But the author makes an excellent point. While president Bush allowed the leftists to overwhelmingly fill the vacuum by NEVER responding to the increasingly shrill and absurd caterwauling. This clearly damaged Bush, Conservatives, and the Republican brand. Silence equaled acceptance of the left’s false narrative.
Fast forward. Bush has some residual responsibility to the GOP and Conservatives to not allow the leftists to continue to fill the vacuum with ongoing lies about his (our) record. Bush ongoing silence is a measure of disrespect for all of us who fought for him and defended him, and he continue to refuse to defend himself, and by extension, us!
For at least two years before the Iraq surge, W's public and political effort to be a war leader were beyond pitiful, and almost invisible.
W allowed the anti-war, GOP hating, Hard Left MSM to literally dictate a false and hopeless perception of how things were going, and that seriously impacted GOP election results in 2006.
W's inexcusable silence also motivated our Islamic enemies to continue fighting, which cost the lives of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of American soldiers.
The “strong silent war leader” may be a hero in dictatorships or works of fiction.
But in a free country where the Hard Left MSM sets the agenda and the terms of debate, the silence of George W. Bush has been an unmitigated catastrophe.