Good piece by Timothy Noah detailing how Bush's ugliest moments -- namely his revolting mockery of Karla Faye Tucker -- quietly slip down the memory hole. My treasured example of this is Bush's unjustly less-than-famous comment that:
"We haven't heard much from [Bin Laden]. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he is..."I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run.
Unlike the Tucker tale, which relied on Tucker Carlson's memory's for its evidence, we've got that statement on video, on tape, on transcript and in the archives. During the third debate, Kerry even made reference to it, with Bush dumbly denying the moment's existence. I was sure Bush had lost the election at that instant, the media would obviously play the footage 3,000 times, splintering Bush's War President cred and creating an unimaginably awful storyline as the campaign hurtled towards its conclusion. Kerry had won.
Instead, we got five days out outrage that Kerry outed an openly gay woman. We never, for that matter, got Bin Laden, and no one ever asked if Bush was still unconcerned about him. Somehow, that comment, unpleasant and inconvenient as it was, vanished as soon as he uttered it. If only all politicians were so lucky.
