies’ and possibly inciting Al Quaeda as Condoleeza Rice argued.
Perhaps it was the decision by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft to take terrorism off the table as a priority, to pull men and resources from it, to focus on more important things, like imaginary Iranian ICBM’s and real New Orlean’s hooker stings?
Was it that August 11, 2001, pdf that Bush just couldn’t be bothered with?
Maybe, Scotty ol pal, some basic competence, eye on the ball stuff, might have made the big difference.
But of course, your gang isn’t about competence isn’t it. Your gang is all about making excuses. 3000 people dead and guys like you are still jerking off.
If I was an American, sharing the country with guys like you would make me sick. But I’m a Canadian, so you’re just kind of funny in a pathetic way.
December 24th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
The whole of my posts chronicled Bush/Ashcroft policies that made 9-11 easier to happen and you say I am making excuses? I am thankful that I don’t share a country with you and your wonderful combination of traits: minimal reading comprehension and piss-poor manners.
December 24th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Great, now I’m being dissed by some whiny pansy boy who isn’t fit to wipe a dog’s ass because I chose to respond to his current badly written infodump of a post, rather than studiously attending to his entire oevre. It’s a cruel world, it is, made crueler by the infantile by-blows of Rush Limbaugh.
Yes, Scottyboy, you’re making excuses. Used to be America made all sorts of stuff – cars, trucks, airplanes, fighter jets, televisions, toasters and a very dry martini. Now, America makes excuses. From the top down, no one takes responsibility, no one feels the need to do their job, it’s all excuses, a rolling brown tide from sea to sea, from coast to coast.
December 24th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
I think it was the testicle free insouciance of your ‘liberal baiting’ Scotty. Not that I have much respect for American liberals, who are on the whole dull, spineless, not very bright but somewhat well meaning. On the whole, the American liberal is sort of like a friendly sheep or a retarded mutt, basically harmless. The trouble is that the American right is full of these half baked sadistic little nimrods who figure that it’s all fun and funky to slap an American liberal around… makes em feel all tough and manly. Nah, it just makes ya bitches.
December 25th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
I see what happened. I had a comment directly above the one you responded to but I now notice it is “awaiting moderation” perpetually. Must have too many links. Here it is without the links. Google the phrases yourself to verify.
[What MY neglects to mention is what Bush could have done differently to prevent the September 11th attacks.
Here is an interesting clue from Salon on something Bush could have done differently:
“Apr 2, 2002 | During the 2000 election, Muslim-American organizations urged constituents for the first time to vote as a bloc. Muslim leaders were attracted to George W. Bush’s televised pledge during the second campaign debate to do away with secret evidence often used against Muslim immigrants by prosecutors. They hoped he could bring a fresh perspective to the troubles in the Middle East. They found him more willing to meet with Muslims during the campaign than Vice President Al Gore.”
Here is something from October of 2000 from the Saint Petersberg Times:
Title: Muslims endorse Bush for president
“A national political action committee for Muslims endorsed George W. Bush for president Monday, predicting if Arab-Americans and Muslims vote in a bloc they can swing razor-thin margins in Michigan and Illinois his way.
The American Muslim Political Coordinating Council PAC said Bush has shown “elevated concern” about issues its community holds dear: stopping the government’s use of secret evidence against Arab and Muslim immigrants, and its profiling of Arab-Americans at airports.”
Bush in the 2nd Bush/Gore debate:
“BUSH: There is other forms of racial profiling that goes in America. Arab-Americans are racially profiled in what’s called secret evidence. People are stopped. And we’ve got to do something about that. My friend Senator Spencer Abraham of Michigan is pushing a law to make sure that, you know, Arab-Americans are treated with respect.”
Attorney General John Ashcroft:
“This administration….has been opposed to racial profiling and has done more to indicate its opposition than ever in history. The president said it’s wrong and we’ll end it in America and I subscribe to that”. -Feb 28, 2002
Norman Mineta, the only democrat in the Bush cabinet, was also very opposed to racial profiling. He had explicitly linked that to his childhood experiences in Japanese internment camps and even suggested that racial profiling would lead to that.
Of course all of this couldn’t have possibly led to any mistakes at the actual airport….. I mean, it’s not like people get directions from their superiors all the way down to the airport screeners on the front lines……. oops nevermind:
Der Spiegel:
“Nine of the 19 hijackers aroused suspicions during airport screening. In the end, they were waved through.”]
I take back what I said about your reading comprehension. The blame for that goes to MY’s commenting system. But I am even more convinced of your disgusting manners and disgusting mind. Seriously, go to hell.
December 25th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Oooh, Scottypoo certainly loves to dish it out, but he’s not so good at taking it. Anyone surprised by that? Didn’t think so.
So, right on cue, our pal Scottylicious, as predicted, makes with the excuses. The excuse being that his pig-demented, juvenile, flatulent notions have not had their full airing, and thus we unjustly condemn him. If only we’d seen his total argument, we’d all be convinced.
That’s right: No one loves him, boo hoo hoo. Who didn’t see that coming.
Scottybunny unfortunately makes the mistake of airing his full argument in all its reprehensibel, incoherent, naive glory, thus removing any shred of integrity or any chance of his being taken seriously.
Boiled down, Scotty’s thesis amounts to a near schizophrenic series of cutting and pasting to assert some notion that racial profiling of Mooooslims is what it’s all about.
Yeah, sure, I can see that. After all, there’s only probably a few hundred brown skinned big nosed types in the US of A, of potential alternate religiousity and foreign extraction. All we gotta do is watch each and every one of em, and we’re sure to win on points.
But Geez, what dreary horseshit. And this isn’t healthy well formed horseshit. This is out of the back end of a very sick pony suffering from diarhea.
Now, I’m not particularly interested in dissecting nonsense. It’s tedious, time consuming, and it only pisses off idiots. But I’ll spare a moment here:
1) Random collections of newspaper clippings and parsed sentences do not an actual argument make – an argument assembles facts in a coherent manner, organizes them logically, takes into account evidence pro and con, and moves towards a conclusion. Scotty’s got none of that. What he’s got is whiny griping. Very entertaining, but not an actual argument.
2) Hindsight is one of those 20/20 vision things. Not necessarily useful as a predictive tool. That should be obvious, but not to Scotteriffic.
3) The central point of Scotty’s pitiful thesis is that ‘racial profiling’ would have worked. Ahem, sorry, no. Racial profiling is more or less discredited as an investigatory or effective police tool. In this situation, the United States sports a couple of million people who fall into the category of moooooooslim. There are probably ten or fifteen or twenty million more people in America who are dark skinned, have big noses, are of foreign extraction, etc. Random racial profiling gets you nowhere except large quantities of junk data.
But then, given the signal to noise ratio of Scottybun’s posts, huge quantities of junk data are what he’s all about.
So there we are. Scotty takes back what he says about my reading comprehension… like I could be bothered to care. But at least it gives him an opportunity to make new excuses as to why the world is mean to him. And as for going to hell… Hell would be reading Scotty’s posts.
ta ta for now, write us when your balls drop… if they ever do.
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