Donald Trump has dared to speak the truth, and Jeb Bush is fighting mad. Welcome to the world of American Republican politics, where facts are the last thing allowed.
If the Supreme Court in 2000 had decided Al Gore won the White House and not George W. Bush, you can bet every chance they got Republicans would today still be blaming Gore for the 9/11 terror attacks.
But the Court ruled for Bush, and on his watch America was attacked on September 11, 2001.
This is an indisputable fact.
It happened.
And yet, today, Donald Trump is under fire for making this statement:
“When you talk about George Bush, I mean, say what you want, the World Trade Center came down during his time,†Trump told Bloomberg anchor Stephanie Ruhle. “He was president, OK? … Blame him, or don’t blame him, but he was president. The World Trade Center came down during his reign.â€
Watch:
For some on the right, that’s near-treason.
Jeb Bush blasted off this tweet:
Of course, not the first time Trump has made these remarks. He said it during the GOP presidential debate at the Reagan Library. Jeb Bush immediately responded, “When it comes to my brother, there’s one thing I know for sure. He kept us safe.â€
Of course, that’s a bald-faced lie.
9/11 happened on his watch, so, false.
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes offered this insightful response:
But 9/11 wasn’t the only terror attack against America on George W. Bush’s watch.
Politifact offers these examples:
The anthrax scare.
The shoe bomber.
The D.C. sniper case.
2002 attack against El Al ticket counter at LAX.
Campus attack at UNC.
And there’s more.
Oliver Willis at Addicting Info adds “the fatal decision to attack, invade and occupy Iraq.”
Not only did it expose Americans in the field to harm – killing 4,425 and injuring over 32,000 U.S. military. When you assert that Americans were kept safe, it includes soldiers who deserve a President who sends them in to harm’s way based on the truth and who has a coherent strategy once that decision is made.
The claim that America was kept safe is also exposed by the fact that the effort to capture/kill Osama Bin Laden was abandoned at Tora Bora, and that the mastermind of 9/11 was someone that Bush just wasn’t that concerned about as he infamously said. America was less safe with Bin Laden on the loose, and safer when he was killed under President Obama.
Even when it came to economic issues, Bush didn’t keep America safe. He allowed the real estate bubble to inflate, while failing to provide adequate oversight of the financial industry due to limp figures like SEC chairman Chris Cox, who was appointed by Bush and was accused of being missing in action as the markets melted. Exposing the strongest economy in the world to this kind of collapse left the country – and the world, frankly – less safe.
And let’s not forget Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina.
Here’s a sample of the right wing freaking out:
Â
Image: Screenshot via Bloomberg