Bush Is Exploiting 9/11 For Political Ends, Treating It Like Any Other Issue,

[wilheim]

I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I hear the president and vice president slamming <ALT-CODE idsrc="nyt-per-pol" value="Kerry, John F" />John Kerry for saying that he hopes America can eventually get back to a place where "terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance." The idea that <ALT-CODE idsrc="nyt-per-pol" value="Bush, George W" />President Bush and Mr. Cheney would declare such a statement to be proof that Mr. Kerry is unfit to lead actually says more about them than Mr. Kerry. Excuse me, I don't know about you, but I dream of going back to the days when terrorism was just a nuisance in our lives.

If I have a choice, I prefer not to live the rest of my life with the difference between a good day and bad day being whether Homeland Security tells me it is "code red" or "code orange" outside. To get inside the Washington office of the International Monetary Fund the other day, I had to show my ID, wait for an escort and fill out a one-page form about myself and my visit. I told my host: "Look, I don't want a loan. I just want an interview." Somewhere along the way we've gone over the top and lost our balance.

That's why Mr. Kerry was actually touching something many Americans are worried about - that this war on terrorism is transforming us and our society, when it was supposed to be about uprooting the terrorists and transforming their societies.

The Bush team's responses to Mr. Kerry's musings are revealing because they go to the very heart of how much this administration has become addicted to 9/11. The president has exploited the terrorism issue for political ends - trying to make it into another wedge issue like abortion, guns or gay rights - to rally the Republican base and push his own political agenda. But it is precisely this exploitation of 9/11 that has gotten him and the country off-track, because it has not only created a wedge between Republicans and Democrats, it's also created a wedge between America and the rest of the world, between America and its own historical identity, and between the president and common sense.

By exploiting the emotions around 9/11, Mr. Bush took a far-right agenda on taxes, the environment and social issues - for which he had no electoral mandate - and drove it into a 9/12 world. In doing so, Mr. Bush made himself the most divisive and polarizing president in modern history.

By using 9/11 to justify launching a war in Iraq without U.N. support, Mr. Bush also created a huge wedge between America and the rest of the world. I sympathize with the president when he says he would never have gotten a U.N. consensus for a strategy of trying to get at the roots of terrorism by reshaping the Arab-Muslim regimes that foster it - starting with Iraq.

But in politicizing 9/11, Mr. Bush drove a wedge between himself and common sense when it came to implementing his Iraq strategy. After failing to find any W.M.D. in Iraq, he became so dependent on justifying the Iraq war as the response to 9/11 - a campaign to bring freedom and democracy to the Arab-Muslim world - that he refused to see reality in Iraq. The president seemed to be saying to himself, "Something so good and right as getting rid of Saddam can't possibly be going so wrong." Long after it was obvious to anyone who visited Iraq that we never had enough troops there to establish order, Mr. Bush simply ignored reality. When pressed on Iraq, he sought cover behind 9/11 and how it required "tough decisions" - as if the tough decision to go to war in Iraq, in the name of 9/11, should make him immune to criticism over how he conducted the war.

Lastly, politicizing 9/11 put a wedge between us and our history. The Bush team has turned this country into "The United States of Fighting Terrorism." "Bush only seems able to express our anger, not our hopes," said the Mideast expert Stephen P. Cohen. "His whole focus is on an America whose role in the world is to negate the negation of the terrorists. But America has always been about the affirmation of something positive. That is missing today. Beyond Afghanistan, they've been much better at destruction than construction."

I wish Mr. Kerry were better able to articulate how America is going to get its groove back. But the point he was raising about wanting to put terrorism back into perspective is correct. I want a president who can one day restore Sept. 11th to its rightful place on the calendar: as the day after Sept. 10th and before Sept. 12th. I do not want it to become a day that defines us. Because ultimately Sept. 11th is about them - the bad guys - not about us. We're about the Fourth of July.

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[royalfan]

More liberal spinning of an idiotic choice of words by Kerry. Another dumb post. What a dubious hat trick. As good as you are at moderating your political thoughts are ludicrous.

 

[kayaman+]

royalfanny,


Why don't you come up with something original to say or go away?

This chasing Wilheim around saying spin, spin, spin is getting boring.

 

[mudbone]

I read that article by Thomas Friedman. Never has an Administration so shamelessly exploited tragedy for political gain. And the fact of the matter is they were largely responsible for it due to laziness, apathy and ineptitude.

First, my year old challenge to all the Bush supporters to this date has still remained unanswered. If Bush and his gang are the ones to be trusted in fighting the so-called "War on Terror" why did he never mention the war on terror, al-qaeda and osama bin laden prior to 9/11? ...for instance in the 2000 campaign. Find me one quote prior to 9/11, just one.

Why did he hire an Attorney General who told the Director of the FBI in the summer of 2001 that he didn't want to hear any more about terror threats.

Why didn't he interrupt his month long vacation in Crawford, Texas when the President's Daily Briefing Report during that period warned him that Al-qaeda planned attacks on US soil?

Why did his Administration ignore Richard Clarke's repeated pleas for a meeting to underscore the threat of an attack inside the United States until August (8 months after he assumed office) and then only attended at the Undersecretary level.

Call me messed up but from my 4 year experience in the Marine Corps, I believe in their leadership principles. A commander is responsible for everything his unit does or fails to do. Like Harry Truman, the buck stops here.

Oh, and here's a bonus question for all you Repubs out there. While most Republican pundits and politicians were criticizing Clinton's authorization of a missile launch to take out Bin Laden, plz name one Republican who publicly supported it at the time. Thanks for playing.

 

[Shotgun]

First, my year old challenge to all the Bush supporters to this date has still remained unanswered. If Bush and his gang are the ones to be trusted in fighting the so-called "War on Terror" why did he never mention the war on terror, al-qaeda and osama bin laden prior to 9/11? ...for instance in the 2000 campaign. Find me one quote prior to 9/11, just one.


Call me messed up but from my 4 year experience in the Marine Corps, I believe in their leadership principles. A commander is responsible for everything his unit does or fails to do. Like Harry Truman, the buck stops here.

Oh, and here's a bonus question for all you Repubs out there. While most Republican pundits and politicians were criticizing Clinton's authorization of a missile launch to take out Bin Laden, plz name one Republican who publicly supported it at the time. Thanks for playing.

Mud, you might find some of the answers in the 9-11 report. Condi Rice was quoted on a Detroit radio before the 2000 elections talking about Bin Ladens threat; both the Bush and Clinton administration believed that talking about Bin Laden in the public gave him prestige in the Arab world and helped his cause far more than damaging it.

As for your comments regarding Clinton's missile launch, here is a recap from 1998:

"In addition to its constitutional backing, Congress also provided broad political support to Clinton. The vast majority of members, including nearly all of Clinton's harshest critics in the Republican Party, stood behind the president, including House majority leader Dick Armey of Texas and House minority whip Tom DeLay of Texas, who had frequently displayed profound partisan differences with the president. Senator Lott called the strikes "appropriate and just."[48] To help solidify support for the president, Speaker Gingrich made a conference call to senior Republicans, urging them not to criticize Clinton. Gingrich also delegated one of his closest Washington political consultants, Rich Galen, to contact all major conservative media critics of the president, urging them not to negatively spin the issue.[49]

Among Republicans in the Senate, two notable exceptions existed. Sens. Dan Coats of Indiana and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania suggested that the president might be using the military to divert the public's attention from his considerable domestic political troubles with Monica Lewinsky. Recognizing that Coats and Specter posed a political threat to the administration, senior administration officials immediately began briefing in closed meetings all members of Congress who sought further information on the decision to bomb. Hours after their initial criticism, Coats and Specter had rethought their position and sided with the president. On August 21, only one day after the attack, Coats noted, "There does seem to be credible evidence to suggest that targeting an Usama Bin Laden terrorist training site was necessary."[50]

 

[cussin'it]

Wil you should be nominated for the annual RX Nobel Prize for the best Op-Ed!:awesom:

I agree with the crux of your argument. I find that detailed analysis of the motives of the "shrub" crew are pointless.

It seems very simple to me....most politicians are by nature opportunists. This current neocon crowd gives new definition to the meaning. They not only take advantage of it, they fabricate it.

The whole thing is about power and wresting it away from those where the real power originates, the populus. The reason is obvious....to serve their masters....the elite and exercise control over us. This crew takes the cake when it comes to elitism, unrivaled by no other administration in history.

This troupe of incompetants has betrayed those ideals that represent "republicanism" and should be banished as enemies of the State.
:finger:

 

[mudbone]

Shot,

Thanks for your response. I have to admit based on your post I can see that not all of Repubs were so blatantly critical of Clinton on the "wag the dog" accusations engendered by Republican pols or pundits.

However, because Condi Rice brought up Bin Laden on a Detroit radio program, it still does not answer why Bush himself never brought it up prior to 9/11. As an aside, this is the same Condi Rice who along with Colin Powell in 2001 were quoted as basically saying saddam was no threat, correct?

All of my other points still unanswered....

 

[wilheim]

Condi Rice's actual qoute that she gave to David Newman on WJR radio in Detroit in October 2000, the month before George W. Bush was elected president. In that interview, Rice said:


"Osama bin Laden… Do two things, the first is you really have to get the intelligence agencies better organized to deal with the terrorist threat to the United States itself. One of the problems that we have is a kind of split responsibility, of course, between the CIA in the foreign intelligence and the FBI in domestic intelligence. There needs to be better cooperation because we don’t want to wake up one day and find out that Osama bin Laden has been successful on our own territory…"

Knowing what she obviously knew before the fact only makes one wonder why the Bush adminstration was cought with it's pants down on 9/11 2001.


wil.

 

[Sonny2003]

More liberal spinning of an idiotic choice of words by Kerry. Another dumb post. What a dubious hat trick. As good as you are at moderating your political thoughts are ludicrous.

Yea, well I would rather read Wilhelms's posts. His are facts.Maybe you like Gameface's posts better. His are moronic. Of course, The gamer's posts do make me laugh.