The conventional narrative told by antiwar critics is that the Bush administration told itself (and the American public) a story it wanted to believe, to justify war on Iraq, engaging in a massive — and massively consequential — episode of confirmation bias. That is bad, but it is not the same thing as deliberately lying for the sake of starting a war.
And oddly enough, instead of letting Jeb carry the anchor of his brother’s administration in that debate, Rubio stupidly volunteered to do it for him. “I just want to say, at least on behalf of me and my family, I thank God all the time that it was George W. Bush in the White House on 9/11 and not Al Gore,” said Rubio. This got a wildly enthusiastic response from the partisan Republicans in the hall.
.. And by the way, to the extent that Bernie Sanders lays into Hillary Clinton for the sins of the Democrats in doing Wall Street’s bidding under her husband’s presidency and beyond, he is serving a similar constructively destructive role in his party.
Maureen Dowd: Escape From Bushworld
When Poppy Bush ran against Bill Clinton, he simply assumed that the public would not choose a draft-dodging womanizer over him. “His ambient reality was that a president was above all a figure of dignity and decorum,” Bush senior biographer Jon Meacham said. “Clinton went on Arsenio Hall. Bush 41 probably thought Arsenio Hall was a building at Andover.”
.. Despite all the talk about civility, the Bushes threw out the red meat whenever they had to, from Lee Atwater and Willie Horton in ’88 to W.’s supporters whispering in 2000 that John McCain came home from Hanoi with snakes in his head, to the W. 2004 campaign strategy of encouraging gay marriage ballot initiatives to rile up the evangelicals, to Jeb spending a fortune on ads this winter eviscerating the character of the man he deemed the disloyal protégé, Marco Rubio.
.. Trump stunned everyone by pointing out the obvious: W. and Condi were not on the ball before 9/11, when W. was mountain-biking and ignoring memos headlined, as Bill Maher drily put it, “Osama bin Laden is standing right behind you.” Then, after 9/11, they played right into Osama’s recruiting plans by invading and occupying two Muslim countries, instead of simply going after the guilty party, as W. had promised to do when he yelled through the bullhorn at ground zero.
.. The country is now aflame with anger and disgust about politicians and bankers who conned trusting Americans and never got punished for it. That fury has led to the rise of wildly improbable candidates in both parties. As the Bush dynasty falls, it must watch in horror knowing that it is responsible for the rise of Donald Trump.
Five Big Questions After the Harshest G.O.P. Debate Yet
Voters haven’t flocked to him because they’re deeply familiar with, or woefully ignorant about, his political history. They’re responding to him in a larger and more visceral way: as the megaphone for their disgust with the status quo and frustration with America’s trajectory. They thrill to his braggadocio, and he gave them more of it on Saturday night. They look to him precisely for bad behavior. On this front, too, he didn’t disappoint.
.. Rubio lined up with him: “I thank God all the time it was George W. Bush in the White House on 9/11 and not Al Gore.”
Hit by Sanders over Wall Street Ties, Clinton Invokes 9/11 Attacks
“Why, over her political career, has Wall Street been a major campaign contributor to Hillary Clinton?” the Vermont senator asked. “Maybe they’re dumb, and they don’t know what they’re going to get. But I don’t think so.” “There has never been a candidate — never — who has received huge amounts of money from oil, from coal, from Wall Street, from the military-industrial complex, not one candidate is like, ‘Oh, these campaign contributions have not influenced me, I’m going to be independent,’” Sanders said. “Why do they make millions of dollars of campaign contributions? They expect to get something. Everybody knows that.”
.. Sanders — who has refused donations from large corporations and super PACs — said Clinton’s Wall Street support explains why she’s unwilling to carve up the largest banks or reinstate the limits imposed by Glass-Steagall. “I’m not asking Wall Street for money,” he said. “I WILL break up these banks.” Accusing Sanders of “impugn[ing her] integrity,” Clinton tried to defend herself. “I represented New York, and I represented New York on 9/11,” she said, referring to her time in the U.S. Senate. “When we were attacked, where were we attacked? We were attacked on downtown Manhattan, where Wall Street is.
“I did spend a whole lot of time and effort helping them rebuild,” she explained. “That was good for New York, it was good for the economy, and it was a way to rebuke the terrorists that had attacked our country.”