Tonight Chris Matthews on MSNBC made a very astute observation, one we are all aware of, but until he said it tonight, one I hadn't looked at in quite this way.
He said that by adopting the neocon ideology and going to war in Iraq when there was no defensive reason to go there, the president had divided the country in a way that will be very hard to put back together again.
He was talking to Rachel Maddow about the service forum both candidates participated in on the anniversary of 9/11, and reminding everyone how united we were as a country in the days and weeks after the attacks. But when Bush - "egged on by McCain" - decided to go to war against Iraq, the country split apart.
My husband and I were on the side opposed to the war, but most of our family members were for it. Indeed, most of the country trusted the president and his surrogates and believed him when he said war was a matter of national security. We knew better because we had been reading and studying up on terrorism, Islamic extremism, al Qaeda, American foreign policy in the Middle East, the history of the neoconservative movement, and the intelligence community's assessment over the five to ten years prior to 9/11.
We knew from things we had learned in our readings and investigation, that Saddam Hussein very likely didn't have weapons and that Bush was going to war for a myriad of other reasons having to do with a "Pax Americana" ideology, a desire to control the Middle East, a drive to secure access to oil, and perhaps his own personal oedipal complex. We knew it was wrong, yet we also knew that when a president in a time of crisis appeals to patriotism and nationalism, most Americans won't bother to ask questions.
Over time, as the lies and the subterfuge were exposed, more people came over to our side, though most still didn't realize the extent of the fraud that has been perpetrated on the country. Most still do not.
And here we are today, still horribly divided. On one side are the people like John McCain - warmongers, uber nationalists, America right or wrong folks - and Sarah Palin - who epitomizes the typical uneducated, busy working person who never bothered to look at the truth even as she sent her eldest son off to war. On the other side are we "elitists" and a lot of other people who may not know the facts, but know a phony and a liar when they see one, and they see one in George W. Bush. On our side are those who don't believe in preventative wars and prefer to see America lead the world in technology, and medicine and education and peace, not in war. On our side are those who are sick of the tough maverick cowboy mentality and want an intelligent approach to problems. My husband and I are still on the same side, unable to even discuss with family members, who disagree with us, what Bush has done to this country.
So in addition to being responsible for the deaths of nearly 4500 fighting men and women and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans, and for squandering the treasury and our children's future, George W. Bush is reponsible for fracturing this country along lines that were perhaps finally beginning to heal after the tragedy of Vietnam. Instead of using 9/11 to pull us together and remind us we are all family who need each other and care for each other, he started an immoral war and forced Americans to take sides. Most took his side, because most are loyal to the president. A few opposed him, because their loyalty was to the truth.
And this election, with its bitterness and ugliness (mostly on McCain's side), is what we have inherited from George W. Bush who, if there is any justice in the world, will someday rot in hell.
