Posted on 02/15/2016 7:30:15 PM PST by Timmy
Donald Trump, the leading candidate for the Republican nomination for president, claims in Saturday night's debate that the most recent Republican president, George W. Bush, knowingly and purposefully lied us into war in Iraq.
President Bush's brother, Jeb Bush, briefly defends his brother the president but quickly turns his defense into a complaint that he's tired of Donald Trump criticizing his mother and his family. Jeb is apparently too wounded to be outraged.
George W. Bush shows up to campaign for his brother two days later in South Carolina and chooses not to directly address the charge. George W. Bush is apparently too post-presidential to be outraged.
Dick Cheney is asked about Trump's comment on Fox, and explains the Bush administration had the same intelligence as others around the world. Asked if he could support Trump were Trump to win the nomination, Cheney reiterates that he's always said he would support the Republican nominee. Cheney is apparently too loyal a Republican to be outraged.
If George W. Bush and Dick Cheney - and Colin Powell and Condi Rice and all the others accused by Donald Trump of lying us into war - aren't going to be outraged, others aren't going to be outraged on their behalf. So John Kasich decides it would hurt his image as a positive unifier if he were to be outraged. So Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, who had moments of authentic outrage Saturday night, go back to sniping at each other rather than sustaining their outrage.
Once upon a time we had leaders who would have expressed their outrage at such a slander. They would have demanded evidence from Trump to back up his charge. Receiving none, they would have denounced and excoriated him. They would have explained to the American people how extraordinarily irresponsible his slander was, and would have done their best to discredit a man who could behave so irresponsibly. They would have pronounced him unfit to be president of the United States, and they would have mobilized their friends, supporters and admirers to ensure so appalling an eventuality didn't come to pass. They would have been scorned by some for doing so, and they would have worn that scorn as a badge of honor.
We apparently no longer live in such a time.
Agreed.
Billy is sad : (
Shut up, Cuck.
It doesn't take a political genius to know that attacking the Bush family in 2016 is good politics. Any presidential candidate with that last name would lose this election to a bag of sh!t.
Nobody wants to defend George W. Bush on Iraq because it was an unmitigated disaster. Jeb Bush is finding out what Lyndon Johnson was facing in 1968 when he realized that the Vietnam War destroyed his political career.
Published in 1998.
I love that Ben Carson is still in.........It would be magical if Cruz lost when Carson wins.........I would say that would be great karma.
Yes, agreed.
Kristol is a fool.
Remember this:
I see there are no predictions in this piece.
Carson would be a disaster and you know it....you just hate Cruz.
Bill Kristol is one of the neocon con-artists that sold us on the war.
We’ve realized it was a mistake, he hasn’t.
We apparently no longer live in such a time.
We live in the Age of Obama. A time when sniveling beltway careerist “conservatives” like Bill Kristol sip cocktails in rooftop bars while Democrats burn this country to the ground. He’s the last person to be lecturing to anybody about anything.
Well I’m not surprised. GWB didn’t even defend himself when he was president. Which is a big reason why we are in the mess we are in today.
Kristol represents the worst of the RNC GOPe.
As Billy carps on Trump every day for four years, I look forward to Trump telling the little pipsqueak exactly what he thinks of him.
It will be exactly what I think of him too.
Yes, where has been the outrage over Krystal’s complicity with the Leftist MSM?
Bill Kristol with the prototype neocon view of the world.
Frankly, outrage is getting passe. Who isn’t outraged? Women, blacks, whites, gays, socialists, you name it, everyone wants to write op-eds and march in the streets. We are not entitled to outrage just because someone expresses a differing view or even a critical view. Sometimes the high road is to quietly wait for a future moment to move the conversation to a better level, when one has an idea to offer, instead of just whining outrage.
I think everyone gets it that Bill Kristol really, really, really does not like Trump.
He’s cried wolf too much. When there is an actual somewhat legitimate complaint against Trump no one is available to listen because Kristol and his crew have tried every little angle they can possibly conjure up to bash Trump (and his supporters).
Even if you don’t agree with Trump on this one, you have to know that there are lots of people who were less than happy with the whole Iraq thing on the grounds that .. well, if Saddam was such a threat, why was no one else very worried about him? Why were the other countries in the Middle East so complacent? There was no real sense of urgency there among people who were within actual chemical weapon range of Iraq. They did not seem all that worried. Plus all the bad blood over there and multiple sides wishing we would settle their tribal and religious scores.
There is plenty of room for second guessing what was done without having to trash Bush. Trump, as everyone knows, doesn’t pull his punches.
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