Eric Bolling, Asshole of the Day for October 3, 2014
We all know that if you take things out of context, they can mean the exact opposite of what they did at the time. And it's a long running trick in politics and other contentious areas to try to catch an opponent out of context so as to embarrass them in front of voters.
But there's pulling quotes out of context, and then there's ignoring the entire decade context that something happens in. A decade we were all there for and participated in. And yet Fox News wants us to believe that George W. Bush predicted the rise of ISIL:
During an October 2 interview on Fox Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade spoke with Bush about the pull out of American forces in Iraq and the subsequent rise of the Islamic State. Kilmeade suggested that Bush predicted the rise of the Islamic State and asked the former president "How did you know" that "we needed a surge" in order to prevent an occurrence like this?
Kilmeade also asked Bush whether he agreed with Gen. Martin Dempsey's assessment that Obama should have left a residual military force in Iraq. And though Bush acknowledged that having a former president "second guessing" is not "good for the presidency or the country," he said that he agreed with Dempsey's assessment.
On The Five, co-host Eric Bolling went further, commenting that "maybe the bad decision was to pull out too soon. As we pointed out George Bush predicted that if we had left a residual force in Iraq, maybe we wouldn't have Americans beheaded on tape."
Yep, they are pushing an old speech from 2007 as "proof" that Bush predicted the rise of ISIL if the US didn't keep forces in Iraq. Now it sounds convincing if you don't remember anything else or think about it even a little. But we have brains, so let's review how truly offensive this is:
Look, if Bush predicted/prophesized ISIL in 2007, then why oh why did Bush sign the agreement in 2008 for our troops to leave Iraq in 2011? The very deal Obama followed in leaving? Because that happened:
Despite Fox News' insistence that President Obama should be blamed for the rise of ISIS for pulling troops out of Iraq, in 2008 Bush signed a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) which provided that U.S. troops pull out of Iraq by 2011. And later attempts to extend the SOFA "fell through after the Iraqis balked at a provision granting U.S. troops immunity from prosecution after 2011."
And no less than Dick Cheney was saying in 2004 that signing that agreement was a good idea. He touted it as an accomplishment:
DICK CHENEY (1/4/2009): We've now entered into a strategic framework agreement with the Iraqis that calls for ultimately the U.S. completion of the assignment, withdrawal of our forces from Iraq. All of those things, I think by anybody's standard, would be ... (coughs) excuse me, evidence of significant success.
So where's your prophet now, Fox News?!
Iraq, you may recall, didn't want us. And why was that? Bush. What Bush did. Barging in without a plan or understanding of the sectarian factions that would, once released from Saddam's iron grip, return to their fighting. There's even a quote from before the invasion where this happened:
Galbraith reports that the three of them spent some time explaining to Bush that there are two different sects in Islam--to which the President allegedly responded, "I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!"
So please, don't tell me that Bush predicted this. He didn't predict what happened-- he was on the freedom-on-the-march, greeted-as-liberators, mission-accomplished bandwagon. Fuck, he was driving the Mission Accomplished bandwagon. He never thought about the chaos that would ensue, or that he didn't have a good plan, or enough troops, or an exit strategy. And that speech was just to justify the Surge, which was to try to clean up some of his fucking mess.
So to say he predicted the rise of ISIL from this one speech justifying another prolongation of the war he executed so poorly, while ignoring that he caused Iraq to hate us and want us out, that he then signed the agreement for us to leave (against this "prediction"), well, nothing could be more ridiculously a-historical and stupid. But Eric Bolling isn't stupid, he is willfully refusing to connect the dots, and hoping you are too. And for that, Eric Bolling is Asshole of the Day.
Now Kilmeade and the rest of Fox News are all in on this ridiculous attempt to blame Obama for abiding by an agreement Bush signed, and then pretend Bush predicted ISIL. But we don't give group awards, and it was Bolling who made the most blatant "Bush was right statement", which is why we gave it to him.
It is Eric Bolling's first time as Asshole of the Day, though just one more asshole from Fox News, which has been featured here so many times.
Full story: Media Matters.
The whole thing is just so ridiculous. A month ago I satirized the people who keep trying to pretend that the mess in Iraq in general and ISIL specifically are the fault of Obama with my post A Quick Recap Of The Iraq War And Its Aftermath for those wondering how Obama messed things up. And here they are actually doing something very much like it. Why do they insist on living up to satire?