The WaPo and the Bush legacy

"Others inside and outside the [Bush] administration, however, say the upbeat talk masks disappointment and frustration among many White House staffers, who believe Bush's reputation has been unfairly maligned for a series of

calamities

-- from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to the financial crisis -- that were beyond his control and which he handled well."

 

It makes me angry to hear the attacks of September 11 2001 referred to as merely a "calamity".

Is that how you all remember those attacks, and refer to them now, as a "calamity"? As if that's what you thought when you witnessed (real time or after, on video) and heard of those 3,000 Americans murdered on that morning: you thought "my oh my, what a calamity this is!" 

Is that what you thought and felt on and about 9/11?

Not me. I did not then, nor do I now or at any time ever since, think of the murders of 3,000 Americans in a single morning, to be merely a calamity. 

It makes me angry to hear the attacks of September 11 2001 referred to or otherwise remembered that way. Also, in that context, to hear that members of the Bush administration are engaged in "upbeat talks" to apparently mask their true "disappointment and frustration" that George W. Bush is being "unfairly maligned" at this stage of his Presidency: that talk and those particular words also anger me.

If I made a list of "calamities" during the Bush administration, would I have thought to put the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 in the top ten of such a list?

Obviously not. My anger at the thought of calling those 3,000 murders of Americans a mere "calamity" would preclude 9/11 from such a list of mine, and instead I would list those murders with any and all others things that caused the loss of American lives during the Bush administration: like the 'falsified intelligence-driven' invasion and occupation of IRAQ...

Was IRAQ a "calamity" also?

Are members of the Bush administration, and George W. Bush himself, masking their frustration and disapppointment that they and he have been unfairly maligned for IRAQ, and for the deaths of more than 4,000 U.S. Troops there?

 

I think rightous anger to be a good thing to feel and have, along with a proper sense of JUSTICE, a good memory, and a careful and correct use of words, when you express your anger, and speak of JUSTICE, and remember the 3,000 Americans murdered on the morning of September 11 2001, in addition to remembering the more than 4,000 American Troops sacrificed in an invasion and occupation of IRAQ.

I'm not even entirely sure of what exact sense is supposed to be expressed, in the use of the particular word "calamity": as the first thing that actually comes to my mind at the hearing of that word, is the frontierswoman and Indian fighter and companion of Bill Hockok's, "Calamity Jane".

But not the attacks of September 11 2001, or even IRAQ.

Never.

 

My values don't change either.

"But in general, I don't think Bush's reputation has been "maligned" by 9/11. It's been maligned by everything that happened after 9/11."

Oh, come on.  Without 9/11 and the utterly irrational and and unwarranted lionization Bush received for standing on a pile of rubble and talking tough shortly afterwards, he would have lost the 2004 election by 15 points.   

    

 

Preventing attacks like 9/11 is the only thing that republicans think government should do. And it failed at it more spectacularly than has ever been seen in American history.

For that, Bush's approval went to 90% and he got another term.

Hey, failure works in financial circles too.

---Was IRAQ a "calamity" also?

 

For GWB, Iraq was a self-inflicted wound.