CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (Reuters) - After launching two wars, President Bush (news - web sites) said on Tuesday he wanted to be a "peace president" and took swipes at his Democratic rivals for being lawyers and weak on defense.
(Reuters, of course, has the courtesy to not point out that Bush, himself, wanted to be a lawyer, but he was rejected by the Texas University School of Law for being too dumb and undistinguished. After which, he went, like all state school rejects, to his safety: Harvard University Business School. Harvard gets so tired of getting state school rejects...)
With polls showing public support for the war in Iraq (news - web sites) in decline, the Republican president cast himself as a reluctant warrior as he campaigned in the battleground state of Iowa against Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites) and his running mate, former trial lawyer John Edwards (news - web sites). Bush lost the state in 2000 by only a few thousand votes.
"The enemy declared war on us," he told a re-election rally. "Nobody wants to be the war president. I want to be the peace president."
Bush has called himself a "war president" in leading the United States in a battle against terrorism brought about by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America.
"I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign policy matters with war on my mind," he said in February.
More often than not I am glad that I sit on this side of the border. Means I can chuckle at those statements as opposed to having a stroke.
He wants to be reelected. He will be whatever the polls tell him to be. If that fails there is always Iran.
Posted by: Duplex Dude | July 22, 2004 at 08:33 PM