On the recordJanuary 12, 2010
I was surprised to hear a few days ago Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, say that there were no terrorist attacks during the Bush administration on U.S. soil. He later corrected that remark to say that there were no terrorist attacks on U.S. soil while President Bush was leading the country--except for just 9/11, only the terrorist attack on 9/11. And I realized that I was witnessing the birth of a new form of political discourse from the right wing in this country: The exception. The exceptional exception, the exception that proves the rule or disproves the rule, as the case may be. So I'm expecting that in the future, we'll hear from the right wing the claim that no cities drowned under the Bush administration--except for New Orleans. And that there were no wars that were started by mistake under the Bush administration--except for the war in Iraq. And that the Bush administration added nothing to the Federal debt--except for $4.5 trillion, which works out to $15,000 for every man, woman, and child in this country. And that they respected all of our constitutional rights as Americans--except when they didn't. I think that we'll hear the Republicans claim that the Bush administration managed the economy quite well--except when they brought it to the brink of national bankruptcy. In fact, they'll claim that the Bush-Cheney administration was a complete success--except for the fact that it was an abject failure.
