BLAME BUSH ALERT!!! Leftist editorialist tries to connect GWB to the Chicago nightclub tragedy.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch ^ | Feb. 23, 2003

[Missouri]

>>What really burns me is that we all know if Bush offered no words of warning that he'd be blamed for not informing the American people on what they have the right to know. Damned if you do....<<



Very well said.
Welcome to the Free Republic.

[Sonny M]

Do you remember the monday night football game in Washington between the redskins and eagles? Some people got a little rowdy and security used pepper spray. It got down towards the fields, where some of the players said they smelled it and walked onto the field. The referee got on the mic and said "be calm, an unknown substance has been sprayed". This sounds like a recipe for disaster right? There was concern, but no riot, no stampede, no insanity, no one was hurt or killed. What do you think?

[7 x 77]

And here I was thinking that here was a problem that could not possibly be blamed on Republicans.

[Sparta]

That column was disgusting. You can critize Bush, you can even oppose the war against Iraq if you want, but it's irresponsible to blame Bush and compare Iraq to the nightclub fire.

[Sparta]

Well ... after the hatchet job Gebhardt did on Bush this morning on MTP, the word is definately out - the new talking point is - Bush is not up to the job.

Where in the Hell was Little Dick during 9/11?

[Hadean]

Very well said. Welcome to the Free Republic.

Thank you.

[Texas Eagle]

Pitts: "Bush seems to think he is channeling Gary Cooper in "High Noon," or Sylvester Stallone as Rambo."

I think Mr. Pitts is channeling Miss Cleo.

[Wil H]

I already expressed surprise that Jesse Jackson hadn't tried this stunt the night of the fire..

check out my comment at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/845134/posts?page=28#28 you will see it pre-dates the press rantings.

[Libertina]

Why didn't you post the entire article? It cannot be archived if it is not posted. It seems like a good one to post and is not from one of the two prohibited sources.

[Wil H]

According to CNN, club patrons were panicked by screams that the melee was a terrorist strike and that the pepper spray was poison gas.

That is a total fabrication by CNN, no-one made any reference to terrorism at the scene, or the morning after.

[Missouri]

in news



Jittery nation spurred Chicago tragedy as much as pepper spray
Leonard Pitts Copyright the Miami Herald
02/22/2003 10:48 AM



I don't mean to discount the fact that dozens of people were injured and that 21 of them died.

But for all the talk about Monday's stampede at a Chicago nightclub, about the fight that started it, the use of pepper spray that reportedly exacerbated it, and the legal actions already growing out of it, one detail - minor, but telling - has largely escaped comment.

According to CNN, club patrons were panicked by screams that the melee was a terrorist strike and that the pepper spray was poison gas.

If anything better illustrates the state of the union, I don't know what it could be. Unless maybe it's all those empty hardware store shelves where duct tape used to be.

We are, to put it plainly, jittery. Jittery about the prospect of terror attack. Jittery about the probability of war.

I'm not convinced that President George W. Bush fully appreciates the implications of that. I'm not convinced that he can.

In the days just after Sept. 11, 2001, the thing that appealed to me about Bush was the fact that he is a simple man. And I don't mean that as a synonym for stupid. I refer, rather, to his tendency to see the world in stark, moralistic tones. Us and them. Good and evil. Right and wrong.

He provided a needed antidote to the endless hand-wringing and moral equivocation some people embraced during that time. When Bush drew a line in the sand in a speech before a joint session of Congress, 10 days after the terrorist attacks, I all but stood up and cheered my television. I thought - still think - it was one of the great presidential orations of all time, a jolt of verbal adrenalin for a nation badly in need of it.

The problem is that the tendency toward the simple that served the president well as a cheerleader for the nation ill suits him for the more complex and more challenging task of leading that nation into a war it's not sure it wants to fight, or needs to.

Americans have never shirked when called to necessary wars. For that matter, we haven't shirked some of the unnecessary ones. So you'd think the fact that a nation so recently wounded is conspicuously reluctant to follow him down the road to conflict would tell the president something.

But the president is not listening. For months now, Bush has sounded one note in response to the country's refusal to dance to the drums of war. That note is determination.

Determination is often a good thing, the very wellspring of perseverance.

There is, however, a fine line between perseverance and mulish inflexibility. Bush is over it.

His reply to millions of people who took to the streets to rally for peace last weekend was classic - and telling. He dismissed them out of hand.

Bush seems to think he is channeling Gary Cooper in "High Noon," or Sylvester Stallone as Rambo.

Either way, the president somehow has missed a central lesson of Lyndon Johnson's presidency: In a free nation, the consent and support of the people are crucial to the waging of war. Take them into a sustained and morally muddy conflict without their blessing, and you risk social upheaval on a massive scale. Especially if the casualties begin to mount.

Last weekend's massive demonstrations were only a taste of what might become routine.

And last Monday's stampede? A signpost. A metaphor for life in a nervous nation.

We are dancing in darkness on the edge of tragedy. And, quite literally, we are scared to death.

Copyright the Miami Herald

E-mail: lpittsherald.com

[Missouri]

>>is not from one of the two prohibited sources.<<


I've only been at the Free Republic for about three months and heard about the legalities of a full post.
BTW what are the two prohibited sources?