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We all remember George W’s fleeting moment of glory three years ago when he strutted aboard that aircraft carrier under a banner that shouted: “Mission Accomplished.”
Well, three years, $300 billion, and 2,300 American deaths later, Bush’s “mission” is a quagmire, with no end in sight. But he was not the only one gloating back then – right-wing media pundits, who had been enthusiastic long-distant cheerleaders of George’s magnificent adventure in Iraq, were also full of themselves. Before we let these geniuses side with Bush again to get us into a new war with Iran, let’s play back some of their insights from the early days of the Iraq war.
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“The war was the hard part,” beamed a gleeful Fred Barnes on Fox News. “And it gets easier. I mean, setting up a democracy is hard, but not as hard as winning a war.”
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews razzed Howard Dean for being an anti-war candidate, saying: “What’s he going to talk about a year from now, the fact that the war went too well and it’s over?”
And here’s a keen observation from Fox News’s Dick Morris: “Over the next couple of weeks, when we find the chemical weapons this guy was amassing… I think really means that the left is going to have to hang its head for three or four years.”
Of course, Bill “Blowhard” O’Reilly is a brilliant judge of what war involves, offering this slightly-off-target prediction in ’03: “I will bet you the best dinner in the gaslight district of San Diego that military action will not last more than a week.”
Let’s go back to Chris Matthews for the final word: “Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger… Women like a guy who’s president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It’s simple.”
This is Jim Hightower saying… No – Bush is simple; war is hell. And it’s always more complex than it looks from an air-conditioned television studio.
Sources:
“The Final Word Is Hooray!” FAIR, March 15, 2006.