Liberals owe former President George W. Bush a huge debt of gratitude. Without him, they'd have so little to talk about when things don't go their way.
Bush is once again proving helpful to left wingers at a loss to explain limited public support for President Obama's apparent plan to attack Syria after its alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians. (Audio after the jump)
As heard on two liberal radio shows yesterday, Bush is obviously the reason why Americans aren't baying at the moon for war in yet another Middle Eastern country, especially in the absence of congressional approval and UN acquiescence, two pre-conditions for armed conflict that apparently apply only to Republican commanders in chief.
First, here's what Bill Press had to say (h/t for audio, Brian Maloney, mrctv.org) --
Reuters Ipsos conducted a nationwide survey showing that 9 percent, 9, only 9 percent of the American people support military action in Syria. I think it's understandable why. Why is because nobody wants another war in the Middle East. You know, we've gotten, we've ended the war in Iraq, we're trying to end the war in Afghanistan, moving in that direction. The idea of a third war, nobody wants, nobody likes, and I think to a large extent Americans have a kind of a Bush hangover over war, that the idea that the only solution to every problem is a military solution and dropping bombs, the American people have kind of had it with that philosophy.
The same tiresome "philosophy" that Obama appears willing to put into action against Assad, just as he did so against Gaddafi.
More along the same lines from left-wing journalist Tina Dupuy on Stephanie Miller's radio show --
Here's my issue with Syria thing. Had we had not been lied to, had we had not, like, experienced a bunch of, like, utter BS about people, about, uh, nuc-, about, uh, chemical weapons, weapons of mass destruction, and a dictator doing this to his own people and the need for intervening, if we hadn't gone through that whole thing which turned out to not be true, to actually date it and completely, some of it completely fabricated we come to find out, uh, we would have intervened in Syria two years ago. We would have gone in there, we would have made sure that these, that these children were not gassed. That would have, we, you know, I can be pretty confident that we had not been in this never-ending conflict, two wars by the way for the last, you know, twelve years, we wouldn't have, we would have been, uh, much more likely to have gone in and done something about Syria.
Dupuy's barely coherent argument in a nutshell -- if only the US was not engaged in this "never-ending conflict," thanks to Bush, Obama would have ... engaged in more conflict! That cursed warmonger Bush, deterring Obama from waging war! And notice how she suggests the US is still fighting in Iraq -- "two wars" for the last "twelve years" -- despite the fact our last troops left Iraq nearly two years ago.
Bill Press complains that Americans are reeling from a Bush-inflicted "hangover" while he ignores bartender Obama's contributions to the toxic brew.
Let's start with Obama, Biden, Clinton and like-minded Democrats thoroughly condemning Bush's belief in pre-emptive war, of not waiting until a threat from a foreign entity was imminent before responding. Now that Obama is in power, he is quite willing to act pre-emptively to prevent the slaughter of further innocents, none of whom happen to be American. Nice to see him finally come around to the virtue of tackling problems before they become intractably difficult.
Let's not forget it was all of two years ago that Obama intervened in another Middle Eastern civil war, followed shortly thereafter by ungrateful Libyans murdering the US ambassador and three other Americans. Suffice it to say there won't be a long line of volunteers at the State Department for service in Damascus if Assad does not outlive American intervention.
Just out of curiosity, would Obama be as eager to attack Syria had all those children been killed by drones and not chemical weapons? And is he at all curious about the provenance of the WMD stockpile wielded by this Baathist regime?
