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He Hugged Moms and Dads

At McDill Air Force Base in Florida, Bush met privately with the families of 10 servicemen killed in the war. According to White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, quoted in the Los Angeles Times of June 17, 2004: "He shared in their grief. He hugged moms and dads."

     Hannah Arendt's phrase--"the banality of evil"--had again become monstrously relevant.

     Earlier at McDill, the ex-governor of Texas had addressed thousands of troops and their families gathered in a humid hangar. As he faced men and women who might soon die in his disastrous war, he upheld his disproved rationale for the invasion of Iraq; and he lied effectively, having practiced rallying calls during his stint as a college cheerleader.

     "I'm the commander--see, I don't need to explain--I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being president."--George W. Bush, as quoted in Bob Woodward's "Bush at War."

     In Iraq, bombs erupted into torches, buildings exploded, heated winds caked spilled blood on the streets, shots rang out without pause; and sacrificial expendable American servicemen, mostly from the ranks of the poor and the ethnic, died. Uncounted, the numbers of Iraqis killed and maimed could only be conjectured.

     "And I am an optimistic person. I guess if you want to try to find something to be pessimistic about, you can find it, no matter how hard you look, you know?"-—George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., June 15, 2004.

     He stood like Napoleon on an aircraft carrier before a banner that proclaimed MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. This man who had dodged the draft was dressed in a flight suit befitting the proud "war president" he had several times referred to himself as. Although the conflagration in Iraq was then only a bloody prologue, he announced victory.

     "I think the American people---I hope the American--I don't think, let me-- I hope the American people trust me."--George W. Bush, Washington, DC, December 18, 2002.

     This was the "war president" who had gone blank for seven minutes of bewildered inaction in a Florida classroom after being told the Twin Towers in New York had been attacked by terrorists. No one had been with him to tell him what to do, what to say. So he held on to the primer he had been reading from to school children, and he waited and waited and waited.

     "They've seen me make decisions, they've seen me under trying times, they've seen me weep, they've seen me laugh, they've seen me hug."- —George W. Bush, USA Today, August 27, 2004.

     His lies should have prompted calls for impeachment. Bill Clinton had been impeached for a sexual interlude that harmed no one. Just as they had then, the cowed Democrats, now watching Bush run rampant over civil liberties with a contrived "Patriot Act," stood quietly by like good Germans.

     "God loves you, and I love you. And you can count on both of us as a powerful message that people who wonder about their future can hear." —George W. Bush, Los Angeles, California, March 3, 2004.

     Like a reckless, petulant rich child playing war with toy soldiers given to him by his daddy," he furiously waged his personal war against "Sa-dahm Hoo-sayan," a brutal tyrant, yes, but, more important to Bush, the man who had once threatened his daddy in an attempted assassination, and who, incidentally, controlled abundant oil. Never mind that the Iraqi dictator had once been an ally of the Bush family, and had during a time not too distant been given American weapons to wage his own terrible wars.

     "The CIA laid out several scenarios and said life could be lousy, life could be OK, life could be better, and they were just guessing as to what the conditions might be like."-—George W. Bush, New York City, September 21, 2004.

     During the initial violence, Iraq's abundant oil wells had been guarded sternly (while museums and libraries were surrendered to looters). Billions of dollars would be made by American companies restoring what America had destroyed. Vice- president Cheney manipulated to grant war contracts, no bidding allowed, to Halliburton Corporation, which he had once headed; and on the front, badly trained, hurriedly trained, untrained, inadequately equipped soldiers continued to fall--soon, over 1000 dead and counting.

     "This has been tough weeks in that country." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., April 13, 2004.

     War spawned its repulsive cruelties--the beheading of kidnapped men by Iraqis, the exhibition of headless corpses hanging from poles, the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by Americans, gaunt Iraqis laughingly photographed, hooded, leashed, murdered.

     "More Muslims have died at the hands of killers than-— I say more Muslims--a lot of Muslims have died--I don't know the exact count--at Istanbul. Look at these different places around the world where there's been tremendous death and destruction because killers kill." —George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., January 29, 2004. ("I hope you leave here and walk out and say, `What did he say?'" —George W. Bush, Beaverton, Oregon, August 13, 2004.)

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