Bush Derangement Syndrome: left, right, and Trumpian

Commeter “Eric” writes:

Molly NH: “Bush derangement syndrome is a *chronic illness*”

It’s a fundamental cornerstone of [the leftist] Narrative.

That’s why for Republicans, it’s vital to vigorously rehabilitate [George W.] Bush’s image ”“ even now ”“ by at least setting the record straight, even by those Republicans who don’t agree with all his positions. Because it’s about more than Bush and his positions. It’s about competing the Narrative contest for the zeitgeist.

Conceding a piece of the Left’s narrative on Bush in a misguided individual attempt to move past an issue, differentiate, or seek common ground merely reinforces the Left narrative that is a cornerstone of their social cultural/political advantage.

I’m not sure it’s possible at this point, but I agree that it’s desirable and might even be necessary.

I also wonder what Trump supporters have to say about Trump’s attitude on the subject, which I consider one of Trump’s most reprehensible qualities. Nor has he given any indication of taking it back or even revising it, much less apologizing for it.

Now, knowing Trump supporters as I’ve come to know them, my guess is that they either share his attitude towards Bush, or excuse it in the ways that they excuse everything wrong with him, which is that (a) he’s the only one who’s right on immigration, and immigration is all that’s important (b) he’s the only person who can win. But as I’ve written before, I don’t think he’s the only one who’s right on immigration, because several other candidates have espoused views I think are quite acceptable. And I certainly don’t think Trump is the only “electable” (or even the most electable) of the Republican candidates. But for now, let’s just take what Trump has said about Bush and discuss it, because I think it’s important.

To refresh your memory, from back in 2011 when Mark Levin was fervently against Trump rather than for him:

…Mark Levin excoriated Trump in this clip from 2011, but now doesn’t sing the same tune although the facts he sets out here have not changed in the least (it’s the topmost clip on the page, the one that’s 12:01 minutes long; I can’t figure out a way to embed it).

You can hear lots of fascinating stuff there. Trump likes Nancy Pelosi (5:14). He wanted her to impeach George W. Bush (5:25), because he says Bush lied about WMDs. At 6:27 he speculates that it would be hard to even imagine a worse president than Bush. At 7:26 you hear Trump saying President Bush is evil. He then contrasts Obama (who at the time he was speaking had been elected but not inaugurated), saying that Obama has:

“…a chance to go down as a great president…I think he’s going to lead through consensus. It’s not just going to be just a bull run like Bush did—he just did whatever the hell he wanted—go into a country and attack Iraq, which had nothing to do with the World Trade Center, and just do it because he wanted to do it.”

Now, there are many ways to criticize George W. Bush. Some of them are even valid. But what Trump is saying here: that Bush lied about WMDs, that he’s evil, that it’s hard to imagine a worse president, and that he attacked Iraq “because he wanted to do it” is—well, it’s not only straight out of the leftist playbook, it borders on evil in and of itself. What’s more, Trump shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the reasons Bush actually did attack Iraq.

You might say, who cares anymore? You might disagree with “Eric” that what a candidate says about Bush matters. But I see it as an issue of character—Trump’s character—as well as politics and judgment. Trump could have criticized Bush in any number of ways, including criticism of the Iraq war, without reflecting poorly on Trump’s own character and judgment. But the way he chose to do it was to spout the most vile boilerplate criticisms advanced by the left. He calls Bush “evil”—who but the most doctrinaire leftist did that? He accuses Bush not just of making an error about WMDs but of lying, and attacking Iraq from personal caprice. And then he follows it up with praise for Obama, including one of the most wrongheaded analyses of Obama’s character I’ve ever heard.

I was searching for a more complete transcript of the interviews with Trump found in those Levin clips from 2011. It took me a while, but I finally located one of them, which was an interview on CNN with Wolf Blitzer that occurred in 2007 that was quoted in this Anderson Cooper segment. If you read it, you can see that it’s one of the milder interviews that are quoted, although it does contain some pearls such as praise for Hillary Clinton and Obama.

Then there’s this one with Blitzer from the 2008 campaign. It contained the “impeach Bush” remark:

BLITZER: [What do you think of] Nancy Pelosi, the speaker?

TRUMP: Well, you know, when she first got in and was named speaker, I met her. And I’m very impressed by her. I think she’s a very impressive person. I like her a lot.

But I was surprised that she didn’t do more in terms of Bush and going after Bush. It was almost — it just seemed like she was going to really look to impeach Bush and get him out of office, which, personally, I think would have been a wonderful thing.

BLITZER: Impeaching him?

TRUMP: Absolutely, for the war, for the war.

BLITZER: Because of the conduct of the war.

TRUMP: Well, he lied. He got us into the war with lies.

And, I mean, look at the trouble Bill Clinton got into with something that was totally unimportant. And they tried to impeach him, which was nonsense. And, yet, Bush got us into this horrible war with lies, by lying, by saying they had weapons of mass destruction, by saying all sorts of things that turned out not to be true.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Their argument is, they weren’t lying, that that was the intelligence that he was presented, and it was not as if he was just lying about it.

TRUMP: I don’t believe that.

BLITZER: You believe that it was a deliberate lie?

TRUMP: I don’t believe it. And I don’t think you believe it either, Wolf. You are a very, very intelligent young man. I don’t think you believe it either.The fact is that he lied. And he got us into a war that was a horrendous mistake. And, any way you take it, that war was a mistake.

Trump then goes on to say that Iraq is a breeding ground for terrorists, and implies that once we leave, terrorists will flourish there and cause a bigger mess. That turns out to have been true, but was a non-controversial opinion (which I shared, which is why I always considered it imperative that we keep a residual force there), and certainly could have been aired without the “Bush lied” defamation.

More of the interview:

BLITZER: [What do you think of} John Edwards? [This question was asked before the Edwards scandal had completely unfolded, but after the Enquirer stories had been published and after Edwards had admitted to having an affair.]

TRUMP: I don’t know him. People like him. I know people that like him very much, but I really don’t know him.

BLITZER: Even though [he] was the vice-presidential nominee last time around?

TRUMP: Well, I think that’s a huge negative, because that was a shame that that race was lost. Because look what we have right now. It’s a disaster.

So you know, I would probably be inclined not to like him on the basis that he lost an election that should have been won. That election should have been won.

I think Bush is probably the worst president in the history of the United States, and I just don’t understand how they could have lost that election.

Later in the interview, Trump advocates that we “just leave” Iraq. This was in October 2008, by the way, when the surge had been over for months and was generally considered to have been successful, and it was after he himself had implied in that same interview that if we leave, terrorists will take over there and it will become an even bigger mess.

Here’s the interview from September of 2007 where Trump says that if the 2008 election features Giuliani vs. Hillary Clinton he’s not sure who he’ll support because “They’re both terrific people, and I hope they both get the nomination.” In the same interview he engaged in the familiar boilerplate obligatory Bush-bashing:

TRUMP: Oh, [Bush has] been a terrible president.

BLITZER: You think he’s the worst in the history of the United States?

TRUMP: I don’t think you can get much worse. Why? I mean, who is worse? Give me a couple of names. Who could be worse?

BLITZER: Well, because, in the last interview we did in March, you said he was the worst.

TRUMP: Well, at least I’m consistent.

BLITZER: But — and the reason you think he’s the worst is?

TRUMP: Well, just look at this country.

We have gone from this tremendous power that was respected all over the world to somewhat of a laughingstock.

Is this really someone you want to support? Again, you can dislike Bush and disagree with the Iraq war, but these sort of statements reveal a criticism of Bush that is of the leftist sort, not the conservative sort. It is indicative of a lack of judgment and basic decency on Trump’s part.

Oh, and although most of Trump’s quotes on Obama are prior to Obama’s presidency, here’s one from shortly after Obama’s election:

The good news is that Obama seems to be well aware of the [economic] situation. His comments have led me to believe that he understands how the economy works on a comprehensive level. He has also surrounded himself with very competent people, and that’s the mark of a strong leader. I have confidence he will do his best, and we have someone who is serious about resolving the problems we have and will be facing in the future. To me that is very good news.

And finally—FINALLY!—I struck pay dirt, a 2008 video showing Trump saying quite a few of the things that Levin quoted back in in 2011, including that Bush is “evil.” Watch and listen:

As I said before, indicative of a lack of judgment and basic decency on Trump’s part, and most definitely not a conservative position. Particularly in the way Trump states it, it’s (as commenter “Eric” has said) a “fundamental cornerstone of the Leftist narrative.”

Comments

Bush Derangement Syndrome: left, right, and Trumpian — 110 Comments

Ymarsakar on October 16, 2015 at 2:54 pm said:

When Leftists like Trump talk about Bush II, they’re projecting. They’re talking about themselves. Which is why Trump has the Dictator vote. So does Hussein or HRC.

The point is, that they only make Ruling Through Force and the iron fist a vice, when it’s somebody else at the head. When they’re at the head, they provide you no mercy, because mercy and compassion and tolerance, were never virtues for them. They didn’t consider them benefits.
vanderleun on October 16, 2015 at 3:30 pm said:

Well, from right no and just for today — but maybe longer that “thoughtful” conservatives would like — Trump is the only thing between Hillary and the White House.
vanderleun on October 16, 2015 at 3:31 pm said:

That would be “from right noW”
neo-neocon on October 16, 2015 at 3:36 pm said:

vanderleun:

No evidence of that whatsoever.

See this, for example.
Geoffrey Britain on October 16, 2015 at 3:47 pm said:

Trump is an emotional populist, whatever parts of the current zeitgeist that personally resonate are viewed as obviously true. Ego being his defining characteristic, whatever he currently believes must be correct and any contradiction with priorly expressed opinion of unimportance, dismissed as that’s what he thought then. Given that his opinions are not based upon any principled rationale but rather upon how he currently feels, no contradiction gives pause.

A perfect example of the ‘unexamined life’… to such a personality, introspection is an anathema.
Assistant Village Idiot on October 16, 2015 at 3:56 pm said:

It is worth correcting the record, but we should not devote our lives to such tasks. Social Justice Warriors never sleep, never stop; they are engaged in virtue signalling and have no food or oxygen without it.
George Pal on October 16, 2015 at 4:01 pm said:

“it’s about more than Bush and his positions. It’s about competing the Narrative contest for the zeitgeist.”

For every negative charge in the political cosmos there is a positive charge. BDS — Bush Derangement Syndrome has its converse in Bush Devotion Syndrome. Both are products of the same headspring — delusion.

Why are ours always the defensive positions? Why never the offense, the assault. Had anyone noticed how easy it is for Democrats to defend the indefensible — abortion, Planned Parenthood and the entire panoply of death cult ritualists. There defense is not so much a defense as a default position to which Rep/Cons may or may not wish to challenge — mostly not. They are never called upon to defend positions from a moral consideration for they control the argument from the start. They no longer wait for return fire, a counter attack — it never comes.

If “abortion is killing innocent children” had been put forward as often as just any one of LibProgLeft’s memes — “war on women” I hadn’t heard it. Bush has defenders enough without the need to make it a cottage industry within the Republican tent. If the desire were there to attack Democratic derangement there are plenty targets. Most all Democrat positions rise to the level of derangement — why make an issue of Bush derangement when Bush is no longer so much as a receding ping on the sonar? Unless it’s to put a notch on the handle. anti-Trump?
Ann on October 16, 2015 at 4:09 pm said:

Right on time, Neo, Trump comes along to bring this great post of yours right up to date — from an interview just a few hours ago:

“When you talk about George Bush — I mean, say what you want, the World Trade Center came down during his time,” Trump told Bloomberg’s Stephanie Ruhle when asked if he could console the American people in times of crisis, as Bush did after 9/11 and President Barack Obama did after the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Conn.

“I think I have a bigger heart than all of them,” Trump responded. “I think I’m much more competent then all of them.”

Ruhle then jumped in: “Hold on! You can’t blame George Bush for that.”

“He was president, okay? Blame him or don’t blame him, but he was president. The World Trade Center came down during his reign,” Trump responded. “If you look at Sandy Hook, those people are still begging for help.”

It’s also very telling that he refers to Bush’s term in office as a “reign”.
nyght on October 16, 2015 at 4:33 pm said:

Honestly, Ann, the part of your quotes that disturb me the most is the equating of 9/11 to Sandy Hook… Why on God’s Green Earth would Trump go right along with that equation?

I mean, personally, I think Stephanie Ruhle is full of it in terms of Obama consoling the American people after Sandy Hook, considering he just used it to stump for poli points and shoot off about gun control, but she works for Pravda, so it’s at least understandable. But those two events are in absolutely no way related in scale, scope, or intent. Why would Trump give that sort of comment the dignity of a response?

And something bothers me about Trump going so far as to describe people in Sandy Hook as “still begging for help”. I feel like I remember reading stories where a lot of them are “still begging for tighter restrictions on guns”, but that’s not “help”, per se.

We’re so screwed.
Ymarsakar on October 16, 2015 at 5:09 pm said:

Both are products of the same headspring — delusion.
How long has Bush II been living rent free in Pal’s head? Since before or after Pal fell for Leftist agit prop in the New York Times and Hillary Clinton’s body armor propaganda?
Ymarsakar on October 16, 2015 at 5:12 pm said:

Honestly, Ann, the part of your quotes that disturb me the most is the equating of 9/11 to Sandy Hook… Why on God’s Green Earth would Trump go right along with that equation?

Trump isn’t an independent warrior. He’s a slave of his passions and perhaps a slave of the world’s passions and beliefs as well.

Which means that even if he is financially independent, he will be controlled one way or another by the powers that be. If his fatal flaw can be grasped, and it will be in time if he is important enough for them to focus on.
Ymarsakar on October 16, 2015 at 5:14 pm said:

But the thing is, it isn’t Trump fighting the Left. It’s Trump copying what he sees in the anti Leftist movement that was created as a reaction to SJWs online.

So even without Trump, it’s not like people become defenseless. And the reason why a lot of people are zealots for Trump, is because just a few years ago they were Democrats and Leftists, cheering for Hussein. Just like Snowden was a big Hussein voter and supporter.

These people become disillusioned, but that doesn’t make them suddenly independent or wiser.
parker on October 16, 2015 at 5:59 pm said:

Trump holds only one value: the glorification of the donald. Anyone who takes him for his word, should he become POTUS*, is in for serious disappointment. He has much in common with bho. Both are narcissistic charlatans.

*A very remote possibility.
CW on October 16, 2015 at 6:04 pm said:

Excellent post.

The popularity of Trump continues the tradition of republican voters to be stuck on stupid when it comes to choosing presidential candidates. Apparently they are so smitten by Trump’s nonPCness that they can’t be bothered to notice what kind of man he really is.
Molly NH on October 16, 2015 at 6:10 pm said:

trump has support on the Left too & amongst independents. He s the narcissist that loves America & Obama is the narcissist that hates America.
K-E on October 16, 2015 at 6:13 pm said:

I am not sure it really matters, does it? What does believing/liking/approving of Bush have to do with the 2016 election and the president who will run the country?

I like Bush for some things (9/11 response for one) and dislike him for others (expanding the gov’t with the DHS, not reforming SS when he had the chance). Trump can do the same…even if his facts are incorrect.

Doesn’t make me think he will be a bad president because of how he feels about an old president who is no longer in office. If Trump gets the job, he will make his own choices based on input from his advisors, reports from gov’t agencies, etc. One thing I do know, Trump is NOT stupid. You don’t end up a billionaire by being dumb.
vanderleun on October 16, 2015 at 6:14 pm said:

Evidence schmevidence. You’ll see.

Here’s Tony Robbins on “How to Beat Trump”http://www.businessinsider.com/tony-robbins-how-to-defeat-donald-trump-2015-10

“Everyone said that Donald Trump wouldn’t get as far as he did.”
George Pal on October 16, 2015 at 6:25 pm said:

Ymarsaker @ 5:09

“How long has Bush II been living rent free in Pal’s head?”

About a tenth as long as you have had a man crush on him.

“Pal fell for Leftist agit prop in the New York Times”

Who fell for what? You’re the one with the man-crush on the man who’d made into law:

U S A Patriot Act
No Child Left Behind Act
Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act
Homeland Security Act
Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act
American Dream Down Payment Act
American Jobs Creation Act
USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act
Secure Fence Act of 2006 (HA HA HA HA HA (wheez…splutter… cough…wheez) HA HA HA HA HA
U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans’ Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act
(included a minimum wage increase)
Economic Stimulus Act of 2008
Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008
Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008

That’s a list a Progressive Statists would envy and the NY Times editorial department would have wet dreams about. And the last three are Keynes Variations by Paul Krugman.

Stop day dreaming. Start paying attention. Stop practicing Mrs. George Bush signatures — it’s not going to happen.
neo-neocon on October 16, 2015 at 6:27 pm said:

vanderleun:

“You’ll see”?

No, you won’t see. There are no alternative universes in which Donald Trump both is and is not the nominee.

If he’s the nominee and he wins the election, that has no bearing on whether any of the other candidates could have won the election, and perhaps even won it with a higher margin and more coattails.

If he’s the nominee and he loses the election, that has no bearing on whether any of the other candidates could have won the election.

If he’s not the nominee, and the actual nominee loses the election, that tells you nothing about whether Trump would have won it or lost it, if nominated instead.

If he’s not the nominee, and the actual nominee wins the election, that tells you nothing about whether Trump would have won it or lost it, if nominated instead.

So there is no way to see.

Polls are the only way to get a hint at the answer, and polls can change over time, and they certainly differ from each other even if taken at the same time. And of course, polls can be wrong. But they give an indication, especially an indication of trends if you look at a lot of them, and the indications from polls right now are that Trump does not do better than many of the other Republican candidates against Hillary.

And “everybody said that Donald Trump wouldn’t get as far as he did”? I certainly never said that, as far as I can recall. I take Trump and his appeal very very seriously, and I think he would make a bad president and has shown poor judgment and character. That doesn’t mean I’m not aware that a lot of people support him and that many will support him no matter what he says or does at this point, or what he has said or done in the past.
Ymarsakar on October 16, 2015 at 6:27 pm said:

I am not sure it really matters, does it?

Did you think Vietnam mattered when electing Kerry or how to fight foreign wars against insurgency?
Ymarsakar on October 16, 2015 at 6:31 pm said:

Who fell for what? You’re the one with the man-crush on the man who’d made into law:

Why would someone like me have a man crush on Bush II, when you let Bush II live rent free in your weakling addled head for so many years?

And btw, you don’t actually object to my claims, you just sort of copycat anti Leftist PUA, Reddit, 4 chan, and anti SJW tactics to use here.

If I’m in a pit with you, Pal boy, and I’ve only wrote a few paragraphs about you, what does that make you and Bush II, when you keep writing these rants about him and all the other Leftist inspired tropes they impregnated inside your weak shell casing of a mind? Ever thought about that yet…

The idea that the President just decides what to make into law and they do it, is why people like you think America should be run like a dictatorship. Except now, you’re saying it’s time to stomp on the Left, whatever that means. When before, you were against stomping on Islamic Jihadists overseas, so what makes you think you or your dictator, Pal, is going to stomp on anyone here? Because of Hussein and how he showed you the way, perhaps.
neo-neocon on October 16, 2015 at 6:33 pm said:

George Pal:

One of the odd things I’ve noticed about many Trump supporters/defenders is that they assume that people who criticize Trump and praise certain aspects of other candidates idolize or idealize those candidates. But that’s not necessarily true at all.

For example, I have never idealized George Bush, although I certainly defend many aspects of the man and many things he did. And your writing that Ymarsakar has a “man crush” on Bush seems pretty ludicrous to me. I certainly don’t know Ymarsakar except from his posts on this blog, but I see no evidence whatsoever to back up that charge, and it seems to run counter to the personality Ymarsakar has demonstrated here.
Ymarsakar on October 16, 2015 at 6:38 pm said:

The fundamental methodology of the Left is their mind control process. All the byproducts, like anti Bush II or anti Sarah Palin sentiments, are merely side issues. The Left can make their denizens think and feel whatever the Left commands them. This level of control is beyond what Jim Jones had on his prisoners and cult members, because Jim Jones had to use guns and active controls to keep people in check. If those people and their families were suddenly free and back in the US, he couldn’t keep them herded as easily.

The Left can achieve an equal or lesser amount of control than Jim Jones, by using as little as 5% of the force Jones had to use to keep his power in his iron fist. That’s economy right there. And it allows mass reproduction of this methodology to cover a mainstream number of humans.

What isn’t accounted for is why are people Leftists in 2007, but then they suddenly change to become anti Leftists after 2012. What changed them? Did they really change?
Ymarsakar on October 16, 2015 at 6:43 pm said:

I certainly don’t know Ymarsakar except from his posts on this blog

Probably around 2004 or 2003, although it’s been so long it is hard to count now. It was back in the old internet days of blogspot almost.
expat on October 16, 2015 at 6:46 pm said:

Athough I like Bush, I try to turn my position WRT Iraq back on the Dems. I remember what B Clinton and Albright said about Saddam. I remember all the European news I was watching and reading about happenings in Iraq. I remember Hans Blix pretending he could get Saddam to come clean. So when Bush decided to take out Saddam, I supported the idea. Then I saw how quickly everyone turned on him. It was as if everyone suddenly reverted back to their Viet Nam protest personas. Michael Moore became a hero. none of this had anything to do with principles; it had to do with politics, power, and reliving youth. These are the people who made Bush look good, and they haven’t changed a bit since 2009. So my good assessment of Bush has more to do with my terrible assessment of his opponents.
Ymarsakar on October 16, 2015 at 6:54 pm said:

Neo Neo

One of the odd things I’ve noticed about many Trump supporters/defenders is that they assume that people who criticize Trump and praise certain aspects of other candidates idolize or idealize those candidates. But that’s not necessarily true at all.

Some of it is due to internet recognition of the Leftist man crush on Hussein Obola over the years. So naturally when they fight against SJWhore invasions online, they start making fun of the Left’s religious faith in their messiah.

It’s merely a copycat technique of various internet sub communities. It isn’t really original nor do I think most people even realize where it comes from.

Another side to it is that people who believe Trump is their new messiah and Hero King, tend to overly glorify the Presidential seat of power. Maybe because Hussein Obola has made it so much more glorious and unrestrained than compared to Bush II’s hectic days, or even Clinton’s impeachment and sex issues.

In order to fight the Leftist alliance or Islamic Jihad, people must become more like the enemy to understand the enemy and defeat their tactics/strategy. But there’s always a cost, a downside to that as well. For someone like me, I can see it. For people that just woke up to the threat of the Leftist alliance, they are 10 years too young perhaps.
George Pal on October 16, 2015 at 7:44 pm said:

neo-neocon,

The the product of your criticisms of Trump had never led me to say, think, intimate or assume that you idolized or idealized George Bush or any other candidate. I could not make that stretch even in my younger days.
“And your writing that Ymarsakar has a “man crush” on Bush seems pretty ludicrous to me.”

And to me also. I admit to grasping. I am at a loss for the basis of his ludicrous emotional outbursts to any reasonable criticism of Bush. To repeatedly invoke Leftism to any criticism of Bush leaves all the bad taste of ideological purity. But I don’t believe that’s it. It’s a lashing out of some kind. If, with your academic background in the field, you could explain for me the ludicrous, emotional, childish, tantrums I would value greatly the insight. It might be the first step to détente.
J.J. on October 16, 2015 at 8:01 pm said:

expat: “Then I saw how quickly everyone turned on him. It was as if everyone suddenly reverted back to their Viet Nam protest personas.”

So true. As a Vietnam vet I’m particularly aware of how the anti-American leftists turn on a leader who prosecutes a war. Unless it is a bloodless romp over the enemy (ala Granada, Panama, or even Desert Storm), they immediately start waving the white flag of appeasement and treachery.

I’m with Eric on this issue. The Iraq invasion was the result of cease fire terms and Un Resolutions that had been disobeyed over a 10year period with no sign of change. There were no nuclear weapons found, but all the chemical weapons had been shipped out to Syria prior to the invasion. And the Iraq Study Group found plenty of evidence of program shut down, but ready to restart when convenient. But then the WMDs were only one of some 20+ casus belli.

I believed that Iraq had the potential to become the first stable ME democratic country. They are on of the few Muslim countries with fertile lands, a decent infrastructure and a reasonably well-educated population. Iraqi expiates all assured the Bush people that we would be welcomed with open arms and a new government would be easy to constitute. That was the flawed intelligence. It took over two years for the administration to realize that it wasn’t going to happen as described. By then the jihadis were pretty well organized and creating chaos. The Army wanted to get out, but Bush kept hoping to achieve some kind of stability. Finally, he appointed Petraeus, authorized the surge, and the Anbar awakening came into being. In 18 months of vicious fighting the jihadis were defeated and stability returned. But the new government was dysfunctional and continues to be dysfunctional today because of differences between the three religious groups – the Shia, Sunni, and Kurds. The jihadis were reforming in eastern Syria and have been able to take over much of northern Iraq because the government dysfuntionality carries over into the Iraqi Army.

I believe there are two things that are true:
1. If we had kept a peace keeping force of 15,000 in Iraq, ISIS would not be in the northern provinces.
2. Turning a Muslim country into a functioning democracy requires more patience than the American people – particularly the progs – are willing to exert. Thus, I would never try to do what we tried to do in Iraq again.

My conclusion is that, if you go to war in a Muslim country, you go all in and destroy their ability to make mischief for a generation. Then you leave with the statement that, if they attack us again, we will be back and it will be worse.

Yes, Bush was a big government man, but a lot of that was the result of his having to work with the progs to pass the budgets required to support the war. He always sent smaller budgets to Congress and they were always declared dead on arrival by the progs in Congress.
J.J. on October 16, 2015 at 8:03 pm said:

Sorry about all the typos. I went too fast and sent too soon. 🙁
blert on October 16, 2015 at 8:15 pm said:

Neo…

I’ve said it from the first: Trump is going to be utterly destroyed if he heads the GOP ticket.

You’re just scratching the surface.

BTW, I don’t think Trump was offering heart felt opinions.

Rather, he was shamelessly aping the standard party doctrine of Liberal New Yorkers — and he absolutely ( for economic and social reasons ) had to fall in line.

Regardless, he’s on the record.

He’s also a big fan of Bill Clinton, always has been.

Trump will be absolutely repulsive to main stream Republican voters.

His sole contribution to this campaign would be to drive Jeb Bush — another certified loser — out of the race.

I also can’t see Carson at the head of a successful ticket: ZERO political experience.

Ditto for Carly.

Both would be outstanding VP nominees, dream candidates for the position.

Cruz is the one left standing.

Even as young as he is, he needs to up his game.

The Progressives// Left would freak out if the GOP ran a Cruz-Carly or a Cruz-Carson ticket.

Either one would rip into the Leftist coalition.

Trump is simply damaged goods. The more the press realizes this fact, the softer they are going at him.

The press would LOVE either Jeb or Donald at the head of the ticket.

In which case, even HRC could float like a butterfly into the Oval Office.
G6loq on October 16, 2015 at 8:21 pm said:

Yes, Bush was a big government man, but a lot of that was the result of his having to work with the progs to pass the budgets required to support the war. He always sent smaller budgets to Congress and they were always declared dead on arrival by the progs in Congress.
Crony capitalist and a Lib. Just like Nixon, he gave them all the socialism they wanted and they hated him all the more ….

I resent Bush II for never fighting back in the domestic war of words. It put everyone of my ilk in a very uncomfortable mental position.
Then the financial crisis, in great part a result of under the radar housing social engineering by the Democ.rats.
In the end we got Obama and his minions.
That is the Bush II legacy.

The Iraq war decision and all that. I don’t understand anymore … There were WMD’s and to these days they won’t admit it.
My intimate conviction? The Saudis use the US military as mercenaries ….
neo-neocon on October 16, 2015 at 8:25 pm said:

blert:

Actually, I think Trump’s hatred of Bush II is visceral and real. I’m not sure why he hates him, but I think it’s sincere. A while back I read about possible reasons (some sort of snub a long time ago?) but I don’t have time to look it up now.

Anyway, I think it’s real.

And I agree that there’s tons of stuff they have on Trump that they’re holding back on, to be emphasized if and when he wins the nomination. In this case, “they” is the MSM.
Maggie on October 16, 2015 at 8:43 pm said:

I look forward to neo applying the same level of scrutiny, complete with links, to the pre politics lives of all of the other GOP candidates.
M J R on October 16, 2015 at 8:57 pm said:

Maggie, 8:43 pm — “I look forward to neo applying the same level of scrutiny, complete with links, to the pre politics lives of all of the other GOP candidates.”

Well, yeah, sure, except with fourteen others still standing, it would be a long and thankless task.

But once there are two or three left standing, and certainly at the point at which there is one left standing to oppose Hillary!, I will very much be looking forward to neo’s applying at least the same level of scrutiny to the lucky two or three or one.
blert on October 16, 2015 at 9:02 pm said:

J.J. Says:
October 16th, 2015 at 8:01 pm

I’m with Eric on this issue. The Iraq invasion was the result of cease fire terms and Un Resolutions that had been disobeyed over a 10year period with no sign of change.

There were no nuclear weapons found, but all the chemical weapons had been shipped out to Syria prior to the invasion.

And the Iraq Study Group found plenty of evidence [testimony of program[s] shut down, but ready to restart when convenient.[ the coast was clear ]

But then the WMDs were only one of some 20+ casus belli.

FIFY

It was AFTER the Duelfer report (September 2004) that the testimony came forth.

The key authorities in the know were flat terrified of Saddam Hussein. So they were mum until he was executed. (12-30-2006)

This sequence had huge consequences for the historiography of that war.

1) Once the MSM (especially the NY Times and Wa Po) had committed themselves to the Duelfer ‘line’ they could not bear to back track and revise their opinions.

For it would mean that they’d have to fall on their swords.

An endless spew of rationalizations then poured forth.

2) While chemical weapons were being found just about everywhere ( no-one gets that ‘sloppy’ by chance ) the Bush administration, the Pentagon, and the Press had to keep their mouths shut, lest AQ or Zarqawi ship the magic binary shells to New York City subway stations.

The Aum Shinrikyo established what a killing might be had in Tokyo.(March 20, 1995)

As did the Chechens . ( March 29, 2010 … Moscow )

The truth is that Saddam Hussein had compelled his technical authorities to safe guard the blue prints within their private libraries — on pain of death — Saddam-style.

[ The children are starved to death in a jail cell directly in front of the father… The wife is gang raped most violently by 30 hard core professional rapists. (it’s their profession, yes they are big) This assault is performed next to the husband — but yet out of view — so that he can hear his wife screaming. This procedure is maintained until she passes out, to be repeated the next day. After his family is destroyed, the primary victim is slowly strangled to death — SS style. ]

It’s important to note that the judge who sentenced Saddam to death was assassinated by ISIS at the earliest opportunity. ISIS is still trying to find the rest of the prosecutorial team.

Is it any wonder the technical authorities went immediately into hiding — outside Iraq ?

What upsets me WRT Bush 43 is that he had the bully pulpit — and did not properly use it. Barry is the reverse, bull all the time.

George let these smears stick, Dick Cheney did fight the good fight — but VPs just don’t pull the media that the President does.

There is absolutely no doubt that the second the UN restrictions were removed, Saddam intended to go full bore — and across the board — for WMD — atomics in particular.

Once ‘on the record’ the NY Times could never let this meme out of the bag. They are STILL thumping falsehood.
Maggie on October 16, 2015 at 9:10 pm said:

MJR – Thank you for your response.

Surely at this stage of the game, when the candidate has not yet been chosen, it is important that the others are equally scrutinized?

This type of in depth blog discussion is instrumental in influencing the outcome. Your point re the numbers is valid – perhaps neo should apply her talents to the pre political lives of the, say, top 5 or 6?
Selective examination is available 24/7 on the MSM.
Tonawanda on October 16, 2015 at 9:31 pm said:

Eric: “it’s vital to vigorously rehabilitate [George W.] Bush’s image — even now — by at least setting the record straight, even by those Republicans who don’t agree with all his positions.”

Neo: “I’m not sure it’s possible at this point, but I agree that it’s desirable and might even be necessary.”

Good luck on your vital and necessary mission; here’s hoping your desired success changes the course of events.
blert on October 16, 2015 at 9:39 pm said:

As and addendum,

The technical authorities that administered Saddam’s WMD efforts are STILL keeping their heads down.

For ISIS is on the hunt to liquidate them and their families, too.

Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri is still out there, somewhere.

The rumor mill is that his crew is entirely allied with ISIS, and is very likely the trigger that caused ISIS to split from al Nusrah — a few years back.

Like Otto Skorzeny, al Douri was put in charge of a post-war war chest — and was funding the Iraqi insurgency — which mimicked the Werewolf guerilla movement , although the latter ran out of gas, as the Allied Powers in conquered Germany would not put up with anything — and the Werewolves had no sanctuary.

If Saddam operated anything like Kadaffy – then al Douri was never going to run out of funds. (Kadaffy had $40,000,000,000 stuffed in liquid assets — on top of premier real estate holdings.)

I have no doubt that al Douri is imitating the Mossad — though instead of hunting down Nazi criminals, al Douri is seeking revenge against finks that blabbed.

Hence, the noticeable reticence of the fleeing Iraqi experts to jump to the microphone to ‘straighten out the Western Press.’

The folks that interrogated them are just as camera shy. It’s a requirement for those with their level of security clearance.
neo-neocon on October 16, 2015 at 9:39 pm said:

Maggie:

This isn’t a scrutiny of Trump’s life, much less an in-depth one.

This is a survey of his public statements since 2007 on a single topic, George W. Bush, with a sentence or two contrasting his opinions on Bush with his opinions on a couple of other political figures. And it’s not even everything he said on that topic.

I’m unaware that any other candidate has said anything even remotely similar about the most recent Republican president. If you have any such links, please offer them. I’d be interested, because I find it a significant fact.

However, I’ve written many posts about other candidates so far, and some of those posts are about events in their lives. Do a search on the blog if you’re interested.
Tonawanda on October 16, 2015 at 9:48 pm said:

blert: great information to help the vital and necessary mission of rehabilitating George Bush’s image; very pertinent and useful to that quest.
parker on October 16, 2015 at 10:10 pm said:

As far as I know, the newly minted conservative republican candidate, aka the donald, is the only candidate in the race who has a history of praising the clintons, kerry, and pelosi, and repeatedly referring to GWB as “evil”. Not sure what neo can uncover about the rest of the field that could trump that history.

The trump chumps remind me of the zombies for obama. At least they are not (yet) fainting at the donald’s rallies. Perhaps that will come later as we approach the Iowa caucus and the NH and SC primaries.
Tonawanda on October 16, 2015 at 10:26 pm said:

Folks need to emphasize the honesty of George Bush in burnishing his image:

“I was so focused on Saddam Hussein that I couldn’t see anything else. My CIA guys would come in and say ‘Bin Laden’s prepping an attack,’ ‘Bin Laden’s prepping an attack,’ and I was pretty much like ‘Whatever. What do you got on Saddam?’

“There was a general lack of awareness. I’m pretty sure Condi Rice didn’t even known who Bin Laden was. I had heard of him, but he sounded like more of a two-bit criminal to me so I didn’t take him seriously. And that malunderestimation (sic) really cost us as a nation.

“You know Bill Clinton made a lot of mistakes on Bin Laden, and I think he should apologize too. But I was at the wheel. It happened on my watch. I was warned. I didn’t listen. And I am sorry. I really am. I could have done more to prevent these tragedies.”

http://dailycurrant.com/2013/09/11/george-w-bush-apologizes-failing-nation-911/

That takes character, a reason why Bush should be regarded a decent man, even if he did not keep us safe because of his negligence.
Tonawanda on October 16, 2015 at 10:39 pm said:

And let us not forget the powerful words of inspiration uttered by President Bush:

“Islam is a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. It’s a faith that has made brothers and sisters of every race. It’s a faith based upon love, not hate.”

“According to Muslim teachings, God first revealed His word in the Holy Qur’an to the prophet, Muhammad, during the month of Ramadan. That word has guided billions of believers across the centuries, and those believers built a culture of learning and literature and science. All the world continues to benefit from this faith and its achievements.”

http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/ramadan/islam.html
vanderleun on October 16, 2015 at 10:58 pm said:

“If he’s the nominee and he wins the election, that has no bearing on whether any of the other candidates could have won the election, and perhaps even won it with a higher margin and more coattails.”

The question now is, if Trump is the Republican nominee for president, would you vote for him? Surely you wouldn’t “sit it out.” Would you?
Tonawanda on October 16, 2015 at 11:04 pm said:

Let’s not forget what a generous and big-hearted man President Bush was, offering green cards, social security benefits, drivers licenses, and immunity from prosecution to millions and millions of illegal persons in our country.

http://rense.com/general49/immig.htm

His image might be much brighter when people are reminded of this.
Ann on October 16, 2015 at 11:19 pm said:

Neo, about Trump’s hatred of Bush II being “visceral and real” — I agree, and it’s for the whole Bush family, not only G.W. There was piece in the Wash. Post back in August that has some of the history:

The 2016 campaign is only the latest manifestation of decades of discord between Trump and the Bush family. Since the gilded 1980s, when Trump and George H.W. Bush rose as forces in their respective spheres, the relationship between Trump and the Bushes has been a melodrama – veering between displays of public affection and acerbic insults.

At the core, there are clashes of style, manner and class between the Bushes – a patrician clan of presidents, governors and financiers who have pulled the levers of power for generations – and Trump, a hustling New York City deal-maker who turned his father’s outer-borough real estate portfolio into a gold-plated empire.

Some specifics:

Trump soured on [George H.W.] Bush when he increased taxes, but they eventually made amends.

In 1997, Trump said, Bush asked him to host a fundraiser for his son, Jeb, who was running for Florida governor. Trump agreed. The event was in his apartment at Trump Tower.

It was not merely a political favor. Trump had been trying to persuade Florida lawmakers to allow his company to manage casinos on tribal land. [As we know, Jeb didn’t return the favor and nixed the casinos.]

…

In 1999, as then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush was consolidating the Republican establishment behind his 2000 presidential candidacy, Trump explored a run of his own in the Reform Party, which grew out of the 1992 independent run of Ross Perot that many Republicans were convinced cost Bush’s father his reelection.

Trump went went on CNN’s “Larry King Live” and said Bush had not been forthcoming enough about his problems with alcohol. Later that fall, Trump made a splashy visit to Miami, Jeb Bush’s adopted home town. Rallying Cuban Americans in Little Havana, Trump knocked George W. Bush and then-Vice President Al Gore by saying that his wealth made him more qualified to be president than the two descendants of politicians because they were, as he put it, “anointed.”
Tonawanda on October 16, 2015 at 11:20 pm said:

I was one of those conservatives who immediately and deeply felt betrayed when President Bush nominated Harriet Miers. Oh, there were so many other brilliant conservative jurists, and Miers was merely a Bush family retainer.

But in the interests of the vital and necessary pursuit of rehabilitating his image, it is only fair to give his actual stated reason: diversity.

And diversity is supposed to be a good thing, correct?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/04/AR2005100400954.html

Trigger warning- – Will calls diversity “the first refuge of intellectually disreputable impulses.” What a polite circumlocution.
Tonawanda on October 16, 2015 at 11:27 pm said:

Let’s not forget that President Bush was excellent at the bipartisanship so many folks admire and crave, like the way he worked with Ted Kennedy to federalize education:

http://educationfrontblog.dallasnews.com/2009/08/ted-kennedy-and-no-child-left.html/
Tonawanda on October 16, 2015 at 11:36 pm said:

Some may ask, how grateful should the nation be for the multigenerational services performed by one family, any one of whom could say, as we all do, that every child has a chance to be president in America:

http://www.chron.com/news/politics/article/How-the-Bush-family-became-a-dynasty-5963125.php
Eric on October 16, 2015 at 11:37 pm said:

JJ:

There were no nuclear weapons found, but all the chemical weapons had been shipped out to Syria prior to the invasion. And the Iraq Study Group found plenty of evidence of program shut down, but ready to restart when convenient.

To be clear, a finding of proscribed armament by the weapons inspections was not necessary for enforcement – because demonstration of Iraqi possession of proscribed armament was not an element of the “governing standard of Iraqi compliance” with UNSCR 687 et al.

Breach of the ceasefire was established by Iraq’s failure to meet its burden to prove compliance.

Any demonstration that Iraq possessed proscribed armament was relevant only for its probative value towards whether Iraq was compliant with the mandated disarmament standard.

The weapons inspectors’ mission wasn’t to find proscribed armament to justify enforcement. Their mandate was to verify whether Iraq met its burden to prove disarmament according to UNSCR 687 et al. Based on the UNSCR 687 mandate and given Iraq’s denial and deception operations, the IAEA and UNMOVIC inspectors were unlikely to find proscribed armament except for what was volunteered by Iraq as required or uncovered by coincidence.

In any case, the pre-war intel on Iraq’s nuclear activity was not as specific as nuclear weapons. Rather, it indicated suspicious program activity. The burden was on Iraq to prove it was compliant with the nuclear disarmament mandates of UNSCR 687 et al. The IAEA nuclear-related findings were relatively promising compared to the UNMOVIC finding of “about 100 unresolved disarmament issues” which were the main trigger for OIF. At the same time, it was found Iraq resumed suspicious and perhaps proscribed nuclear program activity.

As far as the post hoc Iraq Survey Group (not to be confused with the Iraq Study Group) findings, you’re half right. You’re incorrect that Iraq’s WMD program was “shut down” – in fact, ISG found an active program in the Iraqi Intelligence Services. You’re correct that it was ready to ramp up.

That being said, the active program found post hoc by ISG fell outside the operative enforcement procedure in the decision for OIF.

As stated in the OIF FAQ, beware the fundamental premise of the false narrative of OIF:

The prevalent myth that Operation Iraqi Freedom was based on a lie relies on a false premise that shifted the burden of proof from Iraq proving it had disarmed in compliance with the UNSC resolutions to the US proving Iraqi possession matched the pre-war intelligence estimates.

You said you agreed with my explanation of the law and policy, fact basis of OIF. Yet your statement that I quoted above shows you’re still at least partially hung up on the popular but false notion that the justification for OIF rested on a burden to prove Iraq was armed according to the pre-war intelligence estimates.

No such burden existed in the operative enforcement procedure for Iraq according to the UNSCRs and US law and policy of OIF.

In other words, OIF is improperly judged or justified according to a matching of findings with the pre-war intelligence estimates. That includes speculation on whether stockpiles were transferred to Syria, which is a relevant real concern but outside the operative enforcement procedure.

OIF is properly judged or justified according to whether Iraq complied with the Gulf War ceasefire mandates. In fact, Iraq was confirmed as noncompliant across the board, including the disarmament mandates, at the decision point for OIF.
Eric on October 16, 2015 at 11:44 pm said:

Tonawanda: apparently quoting seriously from
http://dailycurrant.com/2013/09/11/george-w-bush-apologizes-failing-nation-911/

From http://dailycurrant.com/about/:

The Daily Currant is an English language online satirical newspaper that covers global politics, business, technology, entertainment, science, health and media. It is accessible from over 190 countries worldwide – now including South Sudan.
…
Q. Are your news stories real?

A. No. Our stories are purely fictional.
Tonawanda on October 16, 2015 at 11:57 pm said:

Eric: I apologize for my foolishness.
Tonawanda on October 17, 2015 at 12:01 am said:

Eric: again, great detail which must be used for the vital and necessary job of defeating BDS.

Activists might be used to spread this information far and wide amidst the polity.
Ymarsakar on October 17, 2015 at 12:08 am said:

Tonawanda bitter much?

Being a serf to the Presidential aristocrat lord, people were always going to feel “betrayed” like the 25 year company man when he gets fired and his pension removed.

You’ll be facing much more hardships when the Left goes active, however. They won’t kid around.

A lot of people complained about Bush not using the Presidential seat as a propaganda podium. Then when people realized they could make propaganda posters and fight the Left directly, while getting rid of the gov middleman, things got a lot better. And stuff got done too.

This “relying on government” and “relying on leaders” is a weakness, a crutch. Society will always betray your expectations, that is the nature of a power hierarchy.

Do people actually think there’s some magical Hero King, like Reagan perhaps, who they can trust and who will never, ever betray their expectations? Such a human doesn’t exist, that would require something like Divine level entities such as the Christian God, perhaps.

Humans are weak, they desire a Leader to tell them what to do.

But people who rely on such crutches, will burn when the Leftist alliance and the Islamic Jihad hits them directly. They will be wasted, their roots pulled out by the storm.
Tonawanda on October 17, 2015 at 12:10 am said:

Watching that video, I asked myself, why did Trump devote the time he did to “evil.” Couldn’t he have put his time and attention onto another subject matter?

And wasn’t he concerned about looking deranged with the amount of time he spent on George Bush being evil?

Someone ought to make a detailed analysis of Trump’s use of the word evil, for the sake of the image of George Bush, especially because of the time and effort neo put into hitting pay dirt.
Ymarsakar on October 17, 2015 at 12:11 am said:

Fixing Bush II’s image and policies isn’t necessarily a strategic boon in the war as now or to come.

Fixing people’s reliance on Dear Leader to save them, can boost the strategic edge, however.

Fixing people, well that’s impossible, but taking away their crutch is a useful first step.

Nobody will save you, but yourself. When did American “independent” “pioneers”, start thinking otherwise?
J.J. on October 17, 2015 at 12:13 am said:

Eric, I wasn’t trying to say that WMDs needed to be found to justify the war. I have read your blog and agree with your analysis completely.

By the way, I have suggested to BIll O’Reilly that he and Martin Dugard could do the nation a great service by writing another book in their “killing” series, entitled, “Killing Saddam – The truth about Operation Iraqi Freedom.” I have sent him historical resources to be studied for the book. Among them is a link to your analysis of OIF and its justifications. Dugard is an excellent historical researcher and writer. O’Reilly likes to think he is a historian as well. That would be a much more widely read book than Jeane Kirkpatrick’s, “Making War to Have Peace,” or your blog. Well, it’s worth the try.

blert, thanks for the additional background info. Are you connected to some intelligence agency? Your inside insights seem to come from an intelligence agency analysis bunker somewhere.
neo-neocon on October 17, 2015 at 12:26 am said:

Tonawanda:

This post has nothing to do with whether Bush was a good or bad president, whether you agree with everything he did, or whether he was conservative enough. As I said in the post, there are many reasons a person could object to Bush, and many reasons on conservative grounds.

None of them include the reasons Trump objected, or the things Trump said about Bush. Trump voiced the standard leftist ad hominem lines of attack—leftist Bush Derangement Syndrome, which is a very different thing.

Also, when you get taken in by a spoof site, particularly one that is such an obvious spoof, that’s an indication that it’s time to take a deep breath.
Ymarsakar on October 17, 2015 at 12:29 am said:

Pal is just 10 years too early. Call it what you want, but those who supported and caused Diem’s assassination with their smart Democrat foreign policy, those who helped Hillary Clinton kill more people with her body armor issue, are guilty along with the Left. Just because Pal goes around using superbia to crown himself with the glories of “saving American lives”, isn’t going to change that. Now is it, Pal.

If you knew enough, you might understand. If you don’t know enough, you’ll be grasping at straws trying to find stuff to stick to me.

The originator of the “I’m stuck in your head” slick trick, might have realized that it was originally intended to be used against conflict avoiding rabbits. Conflict. Avoiding. You know, the people who like to create whisper campaigns and run to HR to report people. Those people don’t like being confronted or ridiculed to their face(well, neither do PProfit or Hussein).

I’m unsure of its effect on people like me, who prefer conflict and fighting at times.

It’s rather cute that I’m being psychoanalyzed now. I hope people understand that if you try to psychoanalyze a “crazy” person, you yourself will soon need a therapist to check your sanity. And this is not hyperbole, check out how many psychoanalysts are being analyzed by other psychoanalysts in the field. It’s a sanity check and risk in their job. Concerning lashing out, if you knew how I normally fought over issues you might not be so confused on this issue, Pal. But well, that’s your problem, not mine. This is very very mild, though.
The Other Chuck on October 17, 2015 at 12:40 am said:

Trump has already won. He has managed to smash the Republican primary into bits, which was his goal. He will never be the nominee nor will he ever be elected President. I will never vote for this phony and pompous piece of excrement. You get that Trump supporters? This is his “negatives” talking, the over 50% of us who would vote for a dead cow first. And don’t believe him for a second if you think he won’t go 3rd party when he loses the primary. That was baked into his plan of disruption from the beginning.
Eric on October 17, 2015 at 1:11 am said:

K-E: “I am not sure it really matters, does it? What does believing/liking/approving of Bush have to do with the 2016 election and the president who will run the country?”

The point was raised that the Left continues to refresh the BDS narrative despite that we’re years past the Bush presidency.

Why?

Molly NH likened it to a “chronic illness”, which implies a mindless phenomenon.

My observation is that it’s not mindless. It’s strategic. The Left relies on BDS as underlying premise to anchor their larger narrative for the zeitgeist. Correcting BDS should help unravel the Left narrative and promote criticism of BDS proponents.

Related, correcting BDS can go to discrediting Left activists who promote BDS. That seems to be more like Neo’s tack with the idea.
PatD on October 17, 2015 at 2:28 am said:

Trump is playing the way Democrats play. Facts don’t matter but feelings and myth do. Saying Bush was President when 9/11 happened has two purposes; to separate him from GWB and to put Jeb on the defensive. We informed neo-neocon readers know there is BS in the air, but Trump is looking beyond us. The MSM will play up Trump’s statements and the LIVs will lap it up.

The MSM has promoted so many lies about the Iraq war, it is beyond belief. But the lies are embedded in LIVs’ minds. So, you have to overcome that, and you do it by creating a minor controversy that makes you NOT Bush.

Trump keeps criticising Romney for losing. He’s figured out where Romney lost – the LIVs and Tea Party. conservatives like me. He is also sending strong signals to the private sector unions that he is on their side. The crap about Ford building a plant in Mexico has a target: the UAW in particular and private sector unions in general.

Forget anything Trump said before this run. It was in the interests of his business. Everything during the campaign is fair game. So, his attack on illegal immigration is fair game. He’s already won that debate by putting it on the table.

Trump is running a smart campaign, unlike anything we have seen before. He is the richest man in the field and he has spent the least money. The MSM may hate his guts, but he gets air-time that other candidates can only dream about.

The GOP elites had a plan to deliver Jeb Bush as the next GOP candidate. Trump has trumped that 33% to 10% nationally.

For all the GOP regulars that hate him, he is picking up D’s across the board.

Trump may yet collapse; we have a long way to go; but capturing the high ground and discouraging your competitors’ donations is working pretty well for the fake-haired monster.
Orson on October 17, 2015 at 5:11 am said:

Neo, your long and dogged pursuit of Trumps quotes and sourcing them credits him with much too much seriousness.

I grew up with a father who was also a successful businessman in real estate – and a charming, charismatic narcissist, like Trump.

Like Tump, my father was intuitive and opinionated. He also had a fling at Pubbie politics (as County Party Chairman), including later in life sidling up to my home state’s Senator, a Jew (made famous for hawking lumber and building supplies for his family’s retailing store chain on television, and by wearing plaid lumberjack shirts before the grunge era made it hip).

My old man read the newspaper each day. But if I could not present something to him as a memo in two paragraphs, it didn’t really reach him.

And on certain subjects, these could never reach past his prejudices (like an anomalous yet bristling visceral anti-semitism – and yeah, it bothered me! My late mother evinced the same strange prejudice – WTF???).

Like Trump, my father was a visionary and romantic property developer – and deeply intuitive.

My point about Trump? Being busy, driven, and obsessive about certain things means tunnel vision, changing opinions on passing fads and personalities, as well as most current events.

One needs to parse one from the other, or else you’ll never see a core personality and core values there. And here, I think, is the chief difficulty for many people in relating to Trump.

(And no, I don’t think most Trumpies are simply rationalizing the current one from the older Democratic one – although clearly some do and think no further.)

Unlike Trump, my folks never lived in NYC (yet my sisters did after college in New England). If anyone changed their party or political allegiance (like yourself, neo, and like Trump), I never noticed it.

Trump is clearly wrong on Bush. The idea that Bush lied about WMD in Iraq is clearly a lie. And a heinous one.

Trump is not alone in it. He has company that many consider distinguished, like these:

Democrat Senator Harry Reid spoke for a host of other opponents of the [Iraq] war in insisting that “the Bush White House manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to bolster its case for the war in Iraq.” Senator Ted Kennedy depicted the war as a sinister plot “made up in Texas” and sold to Congress because it “was going to be good politically” for President Bush. “The whole thing was a fraud,” said Kennedy. Former Vice President Al Gore charged that Bush was “engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate the facts in service to a totalistic ideology,” and that the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with WMD, but rather had been “pre-ordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place.”

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=555

Reid, Kennedy, Gore? Are all these three pols narcissists worth deprecating? Probably (or at least two of them – Gore might just be a wooden, robotic idiot of sorts).

The greater problem about Saddam Hussein is framing his foreign relations power and propaganda.

Saddam clearly used WMD (mustard gas, etc) during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. Yet he also clearly managed to maintain this image of possessing or nearly possessing such horrible “tools,” because found the image of respect among Arab nations (if not the world) too useful and powerful to abandon in time to avoid US invasion.

And even if he did this (as the LINK above claims he did), what of the Bomb in My Garden? Or 2005’s “The Bomb in My Garden: The Secrets of Saddam’s Nuclear Mastermind,”
by Mahdi Obeidi? The Colorado School of Mines trained scientist who kept a prototype at home, completely unknown to the UN, the US and the world, until after the war?

Which is less about an actual bomb than the plans for building a separator to refine uranium and make it bomb grade materiel.

Saddam FLIRTED with WMD for many, many years. And Saddam used A. Q. Kahn – the “father” of the Islamic nuke held by Pakistan – to gain a path to getting one.

While all these many distinctive facts are details few people can get their head’s around, my point is that the issue of Saddam’s intentions and capacity was not, and is not today, the binary one most people hold.

After all – even when there was well-sourced inside-the-family testimony that Saddam had no (real) WMD, there remained the issue that the UN had passed resolution requiring that he fully account for all WMD disposal – something that he could not do (because its management was far too messy), and could have only been accomplished by abandoning the closed, Stalinist state he so ridiculously and built over decades.

Saddam and his Machiavellian family are gone and out of power – and Bush made the world a better, safer place in doing so. He freed millions of people being oppresed and brutalized. And from 12 to 15 millions of refugees could go home (which deserved a Nobel Peace prize for Bush – but whoever said that was fair?).
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AbigailAdams on October 17, 2015 at 6:15 am said:

Van Der Luen is right about this. Plenty of evidence to support that.
Kauf Buch on October 17, 2015 at 7:57 am said:

What is this penchant of those on the Right (LOOKING AT YOU, NEONEOCON) to trash leading contenders for the Presidency?

Please…KEEP DOING THE DIRTY WORK of the Left.
You *know* how they’ll “thank” you for it later….

Who’s YOUR choice?
Why/how can THEY win the Primary and the General?

I leave you with
“The PERFECT is the Enemy of the GOOD.”
George Pal on October 17, 2015 at 8:17 am said:

Ymarsakar,

Ymarsakar Says @ 12:29

“Pal is just 10 years too early. Call it what you want, but those who supported and caused Diem’s assassination with their smart Democrat foreign policy, those who helped Hillary Clinton kill more people with her body armor issue, are guilty along with the Left… I’m unsure of its effect on people like me, who prefer conflict and fighting… Concerning lashing out, if you knew how I normally fought over issues you might not be so confused on this issue… It’s rather cute that I’m being psychoanalyzed now.”

You prefer conflict? Here’s a bitch slap for you, you crazy sonofabitch.

You don’t know me. You don’t know what I think. You don’t know who or what I’ve supported. Claiming clairvoyant powers from afar would be just one more demonstration, in addition to the evidential value of just your latest comment, that you are clinically non compos mentis — a babbling, ranting, raving, lunatic.

Denied, apparently, by God, nature, or a blow to the head, the ability to forward a reasoned argument that is contextually apropos you conjure fancies with the aid of your muses – the pixies in your head.

Were anything normal about you, including fighting over issues, you could not so easily be pointed out in a lineup as the personification of crazy.

It’s not psychoanalysis you need — it’s a straight-jacket, meds, and ‘round the clock supervision and tending.
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Marshall Power Locke on October 17, 2015 at 9:21 am said:

Trump, like Barack Obama, is a ‘Great Man’, and that is precisely the problem: http://marshallpowerlocke.com/2015/09/14/barack-obama-and-donald-trump-are-great-men-and-thats-the-problem/
Ymarsakar on October 17, 2015 at 10:18 am said:

Good job, Pal. Here’s a slap on the shoulder for ya, good old boy.
Ymarsakar on October 17, 2015 at 10:25 am said:

Forget anything Trump said before this run. It was in the interests of his business. Everything during the campaign is fair game. So, his attack on illegal immigration is fair game. He’s already won that debate by putting it on the table.

Maybe. But a lot of that rests upon faith or believing in the Leader. Down that path rests the betrayal of expectations and putting too much emphasis on a leader merely allows the Left to decapitate any organization with one single blow.

A lot of people like Vander, I don’t really think supports Trump as President. They are preparing survival supplies and what not for the coming X, Y, or Z. I’m not casting that in a disrespectful light, I’ve learned much from the survival and “crazy” sub communities of America. They are specialists at not getting zombiefied, and I can respect that, although at times I think they carry it too far.

So for those people, they aren’t “supporting Trump for President” so much as supporting whatever will derail the Federal Regime so that the drone assassins get tied up with internecine conflict. If having Trump there will sabotage and put rust in the gears, they want that so they can have more time. Whether Trump succeeds as President or not… people still expect the war to come, one way or another.

That’s not the classical definition of a Presidential supporter…
snopercod on October 17, 2015 at 10:28 am said:

Epic post, Neo. Thank you.
Ymarsakar on October 17, 2015 at 10:32 am said:

The Leftist alliance, for whatever reasons, wanted Saddam to have WMDs. Just as they wanted Iran to have WMDs.

It is intentional. I don’t know exactly what their plans are and even if I did, it wouldn’t be safe to broadcast. Not yet anyways.

So they failed to save Saddam’s WMD program, but they succeeded in sabotaging Iraq and funding ISIL. That’s generally what people forget about when they go anti Bush II and anti Iraq. This campaign to promote Islamic Jihad, not just ISIL, was around long before 2009. Long before. Saddam was funding terrorists and so was the Left. They were allies in that sense.

Right now, without Bush II’s decisions, not only would Iran have the bomb, but Iraq would also have sold nuclear materials to ISIL. All bought with subsidies from American regime, courtesy of Hussein O and the Democrat traitors.

It’s not very hard to imagine.
sloan on October 17, 2015 at 11:21 am said:

The buck stops with Bush.

He was President on 9/11.

And more Americans were sent to their death in Iraq, on his orders, than were killed on 9/11.

And let’s not forget Hurricane Katrina.

Did Bush keep Americans safe?

No, he did not.

This is not debatable.
Sharon W on October 17, 2015 at 11:29 am said:

Excellent discussion. I’ve saved a few of these comments for future reference.
Sharon W on October 17, 2015 at 11:33 am said:

Sloan,
Hurricane Katrina was the point where I broke with the MSM altogether. My family received 2 papers a day and 3 on Sunday and I was a news junkie from my earliest years. Not only is what you apparently believe debatable, it is reprehensible propaganda. It is that point in time that marks for me the very public proof that the Democrats and the more numerous useful idiots that drank the Kool Aid during the Gramscian March through the institutions would see to the ruin of our nation.
Joe Luke on October 17, 2015 at 11:37 am said:

Juan Ellis Bush is not a serious contender no matter how much the establishment tried pushing him. Trump is not threatened in any way by him. To think we were once told Juan was the smarter of the Bush brothers. All it took was for Juan Ellis to actually start talking and all hope for him was lost.

Now how about focusing on the Democrats?
sloan on October 17, 2015 at 11:53 am said:

Wow.

The fact that Bush was President on 9/11 and during Hurricane Katrina is now being denied as “reprehensible propaganda”.

Just listen to yourselves.
Sharon W on October 17, 2015 at 12:04 pm said:

This may be news to you, Sloan, but the states of the union have considerable jurisdiction in local matters. You may want to look into the actions of Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin with regard to preparation for Hurricane Katrina, as well as their actions after the levees breached.
sloan on October 17, 2015 at 12:16 pm said:

Hurricane Katrina was a “local matter”?

Like a water main break or something?

Wow.
G6loq on October 17, 2015 at 12:19 pm said:

neo-neocon Says:
October 17th, 2015 at 12:26 am

[Tonawanda] when you get taken in by a spoof site, particularly one that is such an obvious spoof, that’s an indication that it’s time to take a deep breath.

I’d cut Tonawanda some slack. You can’t tell what’s satire anymore without slowly reading. Comedy shows are considered news by some, etc….
Supposedly, the Simpson predicted Trump. True or false?
False, but in these times Trump fits right in.

Things are so far out of bounds that all pretenses to sober rational thinking are nothing but smugness.
Eric on October 17, 2015 at 12:20 pm said:

JJ:
“I wasn’t trying to say that WMDs needed to be found to justify the war. I have read your blog and agree with your analysis completely.”

I appreciate that; we’ve discussed the issue before. I’m being a stickler, which I usually am for this issue, anyway, but being a stickler is unusually warranted for the sake of Neo’s topic in this post.

It’s important to lay the foundation properly with the “governing standard of Iraqi compliance” because it defined the policy for enforcing Iraq’s compliance. In turn, the enforcement policy defined the operative enforcement procedure, which in turn defined the practical enforcement measures. It defined our approach to bring post-Saddam Iraq into compliance with the Gulf War ceasefire.

Anchoring to the “governing standard of Iraqi compliance” is necessary to understand the determinative fact findings that triggered enforcement with the sanctions, Operations Desert Fox and Iraqi Freedom, etc.

By the same token, anchoring to the “governing standard of Iraqi compliance” is also necessary to understand the post hoc ISG findings, which goes to the part of your comment that elicited my response.

In terms of the false/BDS narrative, the post hoc ISG findings that show gaps with the pre-war intel are often used to spin the conspiracy theory that Bush lied us into war with Iraq.

The usual retort, which I saw implied in your comment, is an attempt to mitigate the gaps with the pre-war intel. Now, the mitigation may or may not be valid. However, the approach of mitigating by itself – if a proper foundation is missing – serves to stipulate the fundamental false premise that the pre-war intel was casus belli for OIF.

The priority is correcting that fundamental false premise. The better retort establishes the “governing standard of Iraqi compliance” that defined the enforcement.

When a student is made mindful of the “governing standard of Iraqi compliance”, what jumps out from the post hoc ISG findings is their corroboration of UNMOVIC’s confirmation that Iraq remained in breach of the disarmament mandates.

Although anti-OIF propagandists cherry-pick the ISG findings to spin a conspiracy theory from gaps in the pre-war intel, what was actually relevant to the “governing standard of Iraqi compliance” is the finding that ISG could not determine Iraq disarmed as mandated – “ISG judges that Iraq failed to comply with UNSCRs up to OIF” (Duelfer Report).

That’s not to say sidebars, such as speculation about the suspicious Iraqi convoys to Syria or the “sanitized” IIS sites found by ISG, have no place in the conversation. I talk about them, too. Rather, for the purpose of correcting the false/BDS narrative, it’s important to lay the foundation properly to set the correct context for processing everything else.

JJ:
“I have sent him historical resources to be studied for the book.”

Feel free to share the table of predominantly primary sources I drew on.

Set against the raucous backdrop of the false/BDS narrative, it’s striking that the primary sources for OIF are straightforward. While there’s still room for speculation on the margins of the issue, the actual law and policy, fact basis for OIF is an uncomplicated fact pattern.
G6loq on October 17, 2015 at 12:56 pm said:

sloan Says:
October 17th, 2015 at 12:16 pm
Hurricane Katrina was a “local matter”?

Like a water main break or something?

Wow.
Wow!
It was a local matter. The Feds had to have authorization from the local authorities.
Stop Blaming Me for Hurricane Katrina.
They went after that guy with hatred and malice…
Eskyman on October 17, 2015 at 1:00 pm said:

Another “let’s kill the only man who can save the country” column from an otherwise intelligent person.

Bush’s comments after 9-11 about his great friends the Saudis, how Islam is a “religion of peace” is enough for me to dislike him intensely; then he let the Saudi family members fly off home when the rest of the country was in lockdown, was enough to make me hate him, or at least question his motives!

The Bush family, starting from Reagan’s VP until the present, have undermined this country and sold us down the river. If you don’t see that, to hell with you!

All the neocons, all the sellouts from NRO, RedState, all the supposedly “conservative” people, all of you can go p** up a rope before I will support or vote for any of those squishes that are bought and paid for by the uniparty Establishment; it’s probably already too late to save this country, we have way too much “diversity” already cutting our throats, but at least Donald Trump will seal the border!

I was so disgusted with the GOP, for never ever honoring their promises, that I left the party a year ago; but now I have re-registered with that pack of lying schemers, the GOP, just so that I can vote for and support Donald J. Trump, who will be our next President!

If he’s not elected- or if the dirty tricks of the Establishment manage to do him in- then I’ll sadly leave my country to join my kids in Australia; they are not free (they have no Bill of Rights) but they are more free than we are now!
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Patrick on October 17, 2015 at 1:02 pm said:

You make some good points, and I linked in:

http://thoughtsandrantings.com/2015/10/17/donald-trump-a-flip-flopper/

Good points, I just hope the media, especially Fox News is paying attention.
Eric on October 17, 2015 at 1:42 pm said:

Orson,

Regarding prominent Democrats like Reid, Kennedy, and Gore who have promoted the false/BDS narrative, it stands out that President Bush’s case against Saddam was really President Clinton’s case against Saddam.

Throughout his 2 terms, Clinton was preoccupied with the Saddam problem. He worked with Congress, including senior Democrats, to reinforce the law and policy to “bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations” (PL 105-235) as Saddam’s steadfast noncompliance “present[ed] clear and present danger to the stability of the Persian Gulf and the safety of people everywhere” (Clinton).

Featuring Clinton law and policy on Iraq is necessary to properly explain the reasons for OIF.
neo-neocon on October 17, 2015 at 1:45 pm said:

Eskyman:

Another comment (yours) that’s irrational and evinces a frightening hero/savior worship on the part of a Trump supporter.

Sure, by quoting Trump, I’m “killing” him. Hey, if you agree with what he said, support him—I’m not stopping you. And by all means, let’s protect him by being hush-hush about what he’s said and done in his life, his character and who he is.

Because he is actually our Savior, the anointed One, the only one who can Save Us.

By the way, he’s not the only one who will “seal the border.” Many of the other candidates have pledged to do so, as well. And if you belief Trump’s BS about Mexico paying for it, well, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn…

The only thing I’ve done in this post is to print and show what Trump has said. If you think that “kills” him, what does it say about Trump—or you?
blert on October 17, 2015 at 1:46 pm said:

Eskyman Says:
October 17th, 2015 at 1:00 pm

Another “let’s kill the only man who can save the country” column from an otherwise intelligent person.

Bush’s comments after 9-11 about his great friends the Saudis, how Islam is a “religion of peace” is enough for me to dislike him intensely; then he let the Saudi family members fly off home when the rest of the country was in lockdown, was enough to make me hate him, or at least question his motives!

We have a major malfuction here: Richard Clarke promoted his

Richard A. Clarke – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

book, and during that period grabbed the spotlight to proclaim that HE and he alone authorized the departure of the bin Laden clan. Further, he did so WITHOUT an consultation with the White House. He used his own high authority as the terrorism czar — being appointed by President CLINTON.

“On March 22, 2004, Clarke’s book, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror–What Really Happened (ISBN 0-7432-6024-4), was published. The book was critical of past and present Presidential administrations for the way they handled the war on terror both before and after September 11, 2001 but focused much of its criticism on Bush for failing to take sufficient action to protect the country in the elevated-threat period before the September 11, 2001 attacks and for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which Clarke feels greatly hampered the war on terror, and was a distraction from the real terrorists.”

His tome scapegoated Bush for the failings of Clinton. Of course.
neo-neocon on October 17, 2015 at 1:55 pm said:

G6loq:

Yes, sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s a spoof.

But the particular piece that Tonawanda cited and was taken in by should have been easily seen as a spoof. It wasn’t even close, and it takes someone suffering from BDS to not have seen that right away.

That’s my point.
Frog on October 17, 2015 at 1:55 pm said:

Sloan is a cretin.
Apparently he thinks morality, strategy, geopolitics, war are based on numbers, lives lost v. lives spared.
Said he, “And more Americans were sent to their death in Iraq, on his orders, than were killed on 9/11.”
I infer that if fewer Americans were killed in Iraq than on 9/11, he’d approve of the Iraq war.
He is a moral accountant. But numbers are just numbers, sloan. Accounting has no morals.
Life is not scored like high school football, sloan.
neo-neocon on October 17, 2015 at 2:07 pm said:

Kauf Buch:

It’s really, really interesting that you believe that writing a post that explains what Trump has said, in his own words, is “trashing” him.

I somehow missed the memo that I’m not allowed to write a post about a Republican candidate, showing readers what he or she has said and/or done.

And if you want to know who my choices are, do a little search on this blog and you’ll find out. I’ve written about it many times. But here, I’ll make your work easier. Originally it was Walker. But he dropped out, so now it’s either Cruz or Fiorina.
neo-neocon on October 17, 2015 at 2:12 pm said:

Abigail Adams:

I offered evidence for my position. I also discussed at some length why we will never know for sure. You (like vanderleun) merely assert there’s evidence for yours, but you neither offer it, link to it, nor discuss it.

Also, what about the actual content of the actual post? In other words, what do you think of what Trump said? The praise for Pelosi and advocacy of Bush’s impeachment? The parroting of the leftist “Bush lied” and “Bush is evil” mantras? If your support for Trump, a man who said that sort of thing over and over and over (as well as plenty more) rests on the idea that he’s the only one who can win, that’s a very slender and shaky reed indeed. Plus, I thought most conservatives hated the “electability” argument?
Kauf Buch on October 17, 2015 at 2:32 pm said:

NNC:

Cruz is nice…and has to-date shown near-zero chance of – much less interest in – clinching the Primary delegates needed for nomination. Sure, let’s see how the Primaries roll out, but….

That you would even *consider* FioRINO (https://www.conservativereview.com/2016-presidential-candidates) tells me much about your judgment. A rhetorical: Isn’t it time we all give up on the poison known as Identity Politics?!
*shudder*

No one’s suggesting you may not – on your own site! – write as you wish. Thanks for allowing dissenting points of view.
n.n on October 17, 2015 at 2:47 pm said:

Bush was indeed president during the 9/11 event. However, acknowledging this simple fact does not in itself assign responsibility. For one, Bush could not have known nor predicted that a systemic failure would enable the terrorists’ action to succeed. Bush could not have responded to prevent its success during the event. Bush did, however, respond after the fact to mitigate its recurrence.

The same is true for Hurricane Katrina, where original jurisdiction and incompetence were responsible for failure at the local and subsequently state levels. It was only after learning of the former, and with cooperation of state authorities, did the federal government intervene to salvage the situation.

Neither situation is comparable to the Benghazi event, the Eurasian-African humanitarian disaster, the subsequent anti-native push for dislocation, the construction of congruences (e.g. “=”) for selective exclusion, or the unprecedented human rights violation of pro-choice/abortion and Planning/cannibalism.
neo-neocon on October 17, 2015 at 3:04 pm said:

Kauf Buch:

Cruz isn’t “nice”–and if people like you supported him, he would have a chance to win. Yours is a circular argument. And yours is the old “electability” argument, as well, which conservatives used to reject. Interesting.

I’ve written at great length about Fiorina and why I support her. You can read whatever you want by doing a search for Fiorina at this blog. Trump supporters are all over the place spreading the word that she’s this, that, and the other thing, but their evidence is extremely weak tea. Since this has all been discussed in previous posts and especially in previous comments threads to those posts, I refer you to them.

And you haven’t responded to my point: how is writing what Trump himself has said “trashing” him? His own words indict him.
Ymarsakar on October 17, 2015 at 3:30 pm said:

You can’t tell what’s satire anymore without slowly reading.

You can’t tell that the quote from Bush was made up? It’s easy. Why? Because anyone that lived during Bush’s 2 terms or analyzed his speeches, informal or formal, knows very well that that is not the textual nature of how he writes or thinks.

I read 3 sentences and I could tell that this wasn’t from Bush II.

People are weak. That is why they desire Hero Kings to save them, from themselves. The issue isn’t Bush II being good or bad, failing or succeeding. The problem was always the people. Humans are broken. They will never learn.
Ymarsakar on October 17, 2015 at 3:35 pm said:

Sharon W Sloan is one of those “the science is settled” people. You can’t use dialectic to convince people who focus on rhetoric, the power of emotions.

If they believe a powerful pseudo god like the American President, because Bush II was in power, can save them from natural disasters, then that is what the pagans are going to believe. Against his rhetoric, one must use superior rhetoric. For example, most people like sloan are good at projecting and displacing responsibility, but have you ever seen how they themselves avoid taking responsibility for what happened on their jobs and tenures? It’s something you wouldn’t know, unless you dug deep rhetorically and historically, into the backgrounds of the sloans.
Ymarsakar on October 17, 2015 at 3:46 pm said:

“To be honest with you Oprah, Bin Laden wasn’t really on my radar,” he explained. “I was so focused on Saddam Hussein that I couldn’t see anything else. My CIA guys would come in and say ‘Bin Laden’s prepping an attack,’ ‘Bin Laden’s prepping an attack,’ and I was pretty much like ‘Whatever. What do you got on Saddam?’

“There was a general lack of awareness. I’m pretty sure Condi Rice didn’t even known who Bin Laden was. I had heard of him, but he sounded like more of a two-bit criminal to me so I didn’t take him seriously. And that malunderestimation (sic) really cost us as a nation.

“You know Bill Clinton made a lot of mistakes on Bin Laden, and I think he should apologize too. But I was at the wheel. It happened on my watch. I was warned. I didn’t listen. And I am sorry. I really am. I could have done more to prevent these tragedies.”

These are the “quotes” in the article that supposedly was from Bush II.

During Bush II’s era, people had some stories about how AQ and Iraq were connected in his mind, due to nuclear proliferation. He’d have a board of AQ leaders and they would cross them off every once in awhile when the leaders were captured or killed. Iraq never actually changed that part.

Bush II is noted for his dynastic loyalty to people who are loyal to him. For him to bad mouth Condi Rice on anything would be out of character. Any half way competent intel profilist or intel analyst would be able to make the same conclusion. Bush wouldn’t even call Diversity Casey in 2006 Iraq, a “McClellan” in response to a media reporter and in fact got angry about it and defended Casey.

People who are confident in their own independent judgments, don’t need Leaders, Presidents, or Heroic Savior Kings to tell us what we should be doing. We already know far better than those who think themselves superior, at the “top”.

The higher you go up in an organization, the less you know.
neo-neocon on October 17, 2015 at 3:55 pm said:

PatD:

Nice try, but no cigar.

Trump wasn’t playing 3-dimensional chess with his critiques of Bush that I’ve described in this post. Calling Bush “evil” back in 2008, and saying in 2007 that “Bush lied,” saying it would have been great had Bush been impeached, and praising Obama and saying he will govern by consensus—these of course were not designed recently to help him get elected with Democrats. Trump was not running for president at the time. His BDS goes way back, and is not just strategically designed to appeal in the 2016 campaign to Democrats. His Bush 9/11 remarks may be designed to have that effect, but they are real and seem to represent a deep belief system, which implies things about his own character. That’s the point of this post.

Oh, and as for helping his business, was every leftist thing he said, including things like “Bush is evil,” supposed to help his business? How would that help his business? And why would an aim of helping his business excuse it in any way? Ends justify means? Any old lie and libel is okay if it helps the business? Does that mean he can say anything he wants and supporters can excuse it as long as they argue (without any evidence) that it was to help his business?
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G6loq on October 17, 2015 at 6:59 pm said:

Ymarsakar Says:
October 17th, 2015 at 3:30 pm
You can’t tell what’s satire anymore without slowly reading.

You can’t tell that the quote from Bush was made up? It’s easy. Why? Because anyone that lived during Bush’s 2 terms or analyzed his speeches, informal or formal, knows very well that that is not the textual nature of how he writes or thinks.
Yo! Blog commenting is a terse medium. I am usually writing tongue in cheek …
Fact is most often you can’t be sure.
Doozies: could you have told right away?
“We Have to Pass the Bill So That You Can Find Out What Is In It”

George W Bush has described Bill Clinton as a ‘brother from another mother’

I have more such …

All this will end up with some serious ass kicking prison style.
G6loq on October 17, 2015 at 7:58 pm said:

Tonawanda call it!
Here:
Writing today in the Huffington Post, Jasmine Burton says that she broke down in tears after realizing that she is not as oppressed as other people in the United States.
Ymarsakar on October 17, 2015 at 10:54 pm said:

Doozies: could you have told right away?

There are some hard to tell ones, sure, such as from Duffelblog.

But Nancy PillowC has a certain profile, so expecting bird brain comments from her is not out of the ordinary.
neo-neocon on October 18, 2015 at 12:38 am said:

G6loq:

Reading a spoof article about someone you’ve never heard of is one thing. It’s much harder to tell about that.

But George W. Bush is a known quantity, and a spoof about him (unless very very gentle) shouldn’t take anyone in. The one that Tonawanda cited was an obvious spoof—not the way Bush talks or thinks. But it’s the way people who suffer from BDS believe Bush talks or thinks. So they are primed to miss the spoof aspects. And that should tell them that they are all too ready to believe the worst about Bush, even something preposterous.
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G6loq on October 18, 2015 at 1:51 pm said:

neo-neocon Says:
October 18th, 2015 at 12:38 am
G6loq:

Reading a spoof article about someone you’ve never heard of is one thing. It’s much harder to tell about that.
I should make my point clear … the data has gotten to be so chaotic that run-of-the-mill rational thinking doesn’t apply.at.all.anymore.
You can tell when you can’t tell satire at first glance.
In my days trading financial markets that’s when we would stop writing tickets and wait … till we understood the markets again.
We are in such times.
Cruz makes sense and is a substantial man.
Trump makes sense which makes no sense and he is a … substantial man… and so on.
We are in … 1939 I reckon.

Spoof?:
Why was Hillary saving documents from the G.W. Bush presidency written by SecState Powell on her private server?

Hyper rationality and literalness in these times lead to this:
How many Angels can dance on the point of a needle ?
The above fact checked by Snopes, a husband/wife team of fakes.
G6loq on October 18, 2015 at 2:07 pm said:

Ymarsakar Says:
October 17th, 2015 at 10:54 pm
Doozies: could you have told right away?

There are some hard to tell ones, sure, such as from Duffelblog.

But Nancy PillowC has a certain profile, so expecting bird brain comments from her is not out of the ordinary.
Yo!
Forget La Pelosi, if you would. Could you have told the Pelosi headline from a spoof at the time??
Of course by now we have been desensitized.

B-t-w, a great and unsung satirist: John Semmens
http://azconservative.org

Duffelblog is excellent as well.

Jokes and satire are in these times most telling about reality …
as in the old Soviet Union of lore ….

Won’t end well …. the reality:
See what these misunderstood young ones do daily.

Being too rational these days is being … precious.
G6loq on October 18, 2015 at 2:53 pm said:

Spoof?:
A former meerkat expert at London Zoo has been ordered to pay compensation to a monkey handler she attacked with a wine glass in a love spat over a llama-keeper.
A revolution is coming ….
The sooner the less bloody it’ll be.
Ymarsakar on October 18, 2015 at 4:23 pm said:

Could you have told the Pelosi headline from a spoof at the time??

What we’re discussing is not a headline but a set of quotes from Bush II in another article.

Unless you’re saying Tona just saw a headline of the article and didn’t read the article, even though he quoted the Article’s “quotes of Bush” II.

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A blog about political change, among other things

Bush Derangement Syndrome: left, right, and Trumpian

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