Four years ago this evening, President Bush stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and took a turn for the history books. Beneath a "Mission Accomplished" banner produced by his White House, before the neatly arrayed and brightly uniformed sailors ordered to set the stage for their Commander-in-Chief, and under the gaze of tens of millions of television viewers worldwide, the tiny man stuck his little foot into his gigantic mouth:
Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.The moment has come to crystallize for many of us the hubris of both the man and the political movement he represents. And while we target our derision today on the man, we should bear in mind that he is not an emperor. He is not a dictator. George W. Bush became president by election.
This war is Bush's war, there is no doubt about that. But let's not forget that 51% of our insightful fellow Americans voted for Bush in November, 2004, eighteen months into the fiasco. Knowing all that we know today about the war, 34% of our countrymen, a very sizeable minority, continue to support it.
Just think about that! Fully a third of the population of this country (together with nearly half of the members of both houses of the U.S. Congress, Republicans all) remain solidly behind President Bush and his misbegotten war.
So, sure, let's give President Bush the salute he deserves today, but let's also mark the occasion accurately: a screw-up on a scale like this war was not the work of one person, as stubborn and as stupid as he might be. A screw-up like this war was a team effort from the very beginning.
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