If only more in the media were as hard hitting and insightful as Molly Ivins was, we probably would not be in Iraq today. Molly Ivins, who died this week, warned us repeatedly but not enough people listened and acted on her insights. She held Bush up to the light for all to see.
In her column entitled, “Call me a Bush-Hater” written in November of 2003, the clarity and directness of her style of writing tells us some of what we’ve lost with her death.
“Then suddenly, in the greatest bait-and-switch of all time, Osama Bin Laden doesn’t matter at all, and we have to go after Saddam Hussein, who had nothing to do with 9/11. But he does have horrible weapons of mass destruction, and our president “without doubt,” without question, knows all about them, even unto the amounts–tons of sarin, pounds of anthrax. So we take out Saddam Hussein, and there are no weapons of mass destruction. Furthermore, the Iraqis are not overjoyed to see us.
By now, quite a few people who aren’t even liberal are starting to say, “What the hey?” We got no Osama, we got no Saddam, we got no weapons of mass destruction, the road map to peace in the Middle East is blown to hell, we’re stuck in this country for $87 billion just for one year and no one knows how long we’ll be there”
“… what we need is the Big Picture. Well, the Big Picture is that after September 11, we had the sympathy of every nation on Earth. They all signed up, all our old allies volunteered, everybody was with us, and Bush just booted all of that away. Sneering, jeering, bad manners, hideous diplomacy, threats, demands, arrogance, bluster.”
“In Afghanistan, Bush rode a popular tide; Iraq, however, was a singular act of presidential will,” says Krauthammer.You bet your ass it was. We attacked a country that had done nothing to us, had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, and turns out not to have weapons of mass destruction.
It is not necessary to hate George W. Bush to think he’s a bad president. Grownups can do that, you know. You can decide someone’s policies are a miserable failure without lying awake at night consumed with hatred.
Poor Bush is in way over his head, and the country is in bad shape because of his stupid economic policies. If that makes me a Bush-hater, then sign me up.”
The complete column was also reprinted in Molly Ivins book, Who Let the Dogs in? Incredible Political Animals I have Known”, which was published in 2004. The words carry as much bite today as they did over 2 years ago.Thank you Molly for speaking truth to power.
