Why Donald Trump's vicious attack on George W. Bush was so brutally effective — and brilliant

The Week ^ | February 14, 2016 Th | James Poulos

[entropy12]

Can you name any country in Muslim middle-east where democracy is flourishing?

And by the way, the largest democracy in the world by population, India, got there without any external intervention. And that is why after almost 70 years, democracy is flourishing in India.

When people in middle-east are ready for democracy, it will take place internally. Democracy should not be forced fed.

[entropy12]

With one major difference. Germany and Japan are not Muslim countries. Islam and democracy can not co-exist in their purest form.

[bankwalker]

You can not. That is why we need strategic thinkers and not knee jerk neocons.

OK then. Less than a year before 9/11 happened, we voters were given a choice, Bush or Gore. We almost got Gore. You go with what ya got, not with 20/20 hindsight. Do you wish we had Gore instead?

[nathanbedford]

Both the author and Donald Trump are attempting to manipulate us with words. The author selects the adjective "foolish" and Donald Trump chooses the noun "competence." Both studiously avoid the word "ideology" to describe the failings of the Bush administration and, not incidentally, the Clinton and Obama administrations. They avoid any reference to ideology because they do not want us going there.

There is really no difference between calling our national leaders "fools" or calling them "incompetents" and you do so because you want to divert attention away from ideology especially your own ideology, or lack of coherent ideology.

Consider the team that George W. Bush put together at the commencement of his administration: they were all tested, all luminaries, all extraordinarily successful men who were universally applauded in Republican circles and in many Democrats venues as well. These men were not stupid, clearly they were not fools, they were to borrow a phrase from David Halberstam, "all the best and brightest" much like the team put together by John F. Kennedy which got us deeply into Vietnam under Lyndon B. Johnson.

Today we conservatives criticize the conduct of the Vietnam war because Lyndon Johnson placed too many restrictions on the military in a failed attempt to prevent the war overwhelming his domestic policy. We criticize George Bush's conduct of the war in Iraq because he capitulated on spending domestically in order to keep the Iraq war alive. The war also ruined his administration.

How does "ideology" apply? The paleo conservative has a ready answer, tend to your own garden, said Voltaire.

Enter Donald Trump who is certainly no paleo conservative, indeed he is no conservative at all. But he is courting conservative votes so he does not want you to know that he has already turned left and will turn father left as his grasp on the nomination closes. He miscalculated just before the vote in Iowa and began his left turn a little too early but his victory in New Hampshire which confirmed polling and his walkaway lead in the polls in South Carolina have convinced Trump that he clearly has the nomination within easy reach. Accordingly, he has begun to court the left and he has not been at all discreet about showing leg to the Democrats and worse, he has brazenly attacked Republicans and other conservatives in the last debate calling, without any evidence whatsoever George Bush a liar and Ted Cruz a worse liar. His ego is so large that he believes he can blow through all these ideological traps and snares by the power of his personality so long as he keeps talking about "competence."

So Donald Trump in the debate tells us that George Bush is a liar and that he, Donald Trump, alone stood against the war in Vietnam. The problem is all the available evidence is that Trump is lying once again. He boasted that he could produce fifty exemplars in writing of his opposition to the war. He has produced none. He later recanted and said that he was not an elected politician so all his pronunciatmentos were not written down.

Trump does not attack Barack Obama for the neo-communist he is. Likewise, he praises and contributes to the political fortunes of the communist mayor DeBlasio. Immediately upon learning that Barak Obama commenced his political career in the apartment of William Ayres, we conservatives knew he was a radical leftist and probably a communist. Donald Trump has evaded effective criticism for his renegade ideology because he invites no inquiry into ideology. He tells us that if a man knows how to bribe a politician, secure government financing, obtain buildable section of property, connive with crooked union bosses, hire cheap illegal immigrant labor, he can build a building and make a billion dollar empire and, if he miscalculates, he can bankrupt the bad deals. So good is Donald Trump in causing conservatives to divert their eyes from his biography to his shiny objects that a whole segment of desperate conservatives have been seduced.

Call your adversaries "incompetent" or "liars," call them anything except "conservative" and a desperate electorate yearning for the restoration of that Shining City on the Hill will eagerly open themselves to the selection of a new Huey Long, a demagogue who will seduce conservatives by telling them what they want to hear. George Bush and the Congressional Republicans betrayed conservatism after they got elected and took office. Donald Trump is betraying conservatives even before he gets their nomination.

[armydawg505]

Nope. Not so.

[entropy12]

I never said I wanted Gore.
Bush was definitely better than Gore.

Problem was Bush was not a strategic thinker.
He had no in depth knowledge of radical Islam.

You know what was really stupid? Our country borrowed
$2 TRILLION to fight the Iraq war! It is one thing to
act like a world police when there is money in the treasury.

But to initiate foreign military adventures with a bankrupt treasury
is how most superpowers in history have met their demise.

[entropy12]

If Bush-43 is your idea of a conservative, please spare me from more Bushes.

[DiogenesLamp]

And by the way, the largest democracy in the world by population, India, got there without any external intervention.

You don't think the several hundred years of British Occupation/Control had any impact on their development?

Here's British General Charles James Napier's contribution to the democratization of India.:)

"Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs."

I will also point out that India is not primarily Muslim. That's because the Muslim invasions of India killed around 100 million Hindus until people finally woke up and started fighting them with everything they muster.

[douginthearmy]

Iraq was not a mistake.

The initial invasion was not a mistake. Most things from then out were, including dissolving the army and giving them the right to vote before giving them clean water and trash services.

Iraqis have been living in hell for many years and it is our fault. For me, part of being a conservative is personal responsibility. We took out their government and we should have protected their people. Instead thousands have been murdered and worse. You can blame liberals for making our prosecution of the war more difficult than it should have been and you can blame Obama for pulling out early. But Bush invaded and he had a responsibility to win the peace not just the first 100 days.

And even if you say to hell with the Iraqis, creating a playground for terrorists does not make us safer in the long run.

[nathanbedford]

I think I said George Bush and the Congressional Republicans betrayed conservatism after they got elected and took office.

[Political Junkie Too]

With control of Saudi and Kuwait oil, he would have even had those Euroweenies on his side.

Have people forgotten the United Nations Oil for Food scam, where countries like France (via Total Oil) were funneling oil money to Saddam?

-PJ

[Future Snake Eater]

They would have promptly acquired another strong man dictator to run that nation. The difference being, he would not mess with us anymore, nor would he mess with any of our interests.

I like it. Bush and Rummy never in a million years would've gone for it, though. After all, we spread freedom, period--right?.

[Political Junkie Too]

And by the way, the largest democracy in the world by population, India, got there without any external intervention. And that is why after almost 70 years, democracy is flourishing in India.

Do you mean after the modernization by the English East India Company and the transition from British to self rule after World War l? I'm no history buff of India, but that sounds a little "external" to me... but I could be wrong on this.

-PJ

[DiogenesLamp]

Have people forgotten the United Nations Oil for Food scam, where countries like France (via Total Oil) were funneling oil money to Saddam?

Exactly. With control of Saudi and Kuwait oil, the problem would have been much worse.

[Jay Thomas]

So you think Trump wants Israel destroyed, to help set up the Muslim brotherhood and support Hamas?

[novemberslady]

I just can’t wait until Donald Trump starts verbally beating the shit out of the Clintons for not doing anything for eight years to prevent the attacks on September 11 2001.

[entropy12]

Gandhi was the Indian leader who was responsible for the non-violent protest movement for making the British to relinquish their crown jewel colony, India, and liberate India as free and sovereign country. That was back in 1947.

The British were exhausted from fighting WWII and had no will and energy left to fight the Indians clamoring for independence.

The Muslims in India demanded they wanted their own country, so British colony India was divided into India and Pakistan. The areas with most concentration of Muslims became Pakistan, and actually had 2 separate regions, west Pak & East Pak. Later on the East Pakistanis broke away and called themselves Bangladesh.

[Alberta's Child]

And those terms weren't malleable?

When you sign an agreement the terms are not malleable unless both parties agree to tear the old one up.

Iraq really would have stood in the way if our administration felt the job wasn't done and the region wasn't ready to stand on its own?

If the job wasn't done by 2010 it was never going to be done. Actually, the U.S. had every reason to get the hell out of there for the same reason it never should have been there in the first place: you couldn't find six people in Washington and Baghdad (combined) who could agree on what exactly "done" even meant.

It's amazing how quickly we forget the lessons of Vietnam.

[Alberta's Child]

That's not exactly correct. I don't expect George W. Bush to land in Iraq as part of an invading force. But this country is run by people who would convert to Islam and bow to Mecca five times a day before they would even dream of having anyone within five branches on their family tree serve in the military.

A nation that allows Ivy League @ssholes to mold its foreign policy and direct its military campaigns isn't likely to last for very long.

[dead]