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Sat 10 Apr, 2004 12:01 pm
Now, those who know me best know that I disagree with Bush on most things and even partially disagree with him over Iraq.
But I don't like this trend of democrats now insisting that the Bush Administration is in any way to blame for 9/11.
If you want to disagree with Iraq, if you want to argue that Iraq is distracting us from this war on terror, is making it harder to get the international support needed to pull it off, fueling the flames of terrorists, was launched into too rapidly, or taking resources better spent in Afganistan or the US, then sure, you're entitled to that belief.
But 9/11 was not Bush's fault. (Neither was it Clintons or anyone elses but the terrorists).
Even if Bush wanted to, he would have had a very hard time going after Al Queda before 9/11 happened. Most people never heard of them and even fewer though they could've pulled something like 9/11 off. If he had so many trobule going into Iraq despite the widespread though now unsubstantiated belief that they had WMDs, what chance did he have to launch a war against a rag tag terrorist group that no one here has heard much about.
Even if the FBI and CIA knew that they might be planning an attack in the US back in August (and they didn't, all they had was one report out of hundreds that said they might be planning something), what were they supposed to do? Shut down all airports for the rest of the year? Tracking down a couple of potential terrorists in a nation of almost 300 million isn't easy, no matter how many FBI agents were on the hunt. And how exactly is the FBI and CIA failing Bush's fault?
Now if you want to argue that Bush could've tried harder, maintained closer ties and stronger bond with the agencies, fine. If you want to argue that Bush shouldn't be running on his National Security record because he really hasn't achieved much (except go into Afganistan as any president would have done after 9/11 (only to cut resources from securing it to go into Iraq), start a quagmire in Iraq, and create the Homeland Department that he initially opposed and would've been made by any president after 9/11), then you have an arguement.
But even if he had done all that, 9/11 or some other similar tragedy would've happened. And trying to find a scapegoat to blame it on isn't helping anything.
I don't think it's even helping us boot the fundamentalist christians out of the white house. The American people are usually smart enough to recongnize a witch hunt when they see one (the Martha Stewart trial being an obvious exception). If democrats want to win them over, they should talk about the stuff the Bush really did screw up.
His fiscally irresponsible budgets, his fundamentalist stances, his support for the Texas law that allowed the police to arrest two consenting homosexual adults for having sex in the privacy of their own home, the secret energy meeting, his close ties to corporate interests and lobbies, his funding cuts from his own No Child Left Behind policy and other education bills, from job training programs, his opposition to medicinal marijuana even for the critically and terminally ill, cuts from state funding forcing them to hike college tuitions, his essential black mailing of states saying that they won't recieve funding till they adopt his idiotic christian based principles against stem cell research, family planning and an almost endless list of other critical screwups.
This is the stuff that many Americans disagree with him on. People already made up their minds on Iraq and 9/11. Lets focus on the stuff that we can actually convince them on. If more people were aware of all the research documenting just how effective medicinal marijuana is and how badly the critically ill need it, if they were aware of just how deep bush's corporate lobby ties and religious stances go, they would boot him in a heart beat.
While I don't agree with Centroles on a lot of stuff posted here, I do wholeheartedly agree that the ones to blame here are the terrorists themselves and not Clinton, Bush, or anybody else who could not possibly have envisioned 9/11 before it happened.
One reason why I think this is valid criticism is because Bush has been specifically and overtly running on how WELL he handled 9/11. He hasn't been saying, "Well, we did our best, but our best wasn't good enough." He hasn't been saying, "I just kinda followed the policies that were there and succeeded in not completely freaking out." He's putting flags and coffins and firefighters in commercials and saying how WELL he handled it.
He needs to be called on that.
What choice does he have Soz? His opposition is trying hard to pin 9/11 on him. People will generally figure the truth to be somewhere in the "middle" of all the rhetoric, so its common sense his campaign manager will present the other extreme in hopes of getting the "middle" across the threshold. Both sides are, as they have always done, trying to present the facts in the best possible light for their perspective sides, in hopes of swaying the vote. Right or wrong; it's reality.
That goes both ways -- if he is going to claim the good stuff about 9/11, he has to claim the bad stuff, too.
I realize this topic is about blaming, but I see most of it not blame per se but assigning responsibility where responsibility is due. Could Bush have prevented it? Who knows, and I don't think it is a pressing question. Did he handle it (prelude and aftermath) especially well? My answer is a resounding "no", based on information already out there and the information that continues to come out, and I think that is a very pertinent question given that it is a platform upon which he is running.
Facts
Bushco is is responsible for allowing 911 to happen. To frame the question was the Pres. to blame for 911 is a slanted question. Of course, he was not to blame because the men that carried out this attack are to blame.
Bushco and the FBI knew there were Al Q. cells in the US. They knew that Al Q. had bombed an Embassy and blew a hole in the SS Cole. Al Q. were warning that they would attack within the US. Al Q. had announced a plan to strike a Genoa meeting where GW Bush was going to be with a plane as a missle. The concept of striking buildings with a highjacked plane was not an unknown concept. Ms. Rice was negligent in her job and so was GW Bush. The Al Q. personnel were in the US illegaly and should have been aprehended with all the vigour that the Govt. could have mustered. Bushco was responsible for protecting the USA and they failed to do so.
I'm not willing to let the politicians off the hook for dropping the ball on terrorism which allowed 9/11 to happen going back to Reagan. The CIA abortive attempt to assassinate a Muslim cleric lit the fuse and since then it seems they believe it could be put out by waving a feather at it.
But how disingenuous is it to pin 9/11 on Bush who had eight months in office at the time 9/11 happened and let Clinton off the hook who had all the exact same information Bush had and had eight years to fix it and didn't? All the attacks prior to 9/11 happened in the Clinton administration.
No president in history even had all their appointments made in the first eight months, much less had time to implement a lot of policy.
To say that Bush is flaunting 9/11 now is also disingenuous. A couple of very fleeting frames in a couple of ads is not flaunting it nor saying that it was handled well. It happened on his watch and it is part of what he has had to deal with. He is as justified in using that as Kerry is justified in saying he was a Vietnam vet 40 years ago or saying waht legislation he has introduced or voted for during his time in Congress. They are allowed to quote their records in campaign ads.
I haven't ever heard Bush pat himself on the back for that. I have heard him praise the firefighters and other brave people on the front lines in that horrible incident.
I just don't get this irrational, overwhelming, obsessive hatred of GWB. It makes absolutely no sense to me.
And to blame him for 9/11 is just plain dumb and I'm sure thrills the terrorists who are doing everything in their power to undermine Bush, undermine the U.S. government, and turn the people against everything American.
Er...who is letting Clinton off the hook? Clinton ahs receieved just as much criticism as Bush. The difference seems to be that Clinton was aware of the problem, and considered terrorism a priority. Bush did not. Bush hid with his head in his butt and concentrated on "important" things like faith based initiatives, tax cuts, missle defence against the Soviet Union, and planning to invade Iraq.
Any perceived failure of Bush to address what happened on 9/11 is not the only reason he is not liked by the 50% of the population the polls reveal. I don't hate him personally but I'm not impressed by-and-large by what he has done in office. That's not to say that I am seldom impressed by politicians on either side of the fence who are mainly second rate lawyers.
I think you guys might be missing the point here. Every President with an inkling of historical knowledge since FDR was aware that airplanes could be used as weapons. When you hear of one of a thousand threats that someone is going to do it again, what do you do? Do you ground the planes? Do you round up the "potential" enemies and take them to Guantanamo Bay? I mean, even if you just put an alert on national television, you would do tremendous damage to the economy. If you did it for every threat; it would be constant and therefore have no effect at all. And even if their crystal ball told them this was the one time to do it; do you really think we could stop a suicide-murder? Does anybody think it couldn't happen again tomorrow? Do you have a plan that would prevent it? Until you can come up with a feasible plan to stop a 9-11 from occurring tomorrow, it is hyper-partisan thinking to blame the commander in chief (any of them) for letting it happen yesterday.
Setting my own politics aside: The right's praise for Bush's leadership through this tragedy and the left's condemnation for failing to prevent it are simply opposite sides of the same hyper-partisan coin. As Centroles pointed out, there are plenty of valid reasons to bash Bush. This just isn't one of them.
couldn't have said it better myself bill.
Looks like these poll results mirror all the polls showing 2/3rds of Americans believe Bush didn't do enough to prepare for an al-Qaida attack, as well as 2/3rds who believe Bush is hiding something.
A larger percentage believes there's an invisible man who lives in the sky who's writing down all the good and bad things they do. Popular opinion doesn't prove anything.
I apologize if that offends anyone. I don't have anything against your God, I just think George Carlin is hilarious.
Facts
Popular opinion doesn't mean a damn thing but Facts are there to warrent a "real" investigation of Bushco. If the former Regime failed in their duties that does not excuse Bushco in their failures.The present Regime are accountable for their actions and non-actions. Bushco failed in protecting America and failed on the day of the 911 Attacks.
I've never blamed Bush for 9/11. I don't even think he was negligent in the prevention of it. My beef with Bush is lying about Iraq.
Rememebr, lying doesn't matter becasue the Iraqis are now "free."
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