Once again. let's just let George off the hook, and ignore the fact that he could have taken advantage of the situation, and had unprecedented international cooperation in dealing with terrorism.
I don't think even Clinton or his ilk could have taken advantage of the situation, because I think basically the sympathy would have evaporated until the moment America decided to do something. Not even Clinton could have responded with another feckless shower of cruise bombs and warants; and American military action dissolves the sympathy, which was not deep anyway (Europe may have sympathized, but most of the Muslim Mideast threw a party on 9/11).
The divide was made worse because Bush et al considered 9/11 an act of war, to be responded to accordingly. Europe and most of the Dems considered it a criminal act to be handled as a police matter. Thus there were grave disagreements on strategy from the get go, disagreements that Bush couldn't have been papered over if Bush had just smoozed our allies a bit more nicely. In terms of getting international cooperation in police work, that seems to be going okay. It's just that when it comes to armies, Europe doesn't have much to contribute these days, so a few peacekeepers were all that could be gotten.
You just really don't want to hold Georgie accountable for anything, do you? Has he really been a perfect President in your view?
Oh, Bush has made tons of mistakes and I disagree with him on quite a lot. It's just with this crowd accusing him of everything but Original Sin, one is thrown onto the defense. Most of the charges made against him here don't even make any common sense. If Bush had wished to enrich his Haliburton buddies, he had many safer and easier ways to do it. Instead he bet his presidency on Iraq, and went in without a Plan B if the country fell apart or Al Qaeda decided to join the party. |
