Bush's Undoing: Katrina or Iraq
President Bush's aides are speaking out, saying that it was Hurricane Katrina in 2005 that destroyed America's trust in him and cost him the ability to be an effective President. They say he was never able to recover from it.
I think Iraq was the issue that did him in. When Americans learned there were no weapons of mass destruction -- that we entered this war that took thousands of American lives under false pretenses -- he was toast.
After Iraq, I think Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo hurt him. Not so much because Americans cared about the treatment of the detainees, but because they came to realize how much the rest of the world did.
Between the photos of American military prison guards in Iraq leading prisoners around on leashes and subjecting them to terrifying dogs, electrical cords and sexual humiliation, and repeatedly hearing Guantanamo referred to as a stain upon our nation, for holding detainees for years without charges or access to federal courts, it was inevitable Americans would come to view Bush as a President whose policies tarnished America's image throughout the world.
When do you think Bush irreparably lost the trust of even those Americans who voted for him?
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