In his new memoir, Republican strategist Karl “Turdblossom” Rove, a master of the obvious, notes notes that the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq badly damaged the Bush administration’s credibility and led to dwindling public support for the war. Rove also calls the 2003 invasion of Iraq the most consequential act of the Bush presidency and a justifiable response to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, despite the fact that al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden, not Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, were responsible for the attacks. Rove also asserts history will look favorably on Bush’s two terms in office, and he says many of the controversies that weakened George W. Bush’s presidency were falsehoods perpetuated by political opponents. In his memoir, Rove also defends the Bush administration’s handling of the response to Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans, blaming Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin for the botched response.
It shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone that Karl Rove is defending his former boss’s honor and reputation, but I’m willing to bet history won’t view George W. Bush’s presidency as anything but a failure, because not one single good thing came from Bush’s eight years in office.
So you’re saying Iraq was a better place with Saddam Hussein and his two boys in charge. Wow.
Terry, I’m saying Saddam Hussein had no connection to 9/11, as was asserted by the Bush administration.
What’s more, the Iraq conflict has ended up becoming a boondoggle, both from a financial standpoint and a strategic standpoint.
And Charles Manson’s image was really tarnished by that whole “Helter Skelter” thing.
Other than that, I hear Charlie was a heck of a guy!
“because not one single good thing came from Bush’s eight years in office”
This your summary. So you’re saying Iraq was a better place with Saddam Hussein and his two boys in charge.
Bush and his administration never sold the Iraq war on the grounds that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11. It was sold on a world belief, at the time, that Iraq had WMD. Remember Hans Blix? Maybe you could explain your choice of the word asserted.
Bush liberated 25 million Iraqi’s. Yes the jury is still out but like him or not, to say nothing good came out of his administration is just plain ignorant.
No Terry, I’m saying the Iraq war isn’t a “good thing,” especially to the tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of Iraqi citizens who’ve been killed since the beginning of the Iraq war.
I’m also saying the Iraq war isn’t a “good thing” because we’ve wasted over $900 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars there – money that could have been better spent (or saved) here at home.
Oh, and as to your comment that GWB never sold the Iraq war on the connection between Saddam and 9/11, you might want to check this link out.
Just think, we could have used that 900 million to fund all the programs to assist those that would prefer not to work in our country. That sounds like a more valuable option then liberating a country from a dictator who ruled with fear for decades.
Please explain your quote “good thing”.
“Good thing” meaning something he did that improved life for folks here in America.
You are saying Iraq was better off under Saddam and his boys then it is now. Wow!
No, we’ve already had that discussion.
Though I don’t like the specifics of no-child-left-behind, I did appreciate the increased focus on a federal interest in advancing early education.
Amusingly enough, while I like some of the ideas of NCLB (accountability & requiring results to continue to earn funding and making more of the federal funds discretionary so that schools could use them where they wanted instead of forcing them on specific issues for example) in general terms I didn’t care for it. It represented the single biggest expansion of the federal government into K-12 education in history. I’m by no means against education spending – to wit it is one of the best ways tax dollars can be spent – but I prefer the funding and control of those dollars be local.
And TerryN, I’d love to hear your withdrawal of the no-hussein-9/11-link argument.
Simple logic concludes that if you say, “not one single good thing” came from GWB’s Presidency then you believe Saddam Hussein and his boys ran Iraq better than those who are running it today. You may think you had this discussion but you did not answer this simple question.
Jim, I know of no statements from GWB that Saddam was tied to 9/11. As I recall he said they had WMD and then gave them six months to hide it. Feel free to enlighten me but remember that GWB was also a politician just like the current occupant of the White House who campaigned on ending our wars, closing Gitmo, not using public money….
Hi Terry:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/06/15/bush.alqaeda/index.html
Well, Terry. You sure know how to light a fire.
Your implication that Iraq is better today than it was under Saddam Hussein is the silliest comparison I ever heard.
Shall we begin with the 1 million refugees that have fled Iraq? Shall we talk about the suffering for eight years with electricity that ran a few hours each day until the US rebuilt the power plants they destroyed? Shall we talk about the citizens that were shot because they came upon American truck convoys and ran roadblocks on their way to hospitals?
You can fool some yahoos with your silly comparison but not very many here.
I don’t care how much money was spent in Iraq but every time an Iraqi woman weeps for her dead son or daughter as a result of “our liberation’ I say we screwed up. I don’t believe the human cost of this war is over yet.
It was a hoorible nightmare for most Iraqi’s that we occupied their country for the past 8 years. Jobs lost, education thwarted, broken families, dead sons and daughters, and all of this that you attribute to George Bush is a good thing in Iraq according to you.
If eight years of misery, death, and impoverishment is a good thing then you must be unhinged.
Soon after we leave, the politicide will begin. Tribal conflicts will arise. Then we will learn that a strong man like Saddam Hussein was the only way to govern this line-in-the-sand country. If only we had had the good sense to divide the country along tribal boundaries there may have been hope for peace. But we didn’t.
Terry, you are mistaken if you think this was a good war. History will show that America would not accept a regional competitor to Israel. History will show this was imperial hubris on our part. History will show that knocking out Saddam Hussein strengthened Iran’s position in the Middle East. There is no overall good from George Bush’s war porn fantasy. None.
I think you’re wrong. An absolute statement like that almost always. But I don’t feel any urge to both thinking about examples to prove you wrong, except to say that from your perspective, the Democrats taking control of both houses of Congress would be a good thing – and you’d have give credit to Bush’s Presidency for that.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100306/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran
PB, Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad likely agrees with you. Nice ally you have.
That was a snide comment, Rich. Maybe you should read what you have linked. Afghanistan is not Iraq. Perhaps you would benefit from a reading comprehension class and a geography class.
PB, Not snide. But I don’t blame you one bit for feeling that way since I hear that the TRUTH hurts.
OBTW, It’s one War on Terror with Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. And President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has that correct but apparently YOU don’t. Perhaps it’s YOU that would benefit from a comprehension class.
Oh, Good Lord. You should really stop writing about Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq never associated with Al-Qaeda like Afghanistan’s Taliban and Iraq was not part of the 9/11 attack on the US. There were no WMDs in Iraq either.
I can already hear the responses to the source of this, but I’ll do it anyway. 🙂
1) Iraq under Hussein was not heavily involved with al-Qaeda per se. This is correct.
2) Iraq under Hussein did house multiple terrorist training facilities, including one found by the US Marines near Baghdad (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,84291,00.html and http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=14747)
Agree or not with the war in Iraq, there were votes to approve the action in congress that passed with many Dem votes.
You can argue after the fact the quality of the intelligence, but the truth is we couldn’t have that argument without the actions in Iraq.
Logically, if the Bush admin was using a false pretense to invade, they would have likely manufactured evidence that supported the false pretense. Fortunately, they did not do anything of the sort, and suffered the Monday morning quarterbacking that resulted.
I didn’t agree with Clinton’s use of force in all cases, but once the decision was made, the time for debating it ended for me and I pushed for victory.
In my opinion, we can disagree violently (not literally, of course) before troops are sent, but when there are boots on the ground, the time for that ends and we need to get together and bring them home in victory, no matter who the President may be.
For example, I am 100% in support of President Obama regarding the Afghan surge, and only want victory, even if it makes him look better than my politics would prefer.
The US is bigger than any one administration, and overseas combat is about the US, not the current President.
Just my $.02.
We completely agree on Afghanistan and we should root out those snake nests wherever we find them.