He made a big point in his joint Congress speech to say that the "9/11 terrorists are cowards".
That made no sense to me. They were brave to commit suicide by hijacking the plane and ramming it into the Towers.
They were fanatics, yes, but not cowards.
And this was the time that Trump was questioning Bush's judgement about preparing to go to war.
This never made sense to me. In that sense, Bush was a cowboy -- a dangerous cowboy with our foreign policy, and carelessness over American soldiers' lives.
He was just smack talking the enemy. I guess you never played sports.
They were fanatics, yes, but not cowards.
I didn't really think so either, but it was a way of reproaching and shaming the terrorists, and so many Americans agreed with it, that it's not hard to understand why Bush said it.
It isn’t uncommon for those who commit suicide to be called cowards. Ask any psychoanalyst (not that I agree with them). Bush, still wet behind the ears, had no clue what he was saying at the time. He was only attempting to avoid the ‘deer in the headlights’ look; which in his case was unavoidable.
As to the cowboy reference - perhaps that superimposes his image with that of Ronald Reagan, although there is certainly a difference between the two.