This Sunday May 1st it will be eight years since then-President George W. Bush made what is called an arrested landing (aircraft caught, stopped by tailhook and cable) on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. Several hours later the huge carrier was maneuvered into the setting sun for perfect camera lighting so he could be filmed making his speech. Standing below a banner declaring Mission Accomplished Bush declared major combat operations in the Iraqi war were over.
He and his team had started a war and now he declared it was over.
The Nation’s Greg Mitchell has some of the gushing quotes heaped on the boy king by the fawning media. Here’s two that capture the insanity well:
Maureen Dowd in her column declared: "Out bounded the cocky, rule-breaking, daredevil flyboy, a man navigating the Highway to the Danger Zone, out along the edges where he was born to be, the further on the edge, the hotter the intensity.
Chris Matthews on MSNBC called Bush a "hero" and boomed, "He won the war. He was an effective commander. Everybody recognizes that, I believe, except a few critics." He added: "Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It's simple."
Mitchell also writes:
When Bush's jet landed on the aircraft carrier, American casualties stood at 139 killed and 542 wounded. That was over 4000 U.S. fatalities ago, and hundreds of thousands Iraqis.
it is with great sadness that we have to say “I told you so.”
I particularly like your little inset photo. It captures Bush in full pugnacious simian mode.
It seems we adamantly refuse to remember and learn from history — even recent history — and are determined to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. Einstein was the one who defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.” Sadly, that’s exactly how this country operates, regardless of what flavor of delusional ego happens to be driving the clown car of “leadership.”
And so, our leaders remain compelled to blunder off and do tragic things they should know full well are bound to fail at the cost of money and lives, while your average American either refuses to gain the necessary understanding to object when that happens — or they have the understanding, but let other “arguments” (patriotism, fear, religion) override the instinct to protest the stupidity as it unfolds.
That Bush could walk away from the disaster that was the Iraq war without so much as a slap on the wrist was a tragic disservice to civilization; that Obama could get the Nobel Peace Prize simply for smiling broadly and saying nice things, only to pick up where Bush left off, starting his very own little disaster in Libya, tells us that the willful ignorance of history and its lessons is perhaps a global phenomenon.
W managed to sully 2 great holidays– he issued his final ultimatum on St. Patrick’s Day and he turned May Day into Mission Accomplished Day. Ugh