Welcome to 1984, GOP Version
By Jeffrey Page
I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but don’t push me.
That said, there’s something very strange occurring in the country these days. Prevarication Central at the headquarters of the Republican National Committee seems to be doing its Orwellian best to rewrite history. They want us to believe the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Virginia didn’t occur on George W. Bush’s watch. Clearly they want the nation to believe the lie that Two-Gun Bush was so tough that America’s enemies knew that to mess with him was to risk destruction. It’s also possible that since Bush did such a masterful job of wrecking the economy, the GOP would like history books – and voters in the next election – to distance him from the catastrophe of 9/11. One disaster is enough.
On three occasions in the last three months, prominent Republicans who have served in elective and appointive positions in government have suggested the impossible – that the attacks must have taken place late in the administration of Bill Clinton, which ended eight months earlier, or very early in the administration of Barak Obama, which didn’t begin for another seven and a half years. How this is possible is never explained.
If such patent nonsense had come from the mouths of three people outside politics I could accept that they simply didn’t know what they were talking about. But it’s worse than that. This lie about the terror-less Bush administration was spread by three educated people who know better.
— “We had no domestic attacks under Bush; we’ve had one under Obama,” said Rudolph Giuliani during an interview by George Stephanopoulos last Friday on “Good Morning America.” Giuliani studied political science at Manhattan College and law at New York University. No domestic attacks under Bush? Has he forgotten the rubble of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001? Has he forgotten Richard Reid, the lunatic who tried to blow up a plane with explosives hidden in his shoes? Has he forgotten the anthrax attacks that killed five people including Kathy Nguyen, 61, of the Bronx – one of his 7 million constituents?
— “We inherited a recession from President Clinton and we inherited the most tragic attack on our own soil in our nation’s history,” said Mary Matalin in December. Matalin, 56, was an adviser to Vice President Cheney. She graduated from Western Illinois University, where she majored in political science, and from the Hofstra University law school. We “inherited” 9/11? Is she mad, comatose, or just a resident of another planet?
— “We did not have a terrorist attack during President Bush’s term,” said Dana Perino in November. Perino, 37, was Bush’s last press secretary. She is a graduate of the University of Southern Colorado, where she majored mass communications, two of whose requirements are getting the facts and telling the truth. She has a master’s degree in public affairs reporting from the University of Illinois at Springfield. No attack under Bush? Nice try, but ask the families and friends of the 3,000 people murdered on Sept. 11 who was running the show. Ask the people aboard American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami who subdued Reid. Ask the friends of Kathy Nguyen, who died miserably of inhalation anthrax just 50 days after Sept. 11.
You have to be pretty cynical about the intelligence of the American people to look into a television camera and spew the drivel that came from Giuliani, Matalin and Perino. Not that they were challenged by their interviewers – who just let these falsehoods slide.
Jeffrey can be reached at jeffrey@zestoforange.com
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