Liberty Strikes Back
Chapter 2 — The Debate
THE DEBATE
October 11, 2000
One year earlier, Vice President Gore and Governor Bush debated for the office of President, knowing that the winner would determine the course of events for at least the next four years, perhaps longer. It was in the second debate that then-Governor Bush attacked Gore’s foreign policy stance by characterizing it as nation building, stating without prompt, “If we don’t stop sending our troops around the world, uhh, in nation-building missions, then we’re gonna have a serious problem coming down the road and I, I’m going to prevent that.”
His stutter, “uh” and facial expression gave it away.
“Oh my god. We’re going to war,” I said to myself in stunned disbelief while my buddies played World of Warcraft upstairs.
Today, the Republican Party likes to claim that President Bush kept us safe, as though the Twin Tower attacks didn’t happen on his watch.
(Search “The George Bush You Forgot,” 1:59–2:05, to watch for yourself.)
Observation: Those who seek to undermine our liberties will frequently do so by pointing the finger at a political opponent, country or group of people. Through the use of fear, discredit, and character assassination, rather than reason, they argue the case against the policy that they seek to implement, projecting and seeking to associate their fear-based pronouncement onto their target. The fact is that in the context of supposed “nation-building,” the Clinton-Gore Administration limited troop deployment around the world relative to the post-9/11 Bush-Obama-Trump wars of Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.
