Filed under "stand by your man."
According to an AP report this morning, Laura Bush was a guest on FOX News Sunday, where she responded to criticism that George's reign was an abysmal failure as follows:
In an interview aired Sunday on Fox News Sunday, Mrs. Bush says she knows her husband's eight years in office was not a failure, and says she doesn't feel as if she needs to respond to people who view it that way.
"I know you are, but what am I!" Her response would impress my seven-year old.
The departing first lady went on to peddle the meme that we've been safe from attack since 9/11. Of course, 9/11 itself, the subsequent anthrax attacks, US casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan (both private and military), US citizens killed abroad in terrorist attacks as recently as Mumbai and Americans killed because the Bush administration helped fumble the Katrina response--all that aside according to Dr. Bush.
She keeps pouring it on, though. She also cites Bush's contributions to liberating the people of Afghanistan and Iraq from oppressive governments. Um, Dr. Bush, you might want to check your facts. It appears your assessment of American liberationism is a bit premature--this freedom you boast of includes (but is by no means limited to):
- Increased presence of repressive Islamic law (now with limb removals!)
- Militant commanders serving as self-appointed "governors"
- Taxes forced at gunpoint and poor families coerced into quartering troops (how American!)
- Replacing science in schools with religious study and other forms of Bush-doctrine inspired talibanization.
The AP explains:
The Taliban has long operated its own shadow government in the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan, but its power is now spreading north to the doorstep of Kabul, according to Associated Press interviews with a dozen government officials, analysts, Taliban commanders and Afghan villagers. More than seven years after the U.S.-led invasion, the Islamic militia is attempting — at least in name — to reconstitute the government by which it ruled Afghanistan in the late 1990s.
Over the past year in Wardak province alone, Taliban fighters have taken over district centers, set up checkpoints on rural highways and captured Afghan soldiers. The Taliban in Wardak has its own governor and military chief, its own pseudo-court system and its own religious leaders who act as judges. Bands of armed militants in beat-up trucks cruise the countryside, dispensing their own justice against accused spies and thieves.
I will not be posting the transcript of Laura's interview once it becomes available.