Stop blaming Bush for our nation’s ills

The July 15 letter titled “You had to be asleep to overlook Bush errors” reads like a catalog of the accumulated smears and distortions endlessly spewed by the George W. Bush-hating left. Space limitations prevent a point-by-point rebuttal but here is a sampling.

The Iraq war was one of necessity, not “convenience.” That rogue nation's belligerence, its serial violations of United Nations sanctions and Gulf War cease-fire terms, and its perverse equivocation over the existence of weapons of mass destruction were unacceptable in a post-9/11 world. Congressional Democrats conducted a chorus of anguish over the gathering menace of Iraqi WMDs but opportunistically flip-flopped afterward for political expediency.

Had the Bush administration not acted, there would likely have been a crescendo of Democrat demands for impeachment for “dereliction.”

The 9/11 attack happened under President Bush's watch but its detailed planning occurred during President Clinton's. Politically motivated hobbling of our intelligence apparatus cost us the ability to interdict that plot. And a prime opportunity under Clinton to pluck Osama bin Laden was forfeited as a result of bureaucratic waffling.

The subprime mortgage collapse resulted from the unsound lending practices forced upon banks by affirmative action programs promulgated by the Carter and Clinton administrations. Bush administration attempts at reform were systematically blocked by congressional Democrats.

The left keeps throwing rubbish against the wall, hoping something will stick. It isn't sticking.

Dale Fitzgibbons

Cedar Rapids