Joan Walsh, Salon: "The President praises Bush, Beck in bed with a Catholic hater, deficits new WMD"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Tuesday, Aug 31, 2010 21:32 ET

Obama, Bush, Beck and Hagee

The president praises Bush, the media find Beck in bed with a Catholic hater, and deficits become the new WMD
By Joan Walsh

A big news day. I found President Obama's Iraq speech dispiriting. He deserves credit for withdrawing combat troops when he said he would, but our entanglement there is by no means over, and the growing role of private contractors in every realm of our involvement -- including some form of what most people would consider combat -- makes it hard to feel like things have fundamentally changed.

I was surprised, but I shouldn't have been, by Obama's kind words for his predecessor, George W. Bush. I didn't expect Obama to excoriate the neocon chickenhawks who lied us into war, but I wasn't entirely prepared for his praising the president who got us into this mess. But he did:

It's well known that he and I disagreed about the war from its outset. Yet no one could doubt President Bush's support for our troops, or his love of country and commitment to our security. As I have said, there were patriots who supported this war, and patriots who opposed it.

Wouldn't it be lovely if Bush repaid Obama's stretching the truth a bit there by speaking out to Republicans who falsely believe Obama is Muslim, that he wasn't born here, or to the 52 % of Bush's party who say our president supports the imposition of Islamic law in this country. (Oh, and the former president might also join some of his colleagues in supporting the right of New York Muslims to build the Park 51 Community Center near Ground Zero). I won't hold my breath; Democratic statesmanship and generosity is almost always a one way street.

Meanwhile, other news media picked up on what I observed Saturday: the incongruity of Glenn Beck inviting virulently anti-Catholic Rev. John Hagee to address the spectacular "Reclaiming Honor" tribute to himself that Beck staged on Saturday. (I talked about it on MSNBC's "Hardball," video below.) Hagee, it's well known, has called Catholicism "the great whore," and suggested Hitler was Catholic and the Pope was responsible for the Holocaust. John McCain had to renounce Hagee's endorsement after his anti-Catholic bile was widely publicized. So why was he at Beck's rally?

http://www.salon.com/news/iraq_war/index.html?story=/opinion/walsh/politics/2010/08/31/obama_bush_beck_and_hagee

[EFerrari]

1. "We were never told the al Qaida cells were something we had to do something about." --

Condi Rice, war criminal, as seen in "911 Press for Truth".