GOP’s Blankley: Bush Deserves Credit for bin Laden Kill under Obama, Just As JFK Got Credit for Moon Landing on Nixon’s Watch

When asked on KCRW’s “Left, Right and Center” last week whether Pres. Obama should get credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden, the show’s resident conservative, Tony Blankley, said this:

My view — I wrote this actually in the Washington Times in a clever, I thought, article — that we give Jack Kennedy credit for going to the moon even though Nixon was president at the moment that it happened, because he was continuing Kennedy’s policies. And we should give George W. [Bush] a lot of credit for instituting a lot of the structures on the war against terror that includes the interrogation processes and all the rest — the black sites. And give Obama the credit that Nixon got on going to the moon — which is, he continued wise policies effectively.

Poor Richard Nixon. He just doesn’t get enough credit. And poor right wingers, they are the biggest victims on the planet, or so they say.

Of course, Blankley’s comparison falls apart when exposed to air. After declaring that the United States would go to the moon “in this generation,” JFK did not then lose the moon — as Bush lost bin Laden at Tora Bora — nor did JFK, after losing the moon, close NASA, as Bush did, analogously, when he closed the CIA’s bin Laden unit in 2005, around the time bin Laden was building the compound in Pakistan where he lived in undisturbed comfort for the rest of Bush’s term in office.

But compare this eagerness to give credit to Bush for an effort he bungled with how aggressively the right has denied that Bush and congressional Republicans were responsible for the economic meltdown in September 2008. The systems collapsed as a direct result of Republican anti-regulatory policies that allowed Wall Street and the big banks to run rampant at the same time that Bush and rubberstampers in Congress unilaterally charged trillions to the nation’s credit cards to pay for two wars — one of which they bungled and the other of which was unnecessary — as well as a Medicare benefit and job-killing tax cuts for millionaires.

In spite of those historical facts, Republicans, with the help of their poodles in the “liberal” media, have been quite successful in laying the blame for the ruined economy at the feet of Pres. Obama and the Democrats. The Republicans’ blameshifting on the economic collapse was so successful that they were even able to convince swing voters in key states to give them control of the House in the midterm elections — a move analogous to sending arsonists in to put out fires that they started.

And now they want to give Bush credit for killing bin Laden?

Of course, propaganda, spin and historical revisionism is nothing new for Blankley, who is a sort of poor man’s Karl Rove. For those who have forgotten the 1990s, Blankley served as House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s press spokesman, a job that required the skills of a smooth and practiced liar. After Gingrich was ousted from the speakership in a sex scandal, Blankley went on to serve as the editorial page editor for the Washington Times, a daily Republican Party propaganda sheet. The Washington Times is a vanity project of the Rev. Sun Yung Moon, who — for those who don’t remember the 1970s — is the supreme leader of the Unification Church, a right-wing cult based in South Korea whose acolytes, called “Moonies,” used to sell paper flowers in airports.

But facts are stubborn things, fortunately. And history shows that Bush deserves no credit for killing bin Laden. Quite the opposite, in fact. His administration’s efforts to capture the al Qaeda leader were all miserable failures:

1. On August 6, 2001, after being shown a presidential daily briefing titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.,” Bush snarled at his briefer, “All right. You’ve covered your ass, now.” And then he went fishing. Less than a month later, of course, the warning Bush dismissed and ignored came true.

2. In December 2001, three months after the attack, in what an after-action review by the military described as a significant defeat for the United States, Bush’s Tampa, Fla.-based operational commander in the field in Afghanistan, Gen. Tommy Franks, allowed bin Laden to escape from the mountainous redoubt of Tora Bora.

3. On May 2, 2002, not long after he had seen the after-action review of the Tora Bora debacle, Bush feigned indifference about bin Laden’s fate at a news conference:

Q Mr. President, in your speeches now you rarely talk or mention Osama bin Laden. Why is that? Also, can you tell the American people if you have any more information, if you know if he is dead or alive? Final part — deep in your heart, don’t you truly believe that until you find out if he is dead or alive, you won’t really eliminate the threat of —

BUSH: Deep in my heart I know the man is on the run, if he’s alive at all. Who knows if he’s hiding in some cave or not; we haven’t heard from him in a long time. And the idea of focusing on one person is — really indicates to me people don’t understand the scope of the mission.

Terror is bigger than one person. And he’s just — he’s a person who’s now been marginalized. His network, his host government has been destroyed. He’s the ultimate parasite who found weakness, exploited it, and met his match. He is — as I mentioned in my speech, I do mention the fact that this is a fellow who is willing to commit youngsters to their death and he, himself, tries to hide — if, in fact, he’s hiding at all.

So I don’t know where he is. You know, I just don’t spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you. I’m more worried about making sure that our soldiers are well-supplied; that the strategy is clear; that the coalition is strong; that when we find enemy bunched up like we did in Shahikot Mountains, that the military has all the support it needs to go in and do the job, which they did.

And there will be other battles in Afghanistan. There’s going to be other struggles like Shahikot, and I’m just as confident about the outcome of those future battles as I was about Shahikot, where our soldiers are performing brilliantly. We’re tough, we’re strong, they’re well-equipped. We have a good strategy. We are showing the world we know how to fight a guerrilla war with conventional means.

Q But don’t you believe that the threat that bin Laden posed won’t truly be eliminated until he is found either dead or alive?

BUSH: Well, as I say, we haven’t heard much from him. And I wouldn’t necessarily say he’s at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don’t know where he is. I — I’ll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. I was concerned about him, when he had taken over a country. I was concerned about the fact that he was basically running Afghanistan and calling the shots for the Taliban.

But once we set out the policy and started executing the plan, he became — we shoved him out more and more on the margins. He has no place to train his al Qaeda killers anymore. And if we — excuse me for a minute — and if we find a training camp, we’ll take care of it. Either we will or our friends will. That’s one of the things — part of the new phase that’s becoming apparent to the American people is that we’re working closely with other governments to deny sanctuary, or training, or a place to hide, or a place to raise money.

And we’ve got more work to do. See, that’s the thing the American people have got to understand, that we’ve only been at this six months. This is going to be a long struggle. I keep saying that; I don’t know whether you all believe me or not. But time will show you that it’s going to take a long time to achieve this objective. And I can assure you, I am not going to blink. And I’m not going to get tired. Because I know what is at stake. And history has called us to action, and I am going to seize this moment for the good of the world, for peace in the world and for freedom.

4. Late in 2005, Bush signaled that he’d officially given up the search for bin Laden by closing a 10-year-old unit at the CIA that focused solely on tracking the terror leader’s whereabouts. Michael Scheuer, the first head of the unit, told the New York Times that the move reflected a view within the agency that Mr. bin Laden was no longer a threat.

As Trish put it earlier this week, “The Bush team claiming credit for getting Osama bin Laden is like the Jacksonville Jaguars taking credit for the Green Bay Packers winning the Super Bowl. Yes, the Jaguars played a role (by losing in the playoffs) but that’s not the same as scoring the winning touchdown in the big event.”

Another comparison seems apt: The prizes they give to kids who participate in competitions but lose — “Certificates of Participation.”

An award for just showing up. That is the best George Bush deserves for bringing down bin Laden, and even that is generous.