Chris Matthews commends Donald Trump for exposing the reality Democrats & Republicans often fail to articulate
Chris Matthews gets it right sometimes. This one more so than others. The new mix-up between Donald Trump and Jeb Bush about whether his brother George W. Bush kept the nation safe is going into overdrive. If Jeb Bush had simply kept his mouth shut instead of trying to use old Republican talking points, it likely would have gone away.
Instead Jeb Bush doubled down on his defense when interviewed by Jake Tapper. This then expanded the story by forcing Jeb Bush to acknowledge the similarities between the 9/11 events when his brother was in charge and the Benghazi event when Hillary Clinton was in charge. If she is to blame for 4 dead Americans shouldn’t George W. Bush be blamed for 3,000 dead Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis? Watching Jeb Bush backpedal was painful as he fumbled his words.
Chris Matthews’ Hardball ‘Let me finish’ piece brought it home. But it added a nuance in the last few sentences one wonders if everyone noted.
Let me finish tonight with the wondrous fact that Donald Trump was the one to say ‘The emperor has no clothes’. Ever since September 11th, 2001 the Democrats have joined the Republicans in agreeing the country would be better off if we didn’t become divided in blame over who allowed this country worst attack on the continental United States. What upset this arrangement is Jeb Bush’s statement that is deniable on its face that his brother George, quote, kept us safe. Well obviously he didn’t. He did a good job of rallying the country after we were hit, a quick job of tracking down the killers to Afghanistan. From there it all came apart. From his war of choice against Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with what happened here in 2001. In any case what brings this matter back is the atrocious way in which the Republican Party is trying to blame Hillary Clinton for the deaths of four Americans serving in Libya in 2012. Three years later they continue to hunt her, hunt her down you could say on the groundless argument that someone must be to blame. Well you follow that argument in the trail of 9/11 and you end up with George W. Bush. As Harry Truman once said of the American presidency, “The Buck Stops here.”
If you follow the trail, George W. Bush is responsible for not following the signs that preceded 9/11. George W. Bush is responsible for destabilizing the Middle East by invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and thus destabilizing the region. That destabilization is a factor in Libya, Syria, and elsewhere. Indirectly then, he is even to blame for Benghazi.