Fools With Signs

The George W. Bush Presidential Library opened last week on the campus of Southern Methodist University.  Naturally, protesters were outside the building registering their fanatical hatred of anything to do with George Bush.  Some of the Bush-haters carried signs claiming George was responsible for the deaths of 6,000 American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan during his presidency.  Actually, the number of American service personnel who died in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2001 through 2008 is 4,852.  Not acknowledged by any of these folks is that under Barack Obama 1,841 more have died in those countries, most after his troop surge in Afghanistan in 2010.

The protestors apparently also have a selective memory of the events of September 11, 2001, and the aftermath.  They must have forgotten the outrage and calls for a response demanded by the vast majority of Americans following the assault.  They must have forgotten that every intelligence service in the Western world and every prominent Democrat was convinced that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and in fact had used them on more than one occasion.  They have also conveniently forgotten that Saddam Hussein sponsored global terrorism, providing training camps, headquarters, operating bases and cash to terrorist groups.  Regardless, the rabid attack dogs now blame George Bush for everything that has transpired since.

While we are on the subject, if the criteria is to blame the president for the American military casualties in our country's conflicts, how many deaths was Abraham Lincoln responsible for in the Civil War?  Answer:  625,000.  Franklin Roosevelt in World War II?  405,000.  Harry Truman in the Korean War?  36,500.  JFK and LBJ in Vietnam?  37,000.  Nixon in Vietnam?  21,000.  And lets not forget other liberal heroes and heroines such as Rachel Carson, the Queen of the Environmental Cult.  She is responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of children in Africa from malaria subsequent to the banning of DDT.  Take it a step further and ask how many deaths people talking on cellphones while driving are responsible for in America today.  Is that Obama's fault because he doesn't do anything about it?

Bush-haters are entitled to their personal opinions, but it would be nice if they would stop using bullshit to justify them.  Is it too much to ask for them to pull their collective heads out of their asses and realize we don't live in a perfect world.  George Bush certainly made some mistakes as president, mainly due to his attempt to practice 'compassionate conservatism' by allowing domestic spending to grow too much.  But contrary to the chants of the Haters he never lied about anything.  Acting on information that was accepted as accurate at the time by nearly all knowledgeable sources is not lying.  He was probably the last honest man to live and work inside the Capital Beltway.