I wish I had a bullhorn to shout just how tired I am of hearing about how wonderful George W. Bush’s “bullhorn moment” was.
It will go down as one of the worst moments in American history because when he stood on the smoldering ruins amid the dust of the dead it was through that bullhorn that Bush’s Big Lie was first shouted to the world that the people who knocked down those buildings would soon be hearing from us.
It might have been a fairly good, better-late-than-never moment if all Bush had done was use that bullhorn to launch a war on Al Qaeda. It might have escalated into a great piece of historical stagecraft if we’d just gone into Afghanistan and stayed the course on a noble quest to kill Osama Bin Laden and all his Al Qaeda cowards who murdered our people.
But the words that echoed through Bush’s bullhorn into the smoldering 16 acres of lower Manhattan, the words that resounded across the grieving outer boroughs and the sorrowful suburbs and the stunned globe, were but an orchestrated setup for a grander diabolical scheme.
Because we fast gave up the hunt for Bin Laden for a bait-and-switch war in Iraq that had nothing to do with the rubble upon which Bush stood at Ground Zero shouting bull through his bullhorn.
Bush has now declared that half-a-buck stops on his desk for Katrina.
But he doesn’t ever mention that Osama Bin Laden is still out there roaming free and plotting more American murders. That stops on his desk, too.
Historians will refocus that bullhorn moment as the point of origin to exploit a terrible attack on America for a preconceived war in Iraq that had nothing to do with our dead.
Historians also will remember that directly after the terrorists attacked the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 2001, killing 2,749, our fearless leader, with all that Texas Air Guard combat training, hopped aboard Air Force One and lammed to, um, Omaha.
Talk about heroic.
And as real heroes dug in the rubble for signs of life, shortening their own lives in the toxic air, Bush hid out. Then three days later, when the coast was clear, he arrived to shoot a Karl Rove-inspired reelection commercial and to launch a war in Iraq.
“It’s time for Joe Biden to go away with all due respect and let the next generation of Democrats take the mantle. Every time he appears on a show or says something, it’s just another week or a month that we have to defend him and remind everybody that we got beat by Donald Trump, again. For those of us trying to rebuild the brand, it does no good when you’re constantly reminded about the old brand that won’t go away.”
— Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha, quoted by Politico.
“I think we essentially have become a kleptocracy that would make Putin blush. I mean, keep in mind that in the first three months, the Trump family has become $3 billion wealthier, so that’s a billion dollars a month.”
— Business school professor Scott Galloway, quoted by the New Republic.
“People who question whether the Earth is round — a fact understood by the ancient Greeks and taught to American children in elementary school — might have been political pariahs a decade ago. Now, they’re running local Republican parties in Georgia and Minnesota and seeking public office in Alabama.”
A typical starter home now costs $1 million or more in more than 200 U.S. cities, according to a new report from Zillow. Five years ago, there were only 85 cities in 10 states where starter homes—defined as being in the lowest third in terms of home values—exceeded $1 million. Now the number is up to 233 cities in 25 states.
“The Trump administration says it is going to pay immigrants in the United States illegally who’ve returned to their home country voluntarily $1,000 as it pushes forward with its mass deportation agenda,” the AP reports.
“A six-day immigration sweep in Florida last week resulted in the arrest of 1,120 people across the state, an operation that state and federal officials described as the largest of its kind to date and a ‘warm up’ for future immigration enforcement operations,” the Miami Herald reports. Said Gov. Ron DeSantis (R): “We believe this is just the beginning. The best is yet to come.”
Detailed Army plans for a potential military parade on President Donald Trump’s birthday in June call for more than 6,600 soldiers, at least 150 vehicles, 50 helicopters, seven bands and possibly a couple thousand civilians, The Associated Press has learned. The planning documents, obtained by the AP, are dated April 29 and 30 and have not been publicly released. They represent the Army’s most recent blueprint for its long-planned 250th anniversary festival on the National Mall and the newly added element — a large military parade that Trump has long wanted but is still being discussed.