Trump’s Honest Criticism of George W. Bush Exposes GOP Foreign Policy Incompetence

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Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:14 pm

Nothing irks a liar more than exposing their mendacity with the truth or brutal honesty, and the past couple of weeks have seen Republicans getting very irritated. What has been extraordinarily stunning is that although most conscious Americans understand that nearly every utterance from a Republican is a lie, a few of them have inadvertently told the truth. Subsequently, the moron Republicans that cannot maintain the GOP’s practice of lying as a matter of course have incurred the wrath of their conservative cohorts. One is reluctant to label Donald Trump and Jeb Bush cohorts, but they are both lying Republicans and both are vying for the Republican nomination for president. The biggest difference between the two candidates is that on one topic Donald Trump (R-WWE) has been brutally honest and it is getting to Jeb Bush.

No matter what one thinks of Donald Trump, he has been consistently truthful in attacking Jeb Bush for his brother, George W. Bush’s abject failure as president; but particularly his poor performance in keeping Americans safe and out of needless wars.

The exchange between Trump and Bush during the Republican presidential debate regarding Bush’s debacle in Iraq and Afghanistan, and whether George W. Bush kept Americans safe continues unabated and Democrats should take advantage. During the debate, Bush told Trump, “As it relates to my brother, there’s one thing I know for sure: He kept us safe. I don’t know if you remember, Donald — you remember the rubble? You remember the firefighter with his arms around him? He sent a clear signal that the United States would be strong and fight Islamic terrorism, and he did keep us safe.” Trump was unimpressed and persisted in assailing Bush and giving Democrats ammunition against Republicans.

During a recent interview a Bloomberg journalist, Stephanie Ruhle, told Republican professional wrestling and reality television star Donald Trump that as a presidential candidate “We need to know who Donald Trump is as a man, and we need to know that you will make us feel safe and make us feel proud.” Trump replied with his usual bombastic self-aggrandizing and also spoke the truth; “I think I’m much more competent than all of them. When you talk about George Bush – I mean, say what you want, the World Trade Center came down during his time.” Ms. Ruhle was aghast and exclaimed, “Hold on! You can’t blame George Bush for that!” Ruhle appeared to rush defend Bush’s incompetence because he was only president of the United States for eight months at the time of 9/11. However, Trump was unfazed and shot back with some uncharacteristic truth; “He was president, OK? Blame him or don’t blame him, but he was president. The World Trade Center came down during his reign.” And Americans were sent to fight two unnecessary wars.

Now there is no sane American who believes George W. Bush kept Americans safe, and yet conservatives of all stripes continue parroting that notorious lie and Jeb Bush is leading the pack. Yesterday Jeb Bush angrily responded to Trump and said,

“Look, my brother responded to a crisis, and he did it as you would hope a president would do — united the country, he organized the country and he kept us safe. There’s no denying that and the great majority of Americans believe that, and I don’t know why he keeps bringing this up.”

The actual reason Trump “keeps bringing this up” is of no consequence; what is important is that he continues bringing it up and driving the point home until “the great majority of Americans” stop believing that Bush, or any Republican, ever kept the country safe. Trump needs to remind Jeb Bush that his brother had mountains of warnings that Osama bin laden, and al Qaeda, were mere days away from hijacking American airliners and flying them into American skyscrapers. He would also remind Bush that it was Saudis that committed the terror attacks; not Afghanis or Iraqis, and that Bush’s wars in both countries certainly failed to keep Americans safe. In fact, there are tens-of-thousands of American families with permanently injured loved ones because Bush did not keep them safe; he sent them off to fight, die, and be injured in two catastrophic wars. It is something that every Republican vying for the nomination pledges to repeat if they win the White House.

Of course Trump is not going to be honest enough to admit that he, as much as the rest of the Republican candidates, would repeat George W. Bush’s foreign policy disasters, but that is not the point. The point is that Trump is shining a light on exactly what Americans have to look forward to if they elect any Republican as president; foreign policy incompetence and more wars. For dog’s sake, America is still paying dearly to clean up Bush’s debacle in Afghanistan and Iraq and unbelievably most of the GOP candidates want to restart and expand the wars. One can only hope that Trump ramps up his attacks on Jeb as a surrogate for his brothers’ incompetence and failure to keep Americans’ safe.

The reality is that any of the wayward Republicans forgetting their existence is dependent on mendacity are giving Democrats precious gifts; if they are savvy enough to use them. Whereas House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy put a stake through the Benghazi committee’s heart, and Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) damaged the evangelical Republican crusade to destroy Planned Parenthood, it may be Donald Trump who handed Democrats a nicely-wrapped gift they can ill-afford to squander.

Every time Trump truthfully states that George W. Bush did not keep Americans safe and embroiled the nation in two extremely costly and disastrous wars, he is criticizing and exposing the foreign policy aspirations of every Republican candidate for president. All of the Republican candidates have telegraphed their intent to repeat all of the catastrophic Bush policies, especially those in the Middle East; some have enlisted former Bush administration warmongers as foreign policy advisors.

Since most Americans have retarded memories, and extremely short attention spans, it is very helpful to Democrats that the leading Republican candidate is unwittingly reminding voters exactly what a GOP president will do to the country. Now it is up to Democrats to take advantage of Trump’s honesty.

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Rmuse

Audio engineer and instructor for SAE. Writes op/ed commentary supporting Secular Humanist causes, and exposing suppression of women, the poor, and minorities. An advocate for freedom of religion and particularly, freedom of NO religion.

Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn't look good.

Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.