http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/12/bush_iraq_war_a_doover_i_cant.html you think !
That says it all. Bush no longer parrots the line that invading Iraq was worth it despite no WMDs, which is an admission it was NOT worth it. I wonder if right-wing kooks will continue living in their alternate reality or finally admit the same thing. I also wonder if Cheney, and lunatics like him, still believe that WMDs were moved to Syria before the invasion.
But his legacy is liberating Iraqis.... I don't know how this guy can sleep like a baby. Maybe Cheney had night terrors before he suffocated that weak and distant voice he called a soul. Bush on His Legacy: I 'Liberated' Iraqis President Says He Wants to Be Remembered for Liberating Iraqis and HIV/AIDS Work in Africa By JENNIFER PARKER Nov. 28, 2008 — In a personal and wide-ranging interview conducted by his sister about his legacy, his faith and the influence of his father, President George W. Bush said he hopes to be remembered as a liberator of the Iraqi people. "I'd like to be a president [known] as somebody who liberated 50 million people and helped achieve peace," Bush told his sister, Dorothy Bush Koch, in a conversation recorded for the oral-history organization StoryCorps for the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. An excerpt of the interview was aired on National Public Radio Thursday, and the White House released additional excerpts with both the president and first lady Laura Bush today. "I would like to be a person remembered as a person who, first and foremost, did not sell his soul in order to accommodate the political process," Bush said, according to White House excerpts. "I came to Washington with a set of values, and I'm leaving with the same set of values. And I darn sure wasn't going to sacrifice those values; that I was a president that had to make tough choices and was willing to make them," he said. Bush is ending his eight-year presidency with historically low public approval ratings, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a dire economic crisis. The president told his sister he is proud of the "tough decisions" he made. "I surrounded myself with good people," Bush said. "I carefully considered the advice of smart, capable people and made tough decisions." Bush: No Child Left Behind a Significant Achievement Bush said his No Child Left Behind policy, which has been widely criticized by educators as too focused on test scores, is one of his significant achievements. "I think the No Child Left Behind Act is one of the significant achievements of my administration because we said loud and clear to educators, parents and children that we expect the best for every child, that we believe every child can learn, and that in return for Federal money we expect there to be an accountability system in place to determine whether every child is learning to read, write, and add and subtract," he said. Laura Bush: 'I Worry About Afghanistan' Bush said because of his administration's No Child Left Behind policy, the "achievement gap" between white children and African-American and Latinos is "narrowing." "The promise of No Child Left Behind has been fulfilled," Bush said. Asked how he would like to be remembered, Bush said he wants to be known as a president "that focused on individuals rather than process; that rallied people to serve their neighbor; that led an effort to help relieve HIV/AIDS and malaria on places like the continent of Africa; that helped elderly people get prescription drugs and Medicare as a part of the basic package; that came to Washington, D.C., with a set of political statements and worked as hard as I possibly could to do what I told the American people I would do." First lady Laura Bush, who seemed to gain more confidence in recent years to speak out on foreign policy issues she cares about, said her most rewarding work was on behalf of women in Afghanistan. "It's certainly been very rewarding to look at Afghanistan and both know that the president and the United States military liberated women there; that women and girls can be in school now; that women can walk outside their doors without a male escort," the first lady said, according to White House excerpts. "I worry about Afghanistan, but I will always have a special place in my heart for the women that I've met there," she said. "I think as we look all around the Middle East, we'll see that women can be the ones who really lead the freedom movement, and that American women are standing so strongly, I think, with the women in Afghanistan and other places." Asked by his sister to describe the influence their parents had on him, Bush said, "I think that the gift our dad gave to all of us is unconditional love. It is the greatest gift a father can give a child. And it has made life so much easier in many ways, because if you have the ultimate gift of love, then the difficulties of life can be easier handled. And to me that is a great gift." Bush: I've Been in the Bible Every Day of My Presidency Heaping praise on his father, former President George H.W. Bush, the president said, "He also taught me -- and I think you and Jeb and Neil and Marvin -- that you can go into politics with a set of values and you don't have to sell your soul once you're in the political system. And you can come out with the same set of values." Bush, who is a born-again Christian, spoke about the role his faith has played in his presidency. "I've been in the Bible every day since I've been the president, and I have been affected by peoples' prayers a lot. I have found that faith is comforting, faith is strengthening, faith has been important," Bush said. "I would advise politicians, however, to be careful about faith in the public arena," he said. "In other words, politicians should not be judgmental people based upon their faith. They should recognize -- as least I have recognized I am a lowly sinner seeking redemption, and therefore have been very careful about saying [accept] my faith or you're bad. In other words, if you don't accept what I believe, you're a bad person. And the greatness of America -- it really is -- is that you can worship or not worship and be equally American. And it doesn't matter how you choose to worship; you're equally American. And it's very important for any President to jealously protect, guard, and strengthen that freedom." Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures
I don't know whether to be angry or sad. That regret led to the deaths of more than 4,000 Americans and who knows how many Iraqis not to forget all of those injured and all of the resources that could've gone to something else. I really hope Iraq ends up being a peaceful democracy because this all started from a terrible and tragic mistake compounded by the arrogant self-righteousness of Bush and the men who counseled him.
In terms of presidential accomplishments, Bush is way up there... how many can say they crippled the foundation of the capitalist system, destroyed a century of foreign policy efforts by both parties, wrecked the functionality of government, betrayed the Founders' ideas, and intentionally damaged the Constitutional foundations of the Republic? That doesn't just happen. He was a president who accomplished big things.
In fairness, I've been reading more into the Bretton Woods II and its relation to subprime, and I get the impression that the nasty credit crisis would have happened in some form sooner or later even without Bush. We designed the system so that the US could run up large account deficits financed by foreign reserves and sovereign funds. As interest rates became super cheap our corporations began running up large debts financed by foreign parties as well. Sure, there was blind ideological idiocy, but to put the entire blame on him would be to hold other presidents to ridiculous standards.
bro u know that there are a good amount of people that think bush was a good president and that obama will be far worse than bush. muhahahhahahaha... fools! there all fools.
obama will continue bush's agenda and blame all the things that 'go wrong' in his administration on Bush's administration. Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. -Albert Einstein
i swear to god there was an audio ad in one of the sites i went to that played this interview... it was like one of those "hello congratulations you won blahb lahb lah..." but it was bush... creeped me out!
he didnt say he wouldnt do it, just that he cant do it over and that he wasnt ready. but i still strongly believe that WMDs were just a loophole used to get there for more long term and strategic purposes.
Bush will never admit invading was a mistake. He isn't big enough to do that and it would blow any faint hope of a legacy to smithereens. It would also unleash a torrent of anger from across the political spectrum. IMO, for him to lament the bad intel about WMDs is tantamount to an admission he would have done something different. Here is where I cut the catastrophic disaster of a president some slack. I truly think he believed WMDs were in Iraq. The intel was sketchy but based on Saddam's behavior, they assumed he HAD to have them even if it couldn't be proven beyond a doubt. I have no reason to give Bush the benefit here, but in this case, I believe him. The flaw was being in too big a hurry and not accepting that the intel wasn't conclusive.
My issue is that even if you legitimately believed saddam had wmd, he hadn't used a wmd since the first gulf war. but alas, time to deal with the present.
There's a saying in Texas, fool me once...shame on you, fool me again, well you can't get fooled again.
hopefully our state representatives can congratulate his 8 years of honorable service by naming hobby airport on his behalf. =/
