Monday, November 13, 2006
Apologize to Bush?
Every morning I read the "letters to the editor" section of the newspaper. This morning there were letters from readers commenting about the recent election. One was from a reader who demanded that Democrats now publicly apologize to President Bush for the bad things they said about him during the election campaign. Otherwise, according to this reader, the poisonous atmosphere in Washington, the backbiting between the two Parties, the hard feelings will just continue and we again will witness a Congress that fights with itself and gets nothing done.
The idea of apologizing to President Bush is not a new one to me. My friend H insisted that we "liberals" issue an apology to Mr. Bush after the story was published that it was Richard Armitage and not some White House operative (e.g., Karl Rove or Scooter Libby) who first revealed to columnist Robert Novak that Joseph Wilson's wife was a CIA operative named Valerie Plame. Evidently Armitage was a bit trusting and didn't expect that Novak was going to "out" Ms Plame. My friend H was triumphant. See, Bush didn't out Valerie Plame. It was someone else. Bush had nothing to do with it. You liberals should apologize to Bush for blaming him for destroying Ms Plame's career and for trying to discredit Joe Wilson, etc., etc., etc.
If an apology is to be issued to Mr. Bush, Mr. Bush has to issue his own apology. He must apologize not to Democrats but to the American People for telling them that a vote for Democrats would be a vote for Al Qaeda and the other terrorists. Bush and his apologists will now argue that he never said those words - just like he never said that our Iraq policy is "stay the course," or that his surrogates never said that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the attack that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. My friend H and the writer to the newspaper should remember that what goes around comes around. Mr. Bush and the Republicans started all this nastiness. Let them be the first to apologize.
The idea of apologizing to President Bush is not a new one to me. My friend H insisted that we "liberals" issue an apology to Mr. Bush after the story was published that it was Richard Armitage and not some White House operative (e.g., Karl Rove or Scooter Libby) who first revealed to columnist Robert Novak that Joseph Wilson's wife was a CIA operative named Valerie Plame. Evidently Armitage was a bit trusting and didn't expect that Novak was going to "out" Ms Plame. My friend H was triumphant. See, Bush didn't out Valerie Plame. It was someone else. Bush had nothing to do with it. You liberals should apologize to Bush for blaming him for destroying Ms Plame's career and for trying to discredit Joe Wilson, etc., etc., etc.
If an apology is to be issued to Mr. Bush, Mr. Bush has to issue his own apology. He must apologize not to Democrats but to the American People for telling them that a vote for Democrats would be a vote for Al Qaeda and the other terrorists. Bush and his apologists will now argue that he never said those words - just like he never said that our Iraq policy is "stay the course," or that his surrogates never said that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the attack that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. My friend H and the writer to the newspaper should remember that what goes around comes around. Mr. Bush and the Republicans started all this nastiness. Let them be the first to apologize.
