For quite a while, when the president was asked whether he’d made any mistakes in office, Bush would struggle to come up with something. More recently, he came up with a stock answer: Bush thought it was a mistake to use warmongering rhetoric such as “bring ’em on.”
This week, in the midst of a European trip, the president elaborated on this.
President Bush has admitted to The Times that his gun-slinging rhetoric made the world believe that he was a “guy really anxious for war” in Iraq. He said that his aim now was to leave his successor a legacy of international diplomacy for tackling Iran.
In an exclusive interview, he expressed regret at the bitter divisions over the war and said that he was troubled about how his country had been misunderstood. “I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric.”
Phrases such as “bring them on” or “dead or alive”, he said, “indicated to people that I was, you know, not a man of peace”. […]
He also offered words of encouragement for another ally, Gordon Brown, whom he will meet on Sunday…. But he delivered a thinly veiled warning to Mr Obama that his promises to renegotiate or block international trade deals were already causing alarm in Europe and beyond.
This is interesting on a few levels. First, it’s kind hilarious that Bush is troubled by the notion that he’s not perceived as a “man of peace.” He, you know, launched a preemptive attack against a country that wasn’t a threat and then refused to leave. Bush is considered a “guy really anxious for war” in Iraq because he really was a guy really anxious for war in Iraq.
Second, it’s really hilarious to hear Bush suggest that leaders in “Europe and beyond” are worried about an Obama presidency. Trust me, they’re far more worried about Bush.
But the angle I hadn’t expected was the conservative outrage over Bush expressing regret in the first place.
My friend Alex Koppelman explained that conservatives aren’t responding well to the president’s comments, and are accusing him of betraying himself.
Michelle Malkin was one very predictable source of indignation about this, and she played to type. Her post on the comments is titled “Bush Goes Mushy.” In it, she quips, “He’s putting the lame in lame duck.”
Similarly indignant, if more strident, was Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs. Geller called Bush’s interview “pathetic,” wrote, “Memo to Bush: STFU” (her emphasis) and said, “Bush regrets his legacy as a ‘man who wanted war?’ … It was not your legacy, it was al qaeda and company’s legacy. Not aggressively defending ourselves is a moral depravity. Apologizing for defending this great nation is morally bankrupt.” […]
And the bloggers at Powerline, who’ve previously gone a wee bit over the top in their admiration for Bush, were up in arms. The site’s John Hinderaker referenced a comment he says former Sen. Rick Santorum made to him about the Bush administration having “battered President syndrome” and said, “Bush appears to have more or less internalized the criticisms that his enemies have lodged over the years … Bush [repeated] one of the sillier attacks the left has launched on his Presidency.” One of Hinderaker’s co-bloggers, Paul Mirengoff, concurred, writing, “Bush seems determined to drive his approval rating down to roughly zero percent.”
Bring it on.