Eric Altermann, writing at
HuffingtonPost today is concerned that, now that Rumsfeld has been fired, the pundits are trying to place all the blame for everything that has gone wrong in Iraq on Rumsfeld, not on "the Decider":
The Los Angeles Times' neocon pundit, Max Boot, makes only glancing reference to the president in this attack on Rumsfeld's leadership in Iraq. Ditto Newsweek's John Barry and Michael Hirsh, who wrote an entire column which referenced President Bush as if he were a Rumsfeld aide who assisted with war plans, but was rarely close enough to the action to affect the situation in a meaningful way. "Historians will probably argue for decades," they wrote, "over who gets most of the blame for the mistakes made in Iraq.
But goodness, we can't blame George for the nasty war, just ask his mother.
I recall reading that when the president's brother, Neil, was sued by a government banking agency for violations of his fiduciary duties as a Board member of the corrupt and defunct Silverado Savings and Loan, his mother defended him by saying that Neil had always been slow as a child and had learning disabilities, so he really hadn't understood what was going on with the bank's affairs.
The government found, however, that Neil had an "ethical disability". Thanks, no doubt, to his father's sub mesa presidential influence, Neil was only banned from banking for life and let off with a $50,000 fine. His "ethical disability" cost U.S. taxpayers a billion dollars.
I'm sure Mother Bush will be on the witness stand someday soon reading from the exact same script when she testifies at the Nuremberg War Crimes trial about her other slow child, George: "That's why we put Condi and Dick up there with him, everyone knows George doesn't understand anything about Geneva Treaties, war crimes or constitutions. Why should he bother his beautiful mind with complicated things like that?"
George's "ethical disabilities" have cost the deaths and maiming of more than 20,000 American soldiers and have cost U.S. taxpayers almost a trillion dollars.
George has cost the poor Iraqis their whole country, all their oil revenues and upwards of half a million lives.
But don't blame poor George. He is not responsible. It must be genetic.