Bush Flunks History
On Presidents Day, George Bush made a ridiculous attempt to portray George Washington as someone who would have supported the Iraq war — the same George Washington who left office warning against foreign entanglements.
Speaking at Mount Vernon, Bush quoted our first president as saying, “My best wishes are irresistibly excited whensoever in any country I see an oppressed nation unfurl the banners of freedom.”
Washington was a lover of freedom to be sure, slave owner that he was, but he never made mention of being excited by seeing the banners of freedom forcibly unfurled upon an oppressed nation.
He did, however, argue against “those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.”
Wait, before you go…Reuters:
Joined by his wife Laura, with a military honor guard wearing Revolutionary War uniforms standing at attention, Bush laid a wreath at the tomb of the first American president on the Presidents Day holiday to mark Washington’s birth 275 years ago.
Standing before the Mount Vernon mansion and sharing the stage with an actor dressed as Gen. George Washington, Bush said Washington’s Revolutionary War leadership inspired generations of Americans “to stand for freedom in their own time.”
“Today, we’re fighting a new war to defend our liberty and our people and our way of life. And as we work to advance the cause of freedom around the world, we remember that the father of our country believed that the freedoms we secured in our revolution were not meant for Americans alone,” Bush said.
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