George W. Bush

Now Republicans Are An Oppressed Minority

Posted by on May 27, 2009 at 5:21 pm. NO Comments :

This doesn’t need much accompanying commentary:

Per Rush Limbaugh: “If ever a civil rights movement was needed in America, it is for the Republican Party. If ever we needed to start marching for freedom and constitutional rights, it’s for the Republican Party. The Republican Party is today’s oppressed minority, and it know how to behave as one.”

Per Karl Rove (speaking about George W. Bush): “And let’s be honest, a certain part of the country doesn’t like people who speak with an accent.”

I guess Rove never heard of Bill Clinton or Lyndon Johnson. And this on the heels of Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor. What a couple of wankers.

The Hypocrisy At Notre Dame

Posted by on May 16, 2009 at 1:07 pm. 3 Comments :

All week long the media has been trumpeting a controversy that barely deserves mentioning. When President Obama gives the commencement speech tomorrow at Notre Dame, he will be following five previous presidents to do so. In addition, he will be the eighth president to be awarded an honorary degree.

The controversy stems from the fact that Obama’s pro-choice position is in conflict with the University’s Catholic principles. However, neither the Catholic protesters nor the media ever threw similar tantrums when George W. Bush delivered the commencement speech in 2001, after receiving his honorary degree.

Every good Catholic knows that the church is strictly opposed to capital punishment. Since Bush set records for carrying out death sentences when he was governor of Texas, you would think that the same guardians of virtue that are protesting Obama, who has never personally signed an abortion certificate, would have been out in force for a man who presided over 152 executions. But there was nary a peep. There were no bishops signing petitions opposing Bush’s appearance. There were no protests on campus. There were no students refusing to participate in graduation ceremonies. And there were no cameras from national news networks circling like buzzards.

If these Catholic Crusaders are truly interested in demonstrating their piety without prejudice, they should immediately call for Notre Dame to revoke Bush’s honorary degree. If the press is honestly endeavoring to be objective, they should pose this question to the protesters.

I can’t fault the pro-life movement’s efforts to advance their beliefs through protest and civil disobedience. That is their right and it is an honorable exercise of protections guaranteed under the First Amendment. But I can shine a light on their inconsistencies. And I can fault the media for the inflated sense of importance they bestow on such a tiny assemblage of adversaries. Polls show overwhelming support for the President’s visit to Notre Dame. That support is constant when looking at the general public, Catholic voters, and Notre Dame students.

So why does the press pump up this event as if there were a groundswell of opposition? And why was there no similar action on the part of the press when Bush attended the Notre Dame graduation?

One word: Hypocrisy. In politics? In media? In religion? I’m shocked, shocked, I tell you.

Update: Ronald Reagan also received an honorary degree and spoke at commencement in 1981. This despite the fact that he was divorced, he traded arms for hostages, he waged an illegal war in Central America funded by selling arms to terrorists in Iran, he advocated capital punishment as governor of California, and he wasn’t even Catholic.

The Pre-Obituary Hate Thread

Posted by on May 5, 2009 at 4:31 pm. 15 Comments :

George W. Bush: “History? We don’t know. We’ll all be dead.”

This past weekend, Jack Kemp, a giant of Reagan-era conservatism passed away. The news has been covered with an almost uniformly reverential tone, no matter the venue. Even from the most avowedly partisan Democratic sources, there was abundant praise and sympathy from all but a few insensitive weasels. And that’s as it should be, whether regarding Kemp, or William F. Buckley, or Tony Snow, etc.

Death is without a doubt the single most non-partisan issue that any of us will ever face. No amount of devotion to the second amendment or global warming will be sufficient to filibuster the grim reaper. And while mortality observes the purest form of equality, it is not in the remotest sense democratic. We must all comply with its laws, but no one gets to vote. Nature is such a Fascist.

So as time collects its due from amongst life’s loitering souls, those of us still queued up react to the passing of our earthly cousins. For the most part we are respectful and reserved. We follow the dictum that prohibits us from “speaking ill of the dead.” Whether the deceased is someone with whom we have affinity or hostility, we share the knowledge of our common fate and withhold judgment.

But no such forbiddance precludes us from ripping the living to shreds.

I can’t help but wonder what our reaction would be to the passing of certain individuals whom we regard as patently evil. Would we be as generous with our sympathy upon hearing that Donald Rumsfeld kicked the bucket? Would we exhibit the same tolerance for those responsible for lying us into a war that snuffed out the lives of hundreds of thousands? Would there be an R.I.P. thread for Karl Rove or Paul Wolfowitz or Dick Cheney? And what about George W. Bush himself?

Would we struggle to find redeeming qualities in folks who so resolutely brought pain and tragedy to so many? Would we be considerate of their mourning families? How would our demeanor change from what we would say about them today, compared to what we would say about them in hindsight?

I, for one, believe that there is a special place in Hell (if I believed in Hell) reserved for the mass murderers of BushCo. I could care less about their eternal souls, other than to hope that they suffer. The only sympathy I have for their families is due to their having been cursed with such despicable relatives.

This is not to say that I presently wish death upon anyone. And, despite the tone, it is not even vengeance that I seek. It is more something like justice (which, by the way, is something that we can still achieve while the perpetrators live). The question is, if I can articulate the harsh thoughts that I have above, while the subjects are still enjoying the fruit of their atrocities, could I still do so upon their demise? The answer is, probably not.

The impropriety of disparaging those who have shuffled off is so ingrained into our culture that anyone who engaged in it would be immediately ostracized. It is nearly irrelevant if someone practiced Satanism yesterday. If they die tomorrow society expects you to reassess your judgment and say something nice about the devil.

Well, it isn’t tomorrow yet. So we are still free to wail on the dastardly denizens of doom that torment us. And we should avail ourselves of the opportunity to bitch at the fiends who drove our nation into an unnecessary and illegal war; who tainted and trivialized our Constitution; who sanctioned torture; who continue to befoul our planet; who value wealth over human dignity and compassion. We should get it off our chests now, loudly and with conviction. We should pound them into pulp and show them no mercy.

Why? Because tomorrow they may be dead and we’ll have to bite our tongues.

Fox Business Network Is On The Case

Posted by on February 26, 2009 at 3:10 pm. 2 Comments :

Last year the Fox Business Network filed a Freedom of Information Act request for Treasury Department documents related to the Toxic Assets Relief Program. After filing the request, FBN launched an advertising campaign promoting their tireless efforts on behalf of the American people.

I have no problem with the FOIA requests, in fact I support them. They are an important part of a transparent democracy, and news enterprises have always used them to provide a complete picture of what our government is doing on our behalf. They do it in the interests of journalism, not some disingenuous grandstanding as protectors of the people. It is unseemly for a network to puff itself up simply for doing its job. Bloomberg also has FOIA requests pending, but they aren’t banging the drum about it.

Now the puffery is ascending to new highs of absurdity. Fox News executive vice president Kevin Magee is patting himself and his network on the back for being champions of the people. He is engaging in a sustained campaign of self-flattery that he paradoxically says “is not a wild publicity stunt.”

Magee: “One of the ways that we want to differentiate ourselves is to tell our audience that we are trying to protect their interests. We think that’s a wide-open field. CNBC seems to always be the friend of the CEO and that’s fine, nothing wrong with that. It has served them well.”

This statement is a direct contradiction of what his boss said when FBN debuted:

Rupert Murdoch: “…a Fox channel would be ‘more business-friendly than CNBC.’ That channel ‘leap[s] on every scandal, or what they think is a scandal.'”

So it is FBN that has always sought to be “the friend of the CEO.” Now, in the midst of a Wall Street driven economic collapse, they want to pretend that they are the network of the people. What a crock! The truth is, they are engaging in pure self-promotion. FBN has tried to cultivate the image of being a business channel for Main Street, not Wall Street. But from the beginning, that pretense has been as phony as their “Fair and Balanced” sloganeering for Fox News.

On top of all of this, FBN wants to claim as their victory something that is not really a victory and with which they had little to do anyway. Documents referenced in the FOIA request have already begun flowing. Over 1,200 have been released, 300 of which were previously undisclosed. FBN’s attempt to take credit for this is plausible only if you completely forget that President Obama, on his first full day in office, issued an executive order requiring agencies in his administration to cooperate with FOIA requests. This explicitly reversed a Bush executive order that mandated withholding information if at all possible.

Emerging from the secrecy-obsessed world of George W. Bush may feel strange, but FBN should recognize that they haven’t moved any mountains. They are just in a new era of openness that makes news gathering a little easier. It is more than a little pathetic that somebody else loosened the top of the jelly jar and FBN thinks they’ve grown new muscles.

Obama Must Reject Bush’s Imperial Bequest

Posted by on February 19, 2009 at 2:08 pm. 3 Comments :

The legacy of George W. Bush lives on in the form of executive powers that he invented in order to pursue his extra-Constitutional agenda. The risk of setting his megalomania into precedent was amongst the best reasons to prosecute and/or impeach him and his accomplices.

In Washington, it has been long understood that no one willingly cedes power. Now President Barack Obama finds himself in command of the regime that was built by Bush, replete with Imperial perks that defy Constitutional law. Obama must now reject them.

Bruce Fein, a conservative lawyer and author who courageously joined those calling for Bush’s impeachment, has written an outstanding article that enumerates the danger of doing nothing about Bush’s excesses. On matters from state secrets to extraordinary rendition to torture, Fein calls for a return to the rule of law, and he cautions that Democrats must not be so enamored of their shiny new president that they permit him to get away with retaining the tyrannical powers established by Bush.

Since most of the violations of the Bush administration were executed from the Oval Office, it is up to Obama to set the ship of state aright. And it is up to the people to make sure that he does so.

George W. Bush Kept Us Safe

Posted by on January 27, 2009 at 3:18 pm. 7 Comments :

Bush SuperheroSeptember 11, 2001, was the sort of milestone that no one wants in their collection. Aside from the obvious and tragic loss of life, it opened up a vein of fear and a recognition that none of us are impervious to grievous harm in a dangerous world.

Thank God, then, for George W. Bush. He kept us safe – well, except for that one time on 9/11. But after that he was a like brave centurion shielding his weak and whimpering wards. That’s why Brit Hume of Fox News, on the day of Barack Obama’s inauguration, marveled…

“That this country would pass into a new presidency eight years later with not a single attack? i certainly didn’t believe that. I woke up every morning for six months wondering whether we’d been attacked again.”

I’m not sure what’s going on at the Hume household, but maybe a little Thorazine would have helped. In the long run, though, Hume and innumerable rightist pundits and politicos, are quite correct in their legacy building efforts on behalf of the beleaguered Bush, who is already regarded as America’s worst president ever. The call has gone out to the Republican Establishment Media that it is only through Bush’s vigilance that any of us are alive today. Just take a look at the record:

  • No terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. Bush kept us safe from terrorists.
  • No hurricanes in New Orleans since Katrina. Bush kept us safe from nature.
  • No comets have hit Earth since Tunguska, 100 years ago. Bush kept us safe from celestial collisions.
  • No #1 albums from Creed since Weathered (2001). Bush kept us safe from Power Ballads.
  • No reanimation of serial murderer and cannibal, Jeffrey Dahmer. Bush kept us safe brain-devouring zombies.
  • No sightings of the Four Horsemen on the Interstate. Bush kept us safe from the Apocalypse.

When you think about all of things that didn’t happen during the Bush years, you can’t help but be grateful for the omnipotent scope of his protective embrace. Along with all of the miracles enumerated above, Bush alone is directly responsible for our not having been consumed by a black hole, or our undergoing an epidemic of projectile vomiting, or the return of the Macarena. Since none of those things happened, then, just like the absence of another terrorist attack, Bush gets all the credit.

Sure, he also ignored intelligence warnings prior to 9/11 that, had they been heeded, might have prevented it. And his crony-infested federal emergency response apparatus resulted in needless death and suffering after Katrina. And his job creation record is the worst since Hoover. And trillions of dollars were lost from retirement and pension funds. And 47 million Americans have no health insurance. And our Constitutional liberties were revoked. But at least our cities have not been overrun by marauding herds of Bigfoots (Bigfeet?). And everyone knows that anything that didn’t happen since 9/11 was directly the result of Bush’s leadership. Well, except for the failure to capture Osama Bin Laden. That was Keith Olbermann’s fault.

So thank you, George W. Bush. And goodbye.


[Hat tip to Bill O’Reilly for alerting me to this video that he regards as child abuse]

Obama Already Undoing The Bush Era Of Secrecy

Posted by on January 21, 2009 at 3:21 pm. 2 Comments :

One week ago I wrote that the Bush Era Of Secrecy May Be Coming To An End, noting that:

George W. Bush has presided over the most secrecy-obsessed administration in the history of the country.

Well, on his first full day as president, Barack Obama has issued a series of Executive Orders and Memoranda that demonstrate his commitment to an open and honest administration. The announcement by the White House reveals several new initiatives, including a pay freeze for certain members of the President’s staff, and ethics provisions that define acceptable behavior with regard to gifts and lobbying.

But the real gems in this announcement are those concerning transparency and open government. The Memorandum specifically cites the Freedom of Information Act and orders on Presidential Records as areas that need to be reformed. President Obama (wow…that’s the first time I’ve typed that) made these remarks this morning about the new direction:

“For a long time now there’s been too much secrecy in this city. The old rules said that if there was a defensible argument for not disclosing some thing to the American people, then it should not be disclosed. That era is now over. Starting today, every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information, but those who seek to make it known.”

Under the new directives, only the President will have the authority to assert executive privilege for records after an administration ends. Under the Bush rules former presidents or their representatives had that authority. Obama went further explaining that…

“[A]ny time the American people want to know something that I or a former president wants to withhold, we will have to consult with the attorney general and the White House counsel, whose business it is to ensure compliance with the rule of law. Information will not be withheld just because I say so. It will be … withheld because a separate authority believes my request is well grounded in the Constitution.”

Bush had set up a system that only an organized crime family could love. But now, as Obama says, that era is now over. These new rules are an encouraging beginning that can be reinforced with the passage of the Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2009 (H.R. 35), by Rep. Edolphus Towns. This legislation has already passed in the House and will be considered soon in the Senate Homeland Security Committee. The bill covers some of what Obama’s Orders do, plus it explicitly overturns Bush’s Executive Order 13233 that permits withholding presidential records. Speaking about the bill, Towns said:

“President Bush’s executive order created an imbalanced and restrictive process. The Presidential Records Act preserves the important intent of the original post-Watergate law, which was to assure timely accessibility and preservation of official White House records for historical and, if necessary, legal purposes.”

The quick action by Towns and Obama suggests that this is indeed a new era. An era wherein the public can begin to trust their government again – or at least have access to the information required to ascertain whether it is trustworthy.

Update: The text of the new Executive Orders is now available on the White House web site. The EO on Presidential Records contains this provision:

Sec. 6. Revocation. Executive Order 13233 of November 1, 2001, is revoked.

I wasn’t aware that the EO was going to be that explicit. What a breath of fresh air. However, there is still a need to pass the Towns bill so that these guidelines are codified into law and a future president cannot merely issue a new EO.

Changing Channels: Fox News In the Age Of Obama

Posted by on January 20, 2009 at 4:24 pm. 3 Comments :

In 1996 Rupert Murdoch hired Roger Ailes, a Republican media consultant, to build a new 24 hour cable news network. Fox News immediately went to work to disparage Democrats and liberals. They spent their early years mired in debt, losing $80-90 million annually. It was only Murdoch’s deep pockets that kept them out of bankruptcy. Still, they had some strategic success as they badgered Bill Clinton with Whitewater and Lewinsky, and they corralled Republican and evangelical voters so that George Bush and Karl Rove could reach them more easily.

However, it was during the Bush years that Fox News began to outperform the cable competition. CNN, HLN, and the launch of MSNBC diluted the non-rightist audience giving Fox a plurality of viewers and bragging rights for ratings victories. Fox enjoyed first shots at interviews and scoops from the administration and Congressional Republicans. That brought them greater influence and gratitude from the halls of power. In addition, the White House kept its TVs tuned to Fox, as well as those at Camp David, the Crawford ranch, and even on Air Force One. Vice-President Dick Cheney even had a travel directive that required that “all televisions [be] tuned to Fox News.” Woe to those staffers who failed in that duty.

There may never have been (and hopefully never again will be) such a close relationship between a news organization and a presidential administration. In the end, they were even trading places as if they were merely different departments of the same enterprise: When presidential advisor Karl Rove moved out of the White House to become a Fox News contributor, Fox anchor Tony Snow moved in to become Bush’s press secretary.

Going forward, Fox will find themselves on a new frontier. It is highly improbable that they will be the exclusive broadcaster in the White House of Barack Obama. Although, I certainly hope that the new administration will pay close attention to the spew emanating from Fox, I don’t expect them to be in cahoots. Murdoch and company are definitely going to lose some of their clout. There will be a new Chairman at the FCC, and a new position for a White House Technology advisor. These will be knowledgeable and independent people who will serve the public interest – for a change. Here is a sampling of the views of Fox News, and Big Media in general, from some senior members of the new administration:

President Obama: “In recent years, we have witnessed unprecedented consolidation in our traditional media outlets. Large mergers and corporate deals have reduced the number of voices and viewpoints in the media marketplace.”

Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State Designate: “There have been a lot of media consolidations in the last several years, and it is quite troubling. The fact is, most people still get their news from television, from radio, even from newspapers. If they’re all owned by a very small group of people – and particularly if they all have a very similar point of view – it really stifles free speech.”

Eric Holder, Attorney General Designate: “With the mainstream media somewhat cowered by conservative critics, and the conservative media disseminating the news in anything but a fair and balanced manner, and you know what I mean there, the means to reach the greatest number of people is not easily accessible.”

More President Obama: “I am convinced that if there were no Fox News, I might be two or three points higher in the polls. If I were watching Fox News, I wouldn’t vote for me, right? Because the way I’m portrayed 24/7 is as a freak! I am the latte-sipping, New York Times-reading, Volvo-driving, no-gun-owning, effete, politically correct, arrogant liberal. Who wants somebody like that?”

This can’t be good news for Fox News. But the network seems to be aware of the shifting landscape and has been preparing for battle. They signed new long-term contracts with Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, and Sean Hannity. They axed Hannity’s foil, Alan Colmes. They hired reinforcements like Mike Huckabee, Glenn Beck, and Judith Miller. Clearly they see trouble ahead and are responding by stocking their armory with ever more weapons of mass deception.

Unfortunately for Fox, forecasts are not rosy for the disinformation station. They are consistently the slowest growing cable news network, particularly in the all-important 25-54 demographic. They have the oldest skewing cable news audience. They are facing stiffer competition than ever, with the surging Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow’s record-breaking debut. The Fox News ratings crown was once unassailable. Today, while still maintaining their first place average, they often come in second and occasionally third. That was unthinkable two short years ago.

As for their future prospects, it is difficult to make a case for Fox to be optimistic. In addition to their recent ratings woes, they are entering a period wherein the American public may not appreciate a network that is hostile to a new president who is held in high regard. Obama is beginning his term with an 80% approval rating. Of course, that won’t last, and Fox will surely seek to shorten Obama’s honeymoon. But contrary to some media analysts who suggest that an adversarial relationship with Washington will benefit Fox, the truth is that Fox experienced its strongest growth amidst the friendliness of Bush years. This suggests that it is not simply drama and controversy that propelled Fox (although that is their preferred programming model), but that having powerful political allies helped them to succeed. When looked at objectively, that shouldn’t surprise anyone. When has having powerful political allies ever been a disadvantage?

Nevertheless, Fox is pursuing the path of most hostility, as evidenced by their new schedule. For further evidence note the response by Fox News commentators following Obama’s inaugural speech. Brit Hume’s first comments were to find passages that might please the right. Chris Wallace actually speculated that the flubbed oath of office (due to Chief Justice Roberts mangling the text) might mean that Obama isn’t really president (Let the conspiracy emails begin). Glenn Beck spent the whole hour of his second show on Fox heaping scorn on Obama. And while Rush Limbaugh isn’t technically on Fox, he is a charter member of the same ideological fraternity, and he has published a long dissertation on why he hopes Obama fails. These guys aren’t wasting any time.

This is just a preview of what we have to look forward to. The influence of Fox News is bound to decline. The Obama camp would be justified in giving Fox a cold shoulder. Fox deserves it for their brazen partisanship and for failing the test of responsible journalism. Other networks should now get some exclusives and scoops. And the more that this historic administration ignores Fox, the less relevant they will be.

We will now see Fox revert to the behavior of an injured wild beast that becomes even more ornery and more dangerous. We see it already. It’s important that we keep an eye on this threat, as it is not retreating to its lair. But it is retreating in the hearts and minds of the American people, and for that we should feel some sense of relief.

Bush Era Of Secrecy May Be Coming To An End

Posted by on January 14, 2009 at 3:16 pm. NO Comments :

George W. Bush has presided over the most secrecy-obsessed administration in the history of the country. More documents have been classified than at any other time. White House officials have defied court orders to disclose data, calendars, and emails. They even claimed that the vice-president was not subject to Congressional demands for information from the White House because he was not a part of the executive branch of government.

Bill Moyers, in a superb speech commemorating the 20th anniversary of the National Security Archive brilliantly articulated the urgency with which Bush pursued the suppression of public data:

“Bush and Cheney have made the Freedom of Information Act their number one target, more fervently pursued for elimination than Osama Bin Laden. No sooner had he come to office than George W. Bush set out to eviscerate both FOIA and the Presidential Records Act. He has been determined to protect his father’s secrets when the first Bush was Vice President and then President – as well as his own. Call it Bush Omerta.”

Last week some sunlight pierced the Bush-imposed darkness:

The end may finally be in sight to the seven-year battle historians and archivists have waged to overturn President Bush’s Executive Order 13233 of November 2001 that restricted access to presidential records. On January 7, 2009, the House of Representatives approved H.R. 35, the “Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2009,” by an overwhelmingly bi-partisan vote of 359-58.

The bill offered by Edolphus Towns (D-NY) has now been sent to Joe Lieberman’s Homeland Security Committee in the Senate where it is expected to be welcomed and passed. Previous versions of this legislation were held up by Senate Republicans and threatened with a Bush veto. At this time, such opposition is not given much credence as the bill could likely muster 60 votes to achieve cloture and President-elect Barack Obama appears to be supportive. While not explicitly citing Bush’s Executive Order, Obama’s ethics agenda includes this statement:

Release Presidential Records: Obama and Biden will nullify attempts to make the timely release of presidential records more difficult.

The National Coalition for History, a non-profit educational project hosted by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, has composed a detailed description of the bill’s provisions. Here is a summary:

  • Overturn Bush Executive Order 13233
  • Establish a Deadline for Review of Records
  • Limit the Authority of Former Presidents to Withhold Presidential Records
  • Require the President to Make Privilege Claims Personally
  • Eliminate Executive Privilege Claims for Vice Presidents
  • Deny Access to Anyone Convicted of a Crime Relating to the Archives

Passage of this bill would mark a profound step back from Bush’s attempts to conceal the crimes and corruption of his office. Joseph Wheelan, of George Mason University’s History News Network, expressed the very real risks of allowing the Bush Doctrine of Secrecy to endure:

“Executive Order 13233 portends a day when spin, the currency of politics, may become the province, too, of presidential history. One can envision a future when a presidential library’s watchdogs would allow only ‘safe’ historians to sift through the library’s holdings for material to cook up a bracingly whitewashed version of his subject’s actions. Objective historians, denied access to the panegyrist’s primary sources and all the juicy details, would be placed at a severe disadvantage. Which version do you think would get the seven-figure publishing advance and the lavish promotional campaign?”

Rep. Towns, and his colleagues in the House, have done a great service to the country with the passage of this bill. In a comment to the press, Towns said:

“President Bush’s executive order created an imbalanced and restrictive process. The Presidential Records Act preserves the important intent of the original post-Watergate law, which was to assure timely accessibility and preservation of official White House records for historical and, if necessary, legal purposes.”

The emphasis added at the end of that quote was mine, because of the hope it implies that justice can still be achieved, that the criminality of the outgoing administration does not go unpunished, and that their unconstitutional behavior is not set as a precedent.

I have long advocated that Executive Order 13233 be rescinded by the next Democratic president. Now Obama has the chance to do that with the added force of law behind it. I expect that he will gladly follow through, but first it has to get out of the senate and onto his desk. This would be good time to contact your senators and request that they support this bill.

Smithsonian Corrects Text Accompanying Bush Portrait

Posted by on January 12, 2009 at 6:28 pm. NO Comments :

Yesterday I reported that a description associated with the newly unveiled portrait of George W. Bush at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery was grossly misleading. It said that the Bush administration was…

“…marked by a series of catastrophic events” including “the attacks on September 11, 2001, that led to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders wrote a letter correctly pointing out that 9/11 DID NOT lead to the war in Iraq. The war was an unrelated initiative of the Bush White House, despite the fact that they attempted to tie the two issues together through a web of lies and innuendo.

Today the Gallery director, Martin Sullivan responded to Sen. Sanders’ letter, agreeing to amend the language:

“Our label was not intended to imply that there was a causal connection between the attacks that occurred on 9/11 and the subsequent U.S. invasion of Iraq…I appreciate your concern, however, about the words ‘led to’. We will revise the label and delete the words ‘led to.'”

Mr. Sullivan is to be congratulated for his prompt response, his open mind, and his integrity. Well, that is, pending the outcome of the revision. But his acknowledgment that the two events had no “causal connection” is evidence that he is striking the proper tone.

Chalk this one up as a victory for honest representations of history and for the diligence of public servants like Sen. Sanders.