Saturday, December 20, 2008

Shoes and Praise

It’s a good thing I wasn’t in Carlisle the other day when President Bush visited there. There might have been another shoe throwing incident like the one that occurred in Iraq recently. Mr. Bush told the crowd there that he is proud that another attack like September 11 hasn’t occurred during his Presidency. The vile attacks that day were conducted by terrorists mostly from Saudi Arabia and trained in Afghanistan. Bush and his crowd responded by insisting that we had to retaliate immediately, not at Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan or even against the terrorists themselves, but by taking out a tinpot dictator who had nothing to do with 9/11. Even Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction turned out to be so much thin air. When people like Gen. Shinseki asked how much this adventure might cost, or how many troops we needed, or why it was even a good idea, they were called delusional defeatists. Bush bought off the rich by giving them tax cuts and the religious right by supporting their campaigns of terror and marginalization. Now we’re reaping the fruits of this folly. We’re stuck in a foolish war against the wrong enemy. Bush’s policies have played into the hands of Muslim extremists and marginalized the moderate voices there. Rather than building up surpluses in the good times to use in the hard times we are now in, his policies have resulted in record deficits.

We should be grateful to the brave men and women who have fought terrorism and perhaps kept them at bay over the last seven years. But Mr. Bush and his Administration should get no praise. Better keep your head down, sir. The shoes will keep coming.

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