Trump sets up 9/11 and the Iraq War as Republican debate issues
Jeb Bush is about to walk into a haymaker.
Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump stated the fact that that George W. Bush was the President when we were attacked by Islamic extremists.
“He was President,” Trump said. “Blame him, or don’t blame him, but he was President. The World Trade Center came down during his reign.”
“I think I’m much more competent than all of them,” Trump said.
“Say what you want, the World Trade Center came down during his time,” Trump told Bloomberg.
Jeb Bush’s responded with the threadbare lie that his brother “kept us safe.” I don’t see how this isn’t terrible news for the faltering Bush campaign. The more Trump reminds the GOP base of Bush;s incompetence, and the more Jed tries to respond to those attacks by sticking his fingers in his ear holes and chanting “He kept us safe” the more Bush looks like a complete buffoon.
I was rather surprised by this.
Republicans have been very prickly about any disparagement of Bush in the role that he played in allowing the 9/11 disasters. Remember the anger aimed at Bill Maher (he was fired) for poking fun at Bush (Bush had called the suicide pilots “cowards”).
Can Trump get away with this with impunity? He must have thought about it before he said anything.
Imagine the outcry from the right if Hillary had said this instead.
But I agree… this is a disaster for Jeb. He should say nothing at all, and even then that might not help.
I think a lot of Republicans have probably figured out a way to believe Obama or one of the Clintons was responsible or derelict for the 9/11 attacks, even though they happened in living memory. They already do this for the Great Recession. And look how easily they overlooked the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing.
Ezra Klein notes that Trump isn’t just bullying Jeb! over this, he is reminding the GOP that nominating Jeb! is to relitigate the entire Iraq War and other foreign policy failures for the general. The GOP has long pushed back against accusations that BushCo was responsible for 9/11 and went batshit crazy on this as a result of the 9/11 Commission. But it seems pretty clear that BushCo was certainly inattentive and then proceeded to continue to screw the pooch.
It looks like Trump tripled down on this:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2015/10/18/trump-triples-down-on-george-w-bushs-responsibility-for-911/
Look at the “most liked” comments on this article. Jeb fares very badly.
And RedState has gone visceral against Trump:
http://www.redstate.com/2015/10/17/trump-attack-gwb-soft-trutherism/
FoxNews finally dropped this one after ignoring the issue for days:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/10/18/trump-suggests-might-have-prevented-11-attacks-extending-feud-with-bush/
The posted comments on Fox are so trite compared to the ones on WaPo. It’s like they’re all at the Junior High level.
Anyway… It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I expect it to hurt both of them.
…time to make popcorn and watch the GOP explode… (again)
What I can’t fathom is Jeb’s response. “He kept us safe.” I mean WTF? In addition to being transparently false, it is so goddamn puerile it makes Trump sound erudite in comparison.
But that’s always been the line – “He kept us safe.” – and up until Trump called it out it was gospel. Our fabulous Press sure as hell never called it out when it was uttered, time and time again, by Republicans. So, I completely understand why Jeb! was comfortable with trotting out the line that had always been given a pass.
What Trump has done is interesting. He has completely exposed the GOP morality/ethics/values as a sham. 9/11 is no longer sacred? Attacking McCain’s war service is fair game? Trump has changed the rules and conservatives are quite happy selling out everything they’ve pretended to care about all these years.
Oops! I forgot one… Trump gets away with not being hyper-christian/religious. I thought that was a major requirement? Silly me.
From Digby at Salon:
“…on Sunday to respond to Trump’s needling, and clumsily said that “it’s what you do after [the attack] that matters”. Unfortunately, this not only stipulates that his brother did fail to keep us safe, but then invites the public to look at what he did after, which is not a record on which anyone should want to run. (The obvious question: Was attacking a country that didn’t attack us, leading to thousands more lives lost, evidence of his “keeping us safe”?)”
Nah ha