President Bush said the public’s decision to reelect him was a ratification of his approach toward Iraq and that there was no reason to hold any administration officials accountable for mistakes or misjudgments in prewar planning or managing the violent aftermath.
“We had an accountability moment, and that’s called the 2004 elections,” Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post. “The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me.”
But…
Well…
I…
Holy crap, how the hell do you respond to that? Bush is essentially saying, “You can’t punish me for anything that happened in my first four years because ‘the people’ [Ed. note: well, 51% of them] re-elected me.” Which is not only offensive and arrogant and completely infuriating, but also, like, employs some impossibly freaky logic. Just look at it the way his argument flows:
a. The president of the United States is ipso facto innocent of any wrongdoing because the people have all the facts and they wouldn’t elect a crook or a fuckup [Richard Nixon and Andrew Johnson excluded];
b. In November, voters elected me; therefore,
c. I made no mistakes at all during my first four years.
d. Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah.
Hello? Even sporting events don’t grant you that kind of clean slate. Say Venus Williams is playing, oh, I dunno, Jennifer Capriati at some tournament. And Venus is wearing these really ugly shoes and a low-slung top and a miniskirt that grants the entire world a view of physical terrain previously know only to her gynecologist. And Venus has a couple of bobbles here and there, and her boob pops out a la Miss Jackson on one particularly tough overhead, but in the end, she whips Jennifer’s ass and moves on to the semifinals. She is not, however, completely out of the woods:
a. She could be held accountable for cheating. If she’s found to have done some shady stuff during the match–using steroids or illegal, performance-enhancing equipment, for example–she could be fined, or the match could be taken from her.
b. She could be held accountable for indecency. The Federal Communications Commission could and likely would levy fines against her for the nip-slip. And of course, she’d have to explain and apologize to fans, friends, and foes for years to come.
c. She could be held accountable for her wardrobe. Bad fashion is an unforgivable sin. Venus might go on to win the tournament title, the lottery, and the race for county commissioner, but she’d still be guilty of making an offensive sartorial statement.
But then, all this comes from the man who led us into what Jon Stewart quite aptly calls “Mess-O-Potamia,” based not on logic, but rather on some half-baked intelligence cobbled together by GW’s unnerving, single-minded desire to oust a delusional dictator. If the whole “Iraqi Freedom” thing isn’t a textbook example of faulty logic, I dunno what is.
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