George W. Bush "Kept Us Safe"?

Lately, the only thing worse than Dick Cheney's bald-faced lie that the Bush administration policies "kept us safe" is the gaggle of mainstream journalists mindlessly repeating it.

My question for journalists working for CNN, MSNBC, FOX, ABC, CBS, NPR and the like is very simple: Exactly what kind of delusional definition of "kept us safe" is swirling around your cobweb covered newsrooms? That definition must be some kind of crazy, because it accommodates not only the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history and the tragic death of thousands in New Orleans, but dozens of other yikes-we-are-so-not-safe moments, all which happened during George W. Bush's Presidency.

For example:

During George W. Bush's Presidency, thousands of soldiers died in Iraq--a war we now know without question to have been waged as part of an ideological program, not out of necessity. Those thousands of soldiers each had parents, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, children, and hometowns dragged through the cruel stop-gap policies imposed on service men and women by George W. Bush.

During George W. Bush's Presidency, tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers were injured, only to return to the squalid conditions and cruel indifference of a veterans' care medical system that fell through the cracks of America's for-profit healthcare racket. The tragedy of our injured soldiers came to light during George W. Bush's Presidency.

During George W. Bush's Presidency, the number of Americans living in abject fear for lack of health insurance reached the tens of millions. As a result of this crisis of fear, a private medical relief agency initially set up to fly doctors to remote jungles in South America began flying relief into poor American communities. This happened during George W. Bush's Presidency.

During George W. Bush's Presidency, the NSA spied on the private citizens, thanks to the willing participation of major American telecom companies, a major violation of the most fundamental Constitutional rights Americans thought protected them from KGB-style domestic surveillance.

During George W. Bush's Presidency, the citizens of nearly all American foreign allies began to view the United States as a hostile threat to world peace, safety, and security as a result of (1) the preemptive invasion policies of Dick Cheney and (2) the torture-of-prisoners policies of Dick Cheney.

During George W. Bush's Presidency, job security for working communities dropped, underemployment reached historic highs, and earned wages for worker output stagnated.

During George W. Bush's Presidency, Bernard Madoff was arrested for running the largest financial Ponzi scheme in history, defrauding private citizens, retirement funds, and not-for-profit organizations out of billions of dollars.

During George W. Bush's Presidency, the United States impeded global cooperation to lower carbon emissions levels, thereby heightening a general fear over the destructive potential of global warming.

During George W. Bush's Presidency, the United States economy tipped into the deepest economic crisis since the 1920s, hastening experts to describe the housing and financial market meltdown as a potential global economic 'depression.'

During George W. Bush's Presidency, pet food produced in China was discovered as the cause of deaths for American dogs and cats contaminated by toxic melamine, resulting in a nationwide panic.

During George W. Bush's Presidency, ecoli contamination killed multiple people who had ate spinach, tomatoes, and peppers.

During George W. Bush's Presidency, elderly Americans panicked over shortages of flu vaccines.

During George W. Bush's Presidency, the Republican Party ran political commercials claiming that voting for Democratic Party candidates would lead directly to the death and destruction of small town America by terrorists with nuclear bombs.

During George W. Bush's Presidency, fear and hatred of homosexuality reached a fever pitch in American politics.

During George W. Bush's Presidency, the Republican Party ran election campaigns designed to scare Jewish voters into thinking that the election of Democrats would result in another Holocaust.

During George W. Bush's Presidency, civilian planes were hijacked and flown into two of the tallest buildings in the world--the event was broadcast on live television--and when the President was told these events were happening by one of his closest aides, he sat there stone faced and did nothing, while his vice President--Dick Cheney--vanished into an "undisclosed location."

During George W. Bush's Presidency, the country was swept up in fear that terrorists were attacking ordinary citizens by sending the anthrax virus in the form of white powder through the United States Postal system.

During George W. Bush's Presidency, invasive strip searches coupled with racial profiling were introduced to the act of getting onto an airplane.

During George W. Bush's Presidency, a man who looked mentally ill was able to get past airport security, get on a plane, and then light a fuse connected to explosives in his shoes.

During George W. Bush's Presidency, a color-coded system was created to tell Americans via broadcast television that the threat of a terrorist attack was high at all times.

During George W. Bush's Presidency, the Republican Party launched a national campaign to convince the public that the Democratic nominee for president was a covert adherent to radical Islam with covert ties to domestic and foreign terrorists.

During George W. Bush's Presidency--a time lauded and celebrated by the National Rifle Association, who claimed to have "their man in the Oval office"--the largest gun massacre on a university campus occurred at Virginia Tech, resulting in the violent deaths of 5 faculty members and 27 students.

During George W. Bush's Presidency, the CIA at the bequest of Dick Cheney tortured prisoners using techniques in direct violation of U.S. and international law, dramatically increasing the likelihood that captured U.S. prisoners in the future will also be subject to torture.

And that is just to name a few, but you get the point. So, remind me again: How did George W. Bush's policies keep us safe? Call me crazy, but I just do not see it.

To understand what it means for a President to keep us safe, my advice is to ignore Dick Cheney altogether and listen directly to former President Franklin Roosevelt.

In 1941 FDR gave a speech about "Four Freedoms" which spoke directly to the issue of security for Americans and the rest of the world:

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression--everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way--everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want--which, translated into universal terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants--everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear--which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor--anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

-- Franklin D. Roosevelt, excerpted from the State of the Union Address to the Congress, January 6, 1941

To be fair, George W. Bush did some good work relative to Roosevelt's list of "Four Freedoms," in particular his dedication of a considerable funds to help fight AIDS in African nations. And yet, in his domestic and foreign policies--most of them designed and pushed by Dick Cheney--George W. Bush shrouded American life in a politics of fear. He did not make us more safe. Using the media and the military, George W. Bush made us more afraid, more anxious, and more concerned for our future. Even worse: he sought to profit politically from the fear he created.

If there is ever ranking of Presidents who made us feel the most safe, I will bet you a gas mask and a roll of duct tape that George W. Bush ends up in last place.

So the next time Dick Cheney repeats his big, fat, stinking lie that George W. Bush "kept us safe," I hope journalists have the wherewithal and the basic decency to laugh out loud.

The rest of us are already laughing.

(cross posted from Frameshop)

Comments

[Dengold]

Attributing any "bad" thing that happened (the death of over 30 people at Virginia Tech, for example) to the Bush Administration is not a convincing argument to me. We've already had one similarly horrible incident since President Obama took office. I don't see how he should be held accountable for that any more than I see Bush being held accountable for Virginia Tech. Are we going to check off some kind of blame to President Obama every time some lunatic commits murder between now and 2012? It's true that 9/11 happened during the Bush presidency, but that attack had already been planned and set in motion (the attackers were already in position inside the U.S.) before Bush took office. Could Bush have done something different that might have prevented 9/11? Certainly, we all could. But did he fail to do what any reasonable person might have done? Mr. Feldman would likely answer, "Yes," but I don't agree. Certainly, the "Bush kept us safe" comments are referring to the aftermath of 9/11, when most people I know expected that we would be attacked again. Given the littany of failings cited by Mr. Feldman, I wonder how he might explain al-Qaeda's failure in that regard.

[annie g]

The Bush Administration kept us safe? Then how come we were attacked on 9/11/2001 on Bush's watch? Why the news media outlets give press to the Cheneys' is beyond me. Cheney and his daughter are the ones that are not keeping America safe by speaking out on his torture policies, his lies and his rhetoric of his handiwork. Their tour of the news outlets is to convince and justify to the American people that his tactics and lies about going into Iraq worked. Well, they did not and the facts came out to disprove what he and others lied about. And most on the Right call this man a Patriot, who had 5 deferrments. There is something wrong with picture on so many levels.
The Right is still going after Pelosi for not telling the American people about "enhanced interrogation" techniques, yet I don't recall Cheney or anyone in the Bush Administration coming forth either about their "enhanced techniques". We all know it for what it really is---a smoke screen.
The Right really needs to be shut down until further notice until they have something intelligient to say, are not trying to divide this country, and are not consistently saying No. How sad for this country, that we are allowing the Limbaughs', the Cheney's (including Ms. Liz) to destroy this country. And they will if we don't start fighting back.

[gtalkspolitics]

Safe from what ? With the borders of this country is WIDE OPEN
come on America we are too smart to fall for this again or should I say you guys are too smart to fall for this again
I on the other hand NEVER bought in to what MSM and the Bush Adminstration was selling.safe for the last seven years PLEASE

[the Lensman]

The only reason we aren't living in a fully fascist state is because of their ineptitude as outlined in this article.

[nana4g]

Not to mention that, while he could not have prevented a Katrina, the abject neglect and incompetence of rescue and restoration lost a city and her people, a city and people who belonged to all of us, New Orleans, still languishing in homelessness, with their major healthcare facility shuttered. Billions of dollars spent monthly to rescue people in Iraq, who never asked for it, who did not deserve the death and destruction levied on them, and our own people in our own city abandoned.

The media may find Cheney "credible", they need a story. The people know the truth. Cheney's Administration failed miserably on all fronts. The media knows it; the people know it; and Cheney knows it. That is why he is so disturbed....Giving him any credibility today just compounds his failure and moves it forward and allowing him all that air time to salvage himself at our expense just rubs salt into our wounds.

Thank you for writing this, plain and simple, direct and true. We live with the evidence every day.

[dennisrs]

This the fault of the Federal Government or the State of Louisiana?

[bimplebean]

Damn straight, sir. A few of those were a bit of a reach, but not by much.

"Kept us safe" indeed. It is to laugh. Or, more properly, to cry.

[dkuz09]

Yeah I gotta agree...."bomb shoe" guy was flying in from a DIFFERENT country, no? And the VTech thing, yes a tragedy, but hardly constitutes as something the President's policies could have stopped so I don't get that connection there either. But on almost every other point, he's dead on.

[Anthony Oropallo]

I think Cheney is cynical enough to be betting at some point there will be an attack and a time where Americans will once again be easily manipulated by fear ~ at that point I can see him stepping forward w/ a big "I told you so" and take us back into the darkness.

Tell you one thing though, if he becomes in charge again I'm buying Halliburton and Chevron stock. The man absorbs sunlight

[Ann Laurence]

Laugh on. Myself, I am glad to be alive.
There is enought blame to go around.
Obama means well, and I wish him the best.

[Travis bdboy]

Excellent ....I say EXCELLENT piece of journalist

[Marcospinelli]

If what Bush-Cheney did was meant to keep us safe, they wouldn't have turned back at the battle of Tora Bora, or called off the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Everything that Bush-Cheney did was intended to INCREASE the numbers and the DETERMINATION of Al Qaeda, to keep the cash-cow, the "war on terror", in operation. It served as the means to transfer the nation's wealth into the off-shore accounts of the ruling class, while providing the President with claim to extraordinary powers of a "wartime president" (Bush-Cheney asserted the unitary executive doctrine for everything else, and effectively dodged oversight and the other two branches of government).

If there is another terrorist attack, the fault lies directly with Bush-Cheney (the threat should have been neutralized during their 7 1/2 years in office, and the trillions of dollars spent). Obama, too, becomes responsible, for refusing to look back and expose the crimes of the last years, and for continuing Bush's policies, and trying to expand on the power of the executive branch. Even in rhetoric, Obama embraces the Bush-Cheney policies. In yesterday's speech, the Bush-Cheney "long war" is now "the long game" (otherwise known as "the long con").

The candidate who won the election promising CHANGE has morphed into Bush-Cheney 3.0. The only CHANGE has been Obama's mind ("He's growing up", we are told by Republican talking heads). When will his supporters CHANGE theirs about him?

[nana4g]

I have to give The President the benefit of the doubt. We don't know what exactly he has found in The Great Mess left over in that Oval Office. He has to unravel the convuluted, deceptive remnants and try to work through, around, under, above them, to restore this country. The major incompetence or maybe deliberate actions to dismantle this country by the previous Administration is no easy task. It is bad enough knowing what we know. Cheney broke everything here and in the Middle East, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and, certainly in Iraq. I suppose Cheney is still looking for someone to toss flowers in his path....

[stagebandman]

And the most important of these is to be free from fear. The Bush-Cheney administration had the entire country scared spitless. And they fostered that constantly, making people think they were safer if they bought gas-guzzling boats to drive around in, making sure everyone started suspecting their neighbors of treason, and making sure we followed their "leadership" with red, white & blue blinders on. Those who longed for the "sweet life" of the 50s sure got it! Now is the time for real change, drastic change, dramatic change and powerful change! If the last 8 years were the 50s, then let's get a taste of the 60s! Hope, discontent and new ideas need to work together. We can do it, but not if we allow the repubs to continue to hold us under their boots. Time for the president and the Dems to rise up and do what we elected them to do. No looking back. And take no prisoners!!!!

[Ed Urbanowski]

The man is delusional, there can be no other explanation...

[yulyyz]

Right, here is how safe we are (excerpt):

...The truth of the matter is that all these discussions about what constitutes torture or not and why we need to use it just make Americans (I include myself here, since I am one as well) look like a bunch of bullies.


No one likes bullies much. These days, the US Department of State has the following advice for Americans going abroad on its website: "As much as possible, avoid luggage tags, dress and behavior that may identify you as an American." As far as I know, no other developed countries recommend their citizens hide their nationality. Nowhere on the Canadian Government website do they recommend not putting a Canadian flag on your backpack (as shown below).* At what point will it be impossible for Americans to travel outside the US? The election of Barack Obama may have helped improve our image abroad, but we have a long road ahead to restore it to a level were Americans could travel the world freely...

Source: http://open.salon.com/blog/kanuk/2009/04/29/torture_do_unto_others_remember

[JanP]

The world doesn't like bullies but an awful lot of people support al Qaeda and the Taliban.

I guess people who deprive women of rights - like going to school or choosing a husband aren't bullies: they are just devout in their religous beliefs, no?

[michiganfan]

The magnitude of your ignorance is truly staggering.

Did it ever occur to you that the vast majority of new followers that Al Qaeda has recruited since 9/11 joined up precisely because they view Al Qaeda as an organization who is fighting back against the world's biggest bully?!?!?

Al Qaeda is stronger because we ARE viewed as bullies!!

[liberalchick]

I'd be willing to bet it's a pretty small percentage of the world's population who supports al Qaeda and the Taliban

[nana4g]

Especially when there is the appearance that we still value the opinions and advise and the legacy of Bush/'Cheney. And that is the appearance given to the world when we allow Cheney air time to defend and to "debate" his failed and warped opinions and his criminality. He should not be given all of these public forums to continue to spew hate and venom. It is not curtailing his Freedom of Speech. It is a lack of interest and a lack of value. There is no value in what he has to say, therefore, he should be silenced by not giving him a forum. I would not publish any article or broadcast any interviews. Mainstream media needs to ignore him. Let him be confined to right wing talk radio and Fox and let the FBI and the CIA watch him.

[brixtony]

This has probably been posted already, but what about New Orleans and the rest of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in the south? The continuing and escalating Palestine/Israel "problem"? The recession/­depression­? Deteriorating health care all over the US. No movement on decreasing dependency on oil?

[luziannagirl]

Well not to quibble, but it's actually "a thousand" not thousands, who died in and around New Orleans in Hurricane Katrina. The 2,000 total includes those in other states.

Kept us safe! Yeah....right. That's why we live in an elevated dwelling, and keep a couple weeks' worth of provisions, and plenty of batteries, gas, guns, ammo, and a bad dog.

South Louisianians saw how way too many leaders in this day and age view public safety, and their most basic and solemn responsibilities as American public servants. Hurricane-­and-coasta­l-erosion-­generated storm surge is not the only catastrophic disaster that can befall an area, and I'll be damned if I die of injuries, thirst, exposure, and attack by predatory criminals waiting on no-show troops and a thumb-twiddling clueless President to restore civil order. (not to say Obama is any of those, but things can change quickly especially given 50% of America consistently voted for the last Administration)

"Kept us safe".

Is that sort of like "compassionate conservatives", "no child left behind" , "Americans don't torture", "small government Republicans" or "let the free market correct itself"?