I AM CONFUSED! WHEN DID 9/11 HAPPEN?

For about two weeks now, starting with the former President Bush himself, the nation has been treated to one of the most shameful attempts at spin that I can remember. The Bush legacy say, Bush, Rove, and a host of other Bush defenders on the news and talk shows includes the protecting the country from further terrorist attacks following 9/11. But, if my memory serves me right, 9/11 actually happened during the Bush administration. Am I not remembering correctly. So, Madoff would be hero of the nation for not stealing everyody else's money.

This is how President Bush will be remembered.

1. 9/11 - worst terrorist attack on US soil takes place on Bush "watch" - plot went totally undetected by Bush security aparatus
2. Bush continues reading a book for 15 minutes to children after hearing of 9/11 tragedy and then goes into hiding.
3. Bush attacks two countries who did not attach us and enters into never ending wars.
4. Largest increase in national debt by any President (Reagan comes in second - those Republicans really are great for the economy and balance budgets)
5. Worst economic failure since 1930s.

Actually, I think many of the statements made by Bush defenders are very unpatriotic because they say something like "protected Americans or America from terrorist attackes after 9/11, forgetting that all the terrorist attacks against US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan would be against "Americans", and by logical consequence, against "America."

The last time I heard a Bush defender state this nonsensical defense of the last President's legacy, it had an even more cynical twist to it. The platinum blond conservative pol, whose name I don't know, appearing on CNN's D.L. Hughley Show said that she wished President Obama well and that he would be able to say the same as Bush at the end of his administration as though Bush set the standard for terror protection. If that would be the case, we can only hope that the Obama Administration does not live up to the Bush legacy because this would mean terrorist attacks at home and abroad in unprcedented quantity.

Just to continue a moment on the Bush legacy. I heard Karl Rove quoted as saying that Bush was right on Iraq. I do not get it. Nobody can believe that this is true. Let's imagine that, for a moment, it would be true. So, imagine the US President going to the Congress to present a bill to spend $1 trillion dollars not in the budget, sacrifice 5-6000 American lives, 30,000 injured, maybe a 100,000 traumatized for life, tens of thousands of dead foreigners in their own land (maybe only 1/2 would be civilians and no more than 1/3 would be women or children), billions of destruction of infrastructure in that country with the purpose of removing a dictator in that country. Does anyone think that Congress would pass the bill or that it would even get one vote? I can see Karl Rove at the desk in front of the Appropriations committee arguing that Iraq is the argument for passing the bill. He is the only one at the desk, becuase no one else in the country would agree to try to argue the merits of the bill. Of course, that is not true in a real sense. There are, against logic and moral reasoning people who will defend the expenditure of money, the loss of life, the trauma to soldiers and civilians, the destruction of infrastructure as meritorious in the quest to remove a dictator in someone else's country. That, my friends is why "spin" is dangerous and why getting it right matters.