What If We Had a President Who Didn't Give a Damn About Terrorism?

[seafan]

What If We Had a President Who Didn't Give a Damn About Terrorism?

By DAVID MICHAEL GREEN
October 27-28, 2007

One thing all Americans can agree on, that's for sure: terrorism is bad news.

.....

So, given that desire we all share for security from political violence, it sure is a good thing that ol' W is in the White House, isn't it, riding shotgun on the ship of state (forgive the mixed metaphor, but it seemed particularly appropriate considering the subject)? I mean, he talks about terrorism all the bloody time! Plus, he's tight with Jesus. That's gotta mean something, don't you think? Surely--like Con Ed--he's "On it!" when it comes to terrorism, and we can all sleep better knowing that.
If you doubt for a minute how crucial this is, imagine how bad things would be if some other Joe Bob was in the Oval Office, instead of Steady George. Rudy Giuliani got it, and right away too. He claims to have said to Bernard Kerik as the buildings came down on 9/11, "Thank God George Bush is our president". I don't know if they were in their secret taxpayer-funded Manhattan love-nest where they used to like to bring the babes or somewhere else when he said this, but you get the point. And, hey, where could you ever find a more knowing trio on the subject of political crime than Georgie, Rudy and Bernie, eh? These cats know their stuff!

Imagine if an incompetent and insufficiently masculine boob like Al 'Sore Loserman' Gore or, gulp, French-speaking John Kerry had been at the helm these last years. Or Hillary! Ack! Talk about your scary scenarios. Things might have really gone awry.
To begin with, a wimpy Democrat president probably wouldn't have paid any attention at all to the terrorism question during his or her first months in office, even if the alarm bells were going off like crazy that a big attack was planned. Probably a Hillary type would have been all obsessed about Iraq, instead, her cabinet refusing to even meet on the terrorism question until a week before 9/11.

.....

And just as Bush and Cheney had once slogged their way through the mud and the jungles of Vietnam while Gore and Kerry were home hiding out and partying, no doubt the latter two would have been equally hard to find on 9/11. You could just imagine them flying off to--oh, I don't know, Nebraska!--in the face of national danger. Or sitting in a grade school classroom reading children's books. Or both.
I'm sure that's what Rudy meant when he supposedly spoke those famous words on 9/11 about Bush being president. (Less well noted was the sentence he uttered right before: "Shit, why didn't I gave those first-responders the radio equipment they kept asking for--there go my presidential plans". Or the one right after: "Jesus Christ, whose idiotic idea was it to put the emergency response command center in the twin towers!!")

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For example, what Bush understood and no Democrat ever would have is the importance of the commander-in-chief keeping his eye on the ball. When you're trying to win a war against the terrorists who attacked you, you can't be running around indulging your personal whims and invading other countries that had nothing to do with attacking America, y'know? And you especially can't do it when the result would be to tie down all your land forces in a war that bears no relationship to the greater goal whatsoever, other than that it is breaking your military to bits and leaving it incapable of fighting anywhere it might actually be needed.

And it could actually get worse from there. Remember how Lyndon Johnson, that loony liberal par excellence, used to stay up at night selecting bombing targets in Vietnam and otherwise micromanaging his military? Not George Bush! No way. He just deciderers the big decisions, then leaves management to his talented stable of pros like Rumsfeld, Cheney, Tenet, Wolfowitz and Bremer. That's how he could avoid stupid Democratic mistakes like sending in too few troops, or dismissing the local army and sending them home armed, unemployed and angry, or allowing looting and chaos from Day One. Maybe "stuff happens" on the Donkey watch, but not when the grown-ups are in charge. Without this kind of GOP, private sector, MBA-style management know-how, heck, we could've gotten stuck in a protracted war with no end, no exit, and no relevance to our real national security concerns.

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Another thing about Bush that's cool is that the guy's just plain smart. You can tell, even without the eloquence that infuses so much of his rhetoric. This dude is truly one of the brightest presidents yet, and he's not afraid to show it. I imagine if John Kennedy was still around he might say of Bush that "There has never been a greater concentration of intellectual power here at the White House since Thomas Jefferson's cat dined alone". Bush knows that America is still highly vulnerable to attack, unlike those latter-day Chamberlains of the Wussy Party. That's why he's blown right past the entrenched interests of the monied class and forced them to take care of business in order to insure our national security, like inspecting shipping containers and reinforcing security at nuclear energy and chemical plants. No doubt a wimp like Hillary would have let them just pocket the money and continue leaving the public at risk.

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And, you know, what's really sickening about liberals is how hypocritical they can be. You could readily imagine them running all over the world lecturing other countries on fighting terrorism--"You're either with us or you're against us!"--while at the same time harboring a known terrorist like, say, oh, I don't know, Luis Posada, here at home and protecting him from extradition to face justice at the scene of his crimes. Bush knows well that no one would take us seriously if America were to do something as ridiculous as sheltering a guy who blew up an airliner full of civilians, just because they happened to be Cuban. He knows that terrorism is terrorism, regardless of the politics involved or who the victims are.

And even if Bush were to be that hypocritical--but he couldn't!--he surely wouldn't compound the lunacy of such an affair into some sort of hypocrisy-cubed exercise in exponential idiocy by, for instance, claiming that this terrorist could not be extradited because of fears of torture in Venezuela (a country whose government does not have any record of doing so), at the same time his own administration was writing memos on how to legally torture at Abu Ghraib or Guantánamo. I mean, how lame can you get?!

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The other thing about Bush, too, is that he's courageous. No, really! He was courageous being raised in opulence, and he was courageous screwing around in school knowing his real potential would someday take him to the top, whatever they were saying behind his back. He was courageous being a forty year-old drunk when everyone said he was wasting away in Margaritaville, but he knew better. He was courageous taking all those business ventures on the basis of his family's name and money when others laughed at him for doing so. So freakin' what if they all went bust?! He was courageous in frying all those Texas death-row inmates after extensively reviewing their cases with Alberto, and in mocking Karla Faye Tucker's plea to live. Man, that takes stones!

He was courageous when he went to Nam even though his Daddy had arranged a cushy stateside gig for him flying old jalopies--assuming he even bothered to show up for it. And he was courageous when he flew straight to Washington and New York on 9/11 to manage the crisis, instead of running in the other direction.

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If Hillary had been president these last seven years, we would have been grossly unprepared for 9/11. Heck, she probably would have been on vacation fro a month before it, and running away from it afterwards. Then we would have attacked the wrong country in response, and made a hash of it to boot. We would still be completely vulnerable to a domestic terrorist attack, while the perpetrator of the last one would running around free as a bird. The whole world would be furious at us, acts of terrorism would have increased seven-fold, and our military would be bogged down in some completely irrelevant war, with no end in sight. Meanwhile, our cherished Constitutional liberties would be in the garbage can.

It's all true.

Except for one minor detail. The hated Hillary hasn't been our president these last seven years. Another person has.

You want to know--just for the sake of argument--what it would look like if we had a president who really didn't give a damn about terrorism? Look no further.

I'm with Rudy--thank god we've had George W. Bush in the White House. Otherwise, how else would we know?

Much obliged, Mr. Green.

[Breeze54]

1. We do, except for the terrorism he puts on Americans from the WH!

Green is a 'moran', from what you posted! :)

[stray cat]

2. We already do - Bush is just playing for corportate payoffs

[underpants]

3. Well at least pre-9/11 none of them were concerned about it

which was a first. All Presidents have had to worry about terrorism in one shape or form from Washington on. Of course that meant nothing to Cheney he had his prime directive and was trying to implement it. Empty the treasury, raid the public trusts, somehow invade Iraq-that last is ironic in that Cheney didn't have a clue as to how this might be achieved until that one glorious morning (for them).

[WinkyDink]

4. I wonder how many Americans would see this as the straight truth.

[Rosemary2205]

5. Good piece - but I have to disagree with it on one thing.

GW **DOES** care about terrorists. He cares enough to help create more of them. George has always valued loyalty, and GW has stood by the bin Laden's and other Saudi elite.

[IntravenousDemilo]

6. Bush on bin Laden:

"I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him."

That pretty much says it all.

[muntrv]

7. "...And just as Bush and Cheney had once slogged their way

through the mud and the jungles of Vietnam while Gore and Kerry were home hiding out and partying, no doubt the latter two would have been equally hard to find on 9/11."

Shrub and Cheney in Vietnam? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!