Looking for the Most Embarrassing Moment in Presidential History? Mission Accomplished!
Like Babe Ruth’s home run record, Bill Clinton’s “shot heard ’round the world” looked certain to remain the Most Embarrassing Moment in Presidential History for a long, long time. Then came George W. Bush.
Five years ago today, Bush, codpiece and all, landed a fighter jet onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and declared victory in Iraq. Not only was his declaration premature, he made it beneath an enormous banner reading, “Mission Accomplished.”
Like Clinton’s moment of infamy, Bush’s was truly revealing. If Clinton is an egomanaical self-absorbed sex addict with the morals of a (one-eyed trouser) snake, Bush is a deeply insecure arrested adolescent who’s used the US military as a prop for his own self-aggrandizement. The very idea of using fighter jets, an aircraft carrier, and an entire crew of sailors as backdrops in a swaggering draft dodger’s PR stunt is as pathetic as it is ludicrous.
Just as Clinton denied his boner, saying “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” while he wagged his finger at the nation, Bush now denies the “Mission Accomplished” banner referred to the war in Iraq. The Bush administration claims the banner referred to the mission of the USS Lincoln itself; White House spokesperson Dana Perino continued that farce yesterday, saying
President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said ‘mission accomplished’ for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission.
A banner with those words on it would have been as long as a Babe Ruth homerun.
Sometimes it’s the biggest egos, and sometimes the smallest, that require the most stroking.
May 3, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Bush again–first said the $3-6-1200 relief money would boost the economy, like we’d all go out and have a ball with it. Now he says it will help with the increase in gas and food prices until the economy levels out–thanks a lot.