In last week’s Republican presidential primary debate, an absolute gem was buried beneath about three hours of policy-thin and rhetoric-heavy discussion, and it came from consensus establishment front-runner Jeb Bush.
In a spar with Donald Trump, Jeb Bush said, without the slightest hint of irony, that his brother’s administration “kept us safe,” without a challenge from Trump and to the delightful applause of the audience.
Wait, what? The George W. Bush who assumed office in January of 2001, which came 9 months before September of 2001, right? The one who showed up to Katrina late? The one who sent the military to Iraq? That guy?
The worst incident of terrorism to ever occur on U.S. soil happened despite several different warnings of an “imminent attack” from the the intelligence community, and a serious candidate for the office of president processes this information and comes to the conclusion that those who ignored those warnings “kept us safe?”
In fact, every major presidential candidate since 2004 has reached this conclusion, as has nearly every senator and congressman/congresswoman, at least publicly.
This isn’t to say the attacks were 100 percent on George W. Bush, of course, because Al-Qaeda was funded and supported by other administrations in their formative years, and there is no defending terrorism, after all.
Still, what a bizarre administration to cite when invoking national security prowess.
Yeah, Americans aren’t at a particular risk of dying in a terrorist attack — you’re many times more likely to meet your death on the wrong end of a handgun or in a car accident, for instance — but no Republican is going to minimize the threat of terrorism in these terms.
The second Bush administration certainly didn’t undersell the threat of terrorism when they sent troops to Iraq, who had nothing to do with 9/11, and over 4,000 Americans did not return alive, which is more than who died in the terrorist attacks themselves.
As far as influence and coalition-building as a route to increasing national security, the second Bush administration left the U.S. with a precipitous drop in favorability among Western European nations, according to a survey of citizens in these countries by the Pew Research Center.
This includes favored coalition partners like Great Britain and Germany, who both went from about 80 percent with favorable views towards the U.S.government in 2000 to 53 percent and 31 percent, respectively, by 2008.
The US had very little help or approval from the international community in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, unlike the First Gulf War, when the operation was conducted with the approval of the largest military coalition since WWII.
The stubbornness of the administration, once it was clear there were no weapons of mass destruction, further eroded credibility, according to the aforementioned poll, since the numbers declined through 2008.
And yet, somehow, in the minds of our Republican politicians, the U.S. during the Bush years was a stronger and safer country relative to today. And one with more credibility, to boot.
It was enough to make you dizzy, watching it unfold live, especially when you still couldn’t figure out why these mental gymnastics were taking place in front of an airplane in a combination library/hangar somewhere in California.
At some point in the second or third hour you start to hope to see people in the airplane, because it suddenly firing up and taking off right then and there would have made more sense than the noise coming out of the television.
