Lawrence O’Donnell & Co. Semi-Debunk George W. Bush Terrorism Revisionism Realism Schism

On Wednesday night, The Last Word host Lawrence O’Donnell and panel did their level best to turn a cold hose on the panting humpery that has attended the opening of the George W. Bush Presidential Library, particularly the conservative effort to turn terrorism into a game of Parcheesi, and then cheat at it. MsNBC.com Vice President Richard Wolffe and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean joined Lawrence in reminding viewers that President Bush did preside over a fairly serious terrorist attack on the homeland, but stopped short of completely correcting Rep. Tom Cotton‘s (R-AR) sick scorecard.

Republicans and their fans have long had trouble even remembering that George W. Bush was president when the attacks of September 11, 2001 occurred, let alone doling out the measure of responsibility he is owed for those attacks. Not content with simply erasing that one example, however, the right has continued to keep score with the accuracy of Mr. Magoo on crack, while changing the rules of their sick game like Edmond Hoyle… on crack. On last night’s show, Lawrence opened with a clip of Fox host Eric Bolling taking another shot at remembering the lives of Americans lost under the Bush presidency (managing to remember 9/11 this time), followed by Charles Krauthammer explaining how the Bush terror-busting system is “falling apart” under President Obama.

Then, Lawrence got to Rep. Tom Cotton’s clever Terror Parcheesi™ rule change, which allowed him to “score” two failed terrorist attacks against President Obama, yet still managed to keep George W. Bush’s scorecard as pristine as Mitt Romney’s war record:

“I rise today to express grave doubts about the Obama administration’s counterterrorism policies and programs. Counterterrorism is often shrouded in secrecy, as it should be, so let us judge by the results. In barely four years in office, five jihadists have reached their targets in the United States under Barack Obama: the Boston Marathon bomber, the underwear bomber, the Times Square bomber, the Fort Hood shooter, and in my own state–the Little Rock recruiting office shooter. In the over seven years after 9/11 under George W. Bush, how many terrorists reached their target in the United States? Zero! We need to ask ‘why is the Obama administration failing in its mission to stop terrorism before it reaches its targets in the United States?’”

Lawrence pointed out, correctly, that no Democrat would have thought to attack President Bush a week after the 9/11 attacks, yet “after this Boston Marathon bombing, here (Republicans) are, they’re out there making this case.”

Gov. Dean agreed, adding that “These people aren’t just mean spirited, they’re crazy.”

Wolffe pointed out that giving Bush a pass for 9/11 contradicts the conservative narrative that President Bill Clinton should have done more about al Qaeda. “If they actually believed their own storyline,” he said, “you couldn’t just say that 9/11 came out of nothing. It wasn’t a total surprise, because in their narrative, Bill Clinton, and by extension, all Democrats, somehow lost the plot. They didn’t take terrorism seriously because there was the USS Cole, al Qaeda was there and they didn’t take it seriously because they were doing the loyalty stuff about respecting the rule of law and not torturing people, so President Bush came on the scene and historically understood the danger, only he understood it after, after he ignored all of the warnings about al Qaeda wanting to attack the homeland.”

“So, they don’t understand their own story,” Wolffe continued. “They believe a certain selective piece of their own spin, and now they’re projecting it on another president, who by the way, has a pretty good record when it comes to killing terrorists.”

Now, the idea of challenging the free pass that George W. Bush has gotten over 9/11 is important, very important, and these are all excellent points that need to be made. I don’t “blame” President Bush for 9/11 any more than I blame the F.B.I. for the Boston Marathon bombing, even though, if things had gone differently, each of them might have been able to do something to prevent the attacks. But if Republicans insist on turning these attacks into a game, then they ought to acknowledge that President Bush was at least as “responsible” for 9/11 as President Obama is for the Boston bombing, right? I mean, they both looked at some pretty specific warnings with their own eyes, didn’t they? And didn’t they each bring the parties responsible to justice?

Where Lawrence and his guests stopped short, perhaps because they ran out of time, was in checking the rest of the Republican Terror Parcheesi™ scorecard. Perhaps Lawrence will have time to go over all of these tonight, or he could just play a clip from his guest-hosting stint on Countdown, in which he took Giuliani to Schooliani on this very matter.

Maybe the rules are too confusing, because while they all seem to agree that 9/11/2001 doesn’t “count,” the rest is kind of fluid. If you’re Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the attacks of 9/11/2012 in Benghazi do count. Under Tom Cotton’s house rules, though, they don’t, perhaps because then he would have to count the 12 attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities that occurred during George W. Bush’s presidency. Obviously, the thousands of Americans we brought to the terrorists to kill in Iraq and Afghanistan don’t count, because Freedom.

But even under Cotton’s rigged system, which allows him to count the failed Christmas/Underwear Bomber and the failed Times Square Bomber, President Bush is being shortchanged. Off the top of my head, there’s shoe-bomber Richard Reid, who, despite failing to blow up the plane he was on, did “reach his target in the United States.”

Then, there were the anthrax attacks, which killed five people. There were  the D.C. Sniper attacks, which, by themselves, give Bush a tally of 15 attacks, but which the right will doubtless count against Obama, for some reason. Weren’t those guys black? There was the 2002 attack on the El-Al ticket counter, which killed 2. There was the terrorist SUV attack in 2006, which injured nine, and the 2007 Salt Lake City shooting that killed five people, and wounded four. If you use Lindsey Graham’s rules, that puts George W. Bush at 31 attacks, not counting 9/11, and under Cotton’s rules, 20, to President Obama’s five. That’s not including non-“Jihadi” attacks like attacks on abortion clinics, of which there were seven on Bush’s watch.

But none of that matters, or should matter, to any decent person. Tragically lost American lives aren’t tally-marks on some scorecard, and those who would use them that way only serve to demonstrate that they value those lives little more than the monsters who took them.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.