Recent polls have shown that something like 66 percent of Republicans believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9-11. That would explain why Bush still has a base of support in spite of all that has gone wrong during his administration.
Obviously Dan Cook, the former sports columnist for the Express-News, falls into that category. This Sunday, Cook wrote an op-ed for the paper in which he lamented the fact that the country is not unified in its support for President Bush's foreign policy in Iraq. He recalls how when he was a child the country fell in behind FDR after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and supported his decision to take the country into WWII.
What Mr. Cook forgets or fails to see is that the country did fall in behind President Bush after 9-11 and supported his decision to go after al Qaeda and their state sponsors in Afghanistan. It was only after Bush decided to divert our military resources to go on an extended snipe hunt in Iraq that significant numbers of people started to turn against the president.
Imagine if FDR had pulled something like that during WWII. Rather than going after the Japanese and their Axis allies in Europe, what if he had suddenly decided to divert U.S. troops and launch a massive invasion of Mexico. Don't you think people might have questioned the wisdom of such a move, especially in the midst of a war? And what if then FDR's excuses for invading Mexico turned out to be all wrong? Would the American people have remained unified behind him?
What do you think, Dan? Is the U.S. really that different today?
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