Bush's 'Bullhorn Moment' Just Bull

New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
Bush's 'Bullhorn Moment' Just Bull

Tuesday, September 20th, 2005

I'm amazed that anyone is amazed that it took George W. Bush three days to show up in New Orleans after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. That's exactly how long it took him to show up at Ground Zero after 9/11.

So it mystifies me that the pundits and the cable gasbags keep telling us that George W. Bush missed his "bullhorn moment" in New Orleans.

No, he didn't.

Because his bullhorn moment in New York City was just as late and just as disgraceful as his fumbling handling of the Katrina carnage.

I wish I had a bullhorn to shout just how tired I am of hearing about how wonderful George W. Bush's "bullhorn moment" was.

It will go down as one of the worst moments in American history because when he stood on the smoldering ruins amid the dust of the dead it was through that bullhorn that Bush's Big Lie was first shouted to the world that the people who knocked down those buildings would soon be hearing from us.

It might have been a fairly good, better-late-than-never moment if all Bush had done was use that bullhorn to launch a war on Al Qaeda. It might have escalated into a great piece of historical stagecraft if we'd just gone into Afghanistan and stayed the course on a noble quest to kill Osama Bin Laden and all his Al Qaeda cowards who murdered our people.

But the words that echoed through Bush's bullhorn into the smoldering 16 acres of lower Manhattan, the words that resounded across the grieving outer boroughs and the sorrowful suburbs and the stunned globe, were but an orchestrated setup for a grander diabolical scheme.

Because we fast gave up the hunt for Bin Laden for a bait-and-switch war in Iraq that had nothing to do with the rubble upon which Bush stood at Ground Zero shouting bull through his bullhorn.

Bush has now declared that half-a-buck stops on his desk for Katrina.

But he doesn't ever mention that Osama Bin Laden is still out there roaming free and plotting more American murders. That stops on his desk, too.

Historians will refocus that bullhorn moment as the point of origin to exploit a terrible attack on America for a preconceived war in Iraq that had nothing to do with our dead.

Historians also will remember that directly after the terrorists attacked the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 2001, killing 2,749, our fearless leader, with all that Texas Air Guard combat training, hopped aboard Air Force One and lammed to, um, Omaha.

Talk about heroic.

And as real heroes dug in the rubble for signs of life, shortening their own lives in the toxic air, Bush hid out. Then three days later, when the coast was clear, he arrived to shoot a Karl Rove-inspired reelection commercial and to launch a war in Iraq.

The invasion of Baghdad started in New York in that "bullhorn moment" three days after Sept. 11.

That final battle of the war in Iraq was lost in New Orleans when Bush showed up three days after Katrina.

As bodies floated down the street, and tens of thousands were stranded without food, water and medical supplies in the convention center, the white flag in the war in Iraq was waved when Bush told Federal Emergency Management Agency boss Michael Brown, an incompetent crony, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

Now, with Bush's approval rating at 40%, with more than 50% disapproving of his handling of Iraq, the Security Moms and NASCAR Dads for Bush are silent. Even the Swift Boat Vets can't save Bush from drowning in his own ineptitude.

For what the floods of Katr ina revealed was just how out of his depth George W. Bush is as presidential stock.

I often ask successful conservative businessmen friends if they would let  George W. Bush run their private businesses. They almost always smile andadmit they wouldn't. And yet they voted for him torun the most powerful nation on the planet.

It would be funny except  that almost 1,900 Americans troops have been killed to create an Islamic state that spirals toward a possible civil warin Iraq since Bush's wonderful "bullhorn moment."