re: #39 Meitantei

Bush wasn’t stupid. Bush was just naive about how things would turn out, and so it led to really terrible consequences like Iraq. I am absolutely certain Bush really did think that Iraq had WMDs, and that the Iraqis really would come out with flowers and hugs. Maybe that’s stupidity, maybe it’s lack of experience. But honestly, I think he had some good ideas, but just didn’t know how to execute them.

Bush saw the world in black in white: there were the good guys and the terrorists. Why do the terrorists hate us? They hate us for our freedom, of course! Uber-patriotic thinking like this sounds great on the campaign trail, but as we saw, often leads to disastrous real-world consequences.