During last week’s Republican debate, Jeb Bush made a curious claim,
said Jonathan Chait. His brother, George W., had “kept us safe,” he
proclaimed, to loud applause from a Republican audience. But Jeb
neglected to mention that “the worst domestic mass casualty attack in
American history” took place on his brother’s watch, with 3,000 people
killed and the World Trade Center reduced to rubble. Even worse,
Dubya received multiple CIA warnings of an impending al Qaida
attack—and did nothing. The CIA told the Bush administration that “a
group presently in the U.S.” was planning a major terrorist operation
soon; on Aug. 6, while Bush was on vacation, he was handed a memo
headlined “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” Bush and his aides
dismissed the urgent warnings as “a disinformation campaign” to distract
attention from the real threat, Iraq. After 9/11, Bush let Osama
bin Laden get away at Tora Bora, and then led the country into the
Iraq War, “which was not exactly a safety-enhancing event, either.” But
Bush sure did talk tough. Only in some alternate reality did his strutting
displays of “alpha manhood” make America safer.
