GW Bush: Happiness Is Saddam’s Gun
Historian Douglas Brinkley says Bush 43’s pride in having Saddam Hussein’s gun offers a psychological window into Bush’s view of the presidency. The gun, found in the spider hole where Saddam was located, is headed for the presidential library with Bush’s blessing.
For nearly five years, Mr. Bush kept the mounted, glass-encased pistol in the Oval Office or a study, showing it with pride, especially to military officials, they said. He also let visitors in on a secret: when the pistol was recovered, it was unloaded.
“We were getting ready to leave the Oval Office, and he told us, ‘Wait a minute, guys, I want to show you something,’ ” recalled Pete Hegseth, the chairman of Vets for Freedom, who described a July 2007 visit. “The president moved back into his private study and he came out with the gun, inside this glass case. He said, ‘The Delta guys pulled it off Saddam.’ He was very proud of it.”
“It represents this Texas notion of the white hats taking out the black hats and keeping the trophy,” Mr. Brinkley said. “It’s a True West magazine kind of pulp western mentality. For President Bush, this pistol represents his greatest moment of triumph, like the F.B.I. keeping Dillinger’s gun. He wants people generations from now to see the gun and say, ‘He got the bad guy.’ ”
President Bush was presented with the gun by members of Delta Force on March 1, 2004 in the Oval Office.
“That was a great day,” Mr. Bush told the Pentagon Channel in December. “I’ve had a lot of beautiful days in office; some not so happy. But my best days have come when certain milestones have been reached, and I love to share those milestones and those days with the people who actually made them happen.”
Geo. got the gun, we got the video of ole Saddam swingin. Share the welth I say. LOL. Well done G.W.
EricG Reply:
July 6th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
You are the most un-Christian right winger I’ve ever seen.
I hope your proud of yourself. You make Hitler look like a great guy next to you.
Helipilot Reply:
July 6th, 2009 at 11:56 pm
Eric;
Is there anything at all that you would fight over?
I say that because you seem pretty silent about the troop build-up in Afghanistan?
jasperjava Reply:
July 7th, 2009 at 1:45 am
There are things worth fighting for. Dubya’s personal vendettas, or profits for his corporate cronies, or his delusions of grandeur, are not among them.
Afghanistan is a different case: the criminals who murdered 3000 innocent Americans on September 11, 2001 were holed up there. The tragedy is that Dubya decided to abandon Afghanistan to the Taliban and end the search for bin Laden because he thought attacking Iraq would better suit his greedy, stupid, ignorant purposes.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
W saved his daddy from the Devil Saddam. Job well done, W. You are a ‘class-act’.
jasperjava Reply:
July 7th, 2009 at 1:41 am
So you admit, then, that 4000+ U.S. troops were needlessly sacrificed just because of a personal vendetta?
Some “class act”. Lying and lying to promote a war that ends up killing more Americans than September 11; hundreds of thousands of civilians slaughtered for no good reason; millions of refugees, countless US troops and innocent Iraqis maimed for life.
News flash: war criminals are not a “class act”, and neither are those who mindlessly support them.
libpatriot Reply:
July 7th, 2009 at 2:27 am
jasperjava, Vegaslib was being sarcastic, hence the words ‘class act’ in quotes. I’ve read enough of Vegaslib’s posts to assure you that he is NOT a fan of George W. Bush’s! Love your posts, though, jasperjava, don’t get me wrong. (I’m no fan of Dubya, and never have been.)
jasperjava Reply:
July 7th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Thanks… and apologies to VegasLib. I get hot under the collar whenever I hear someone defend B*sh, especially when they say he “protected” America, when he couldn’t be bothered to put off his golf game after receiving the August 6 PDB warning of an imminent al Qaeda attack.
He even accused the CIA agent who did the briefing of “covering his ass”.
Then he took his eye off the ball in Afghanistan to waste troops, resources, and materiel in a huge sandpit in Iraq. He didn’t “protect” America. He’s responsible for more American deaths than Osama bin Laden.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
I’ll bite We went in to “unload” Saddam of weapons of mass destruction.(remember wmd/saddam said over and over and over…
again) We tortured we murdered we raped we sodomized we didn’t win hearts and minds. And we found out Saddam had been unloaded already. Very symbolic I’d say
Give it to Cheney he needs an unloaded gun
jasperjava Reply:
July 7th, 2009 at 1:50 am
I agree it’s very symbolic. We supposedly went into Iraq to disarm Saddam. Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, but he had an empty Glock. I guess we disarmed him all right.
Dubya evidently considers that this empty pistol was worth the lives of thousands of U.S. troops. Thousands of American families had to grieve an irreparable loss just so that Dubya could have his little toy trophy for his fake “library”.
My contempt for this murderous chimp knows no bounds.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Maybe he should mount all the UN Resolutions that Saddam broke on his wall. And above his head rest Resolution 678.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Yeah, just leave out the fact that the US bullied the UN into issuing resolutions, and all the while the radical rightwing extremists were braying about the toothless UN and what a useless sack of crap the UN is and how the US should never be restricted by any resolution or law issued by any power on earth, because Marshall Jesus gave us dominion over the earth and the animals and all the “inferior religions and races” who should just do what we tell them.
JaredfromTexas Reply:
July 6th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
the US bullied the UN into issuing resolutions
sources…
Wait…I thought you were someone else…
crh3e Reply:
July 6th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
Yeah it was strange how all of a sudden UN resolutions were so important to the neocons in the days before we invaded Iraq. I thought the UN stood for “United Nothing!”
July 6th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Saddam WAS a weapon of mass destruction !!!!!!
4moreyears Reply:
July 6th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Bush-Cheny and Rumsfeld WERE the Axis of Evil and WMDS.
Jerry, I am sure you know that WE armed Saddam against Iran, and he gassed the Kurds with our “technology”, want a link to the Saddam Hussein- Rumsfeld handshake?
George W. Bush “God told me to attack Iraq”.
July 6th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
I wonder how many Iraqis had to die so Bush could have his trophy?
A thousand? Maybe only a hundred?
Their blood should coat the gun so they his enjoyment in viewing it has weight as to the cost in acquiring it.
goliath43 Reply:
July 7th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
I cannot believe some of your dribble that comes from you Eric. Your trying to blame Bush for for all of the things that Saddam did before we ever went into the country. Gasing his own people in northern Iraq the countless torture chambers he and his sons ran during their reign of terror. All Bush did was remove a dictator introduce democracy build schools infrastructure provide protection give the Iraq people a better way of life.
Do you think it would be better if Saddam was still there?
TDro319 Reply:
July 7th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Regardless of what you think of Saddam or his policies, the U.S. had no reason to invade his country, sacrificing 4000+ American and thousands of Iraqi lives.
This was strictly a for-profit war. Besides, if Bush was so concerned about victimized civilians, why didn’t he go into Darfur and put an end to the ethnic cleansing?
blissfulconservative Reply:
July 7th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
I thought we had lost money on this war. Now you are telling me if was a for-profit war? Make up your mind.
goliath43 Reply:
July 7th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Tdro
Can you not read or are you just that slow..I laid out just a few of the reasons not too mention all the UN resolutions and other countries that agreed. Pres. Bush had plenty of reasons to remove Saddam from power…If you can’t see that then there is no hope for you. Live you life with blinders on if you cant see the world is a better place without Saddam in it
jasperjava Reply:
July 8th, 2009 at 1:09 am
Ronald Reagan had no problem with Saddam. Even AFTER Saddam used chemical weapons against the Iranians, he sent Rumsfeld down to shake his hand.
After Saddam gassed the Kurds (I doubt that he considered them “his own people”, especially since they supported Iran during the Iran-Iraq War), Congress wanted to impose sanctions against Iraq, but Reagan vetoed it. After all, Saddam Hussein was one of his best buddies in the region.
Is the world better off without Saddam? By 2003, Saddam was a paper tiger: no WMDs, no control over vast swathes of his country. But he was a relentless enemy of al Qaeda. They wanted to kill him and he hunted them down mercilessly. It would probably have been a better policy to let Saddam act as a bulwark against Iran’s ambitions and against the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists.
It’s not a great solution to leave a madman in power, but a better one than smash a country’s infrastructure, kill thousands of its people, and sacrifice the lives of our troops for dubious reasons.
July 6th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Alan;
Another POS, self-serving article.
good job!
TDro319 Reply:
July 7th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Alan:
Quit twisting Helipiot’s arm to post here!
July 6th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
I’d rather see the shoe thrown at Bush in a glass case as part of his “library.”
4moreyears Reply:
July 6th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
EXACTLY CRH3E. W’s daddy disarmed Saddam and then wrote a book about why HE didn’t go to Bagdad that the ignorant fortunate son didn’t read.
Neocons Cheney and Rumsfeld led Bush by the nose to Iraq to prove that the Neocon Middle East Domino Democracy theory FAILS.
July 6th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Bush has Saddam’s pistol – mounted, glass encased and hung on the wall.
So?
I’d speculate Cheney has Saddam’s ear – mounted, glass encased and hung on the wall. I suppose Colmes would have a problem with that, too?
July 7th, 2009 at 2:16 am
that’s a prett sweet souvenir.
Daddio Reply:
July 7th, 2009 at 7:55 am
I see nothing wrong with GW having Saddam’s personal weapon encased in a glass frame.
This is just another post by Alan Colmes to stir up liberals and continue their attacks on a former president. Apparently to take attention away from Barack Hussien Obama and all his trillions and trillions of dollars he has spent and the nationalization of banks, insurance companies, and private business.
crh3e Reply:
July 7th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
“nationalization of banks…..”
-Funny you mention that because that started with W. last year man.
blissfulconservative Reply:
July 7th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Funny, that doesn’t make it okay.
jasperjava Reply:
July 7th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Would you have prefered a financial tsunami that would have created a massive depression?
crh3e Reply:
July 7th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
No, I just find it funny to read a conservative comment that rants about Obama spending trillions and nationalizing banks when Bush did the very exact thing. I like his conspiracy theory too that Alan Colmes is busy trying to divert people’s attention away from this. Damn Alan Colmes, I knew he was behind this the whole time!
JaredfromTexas Reply:
July 7th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Would you have prefered a financial tsunami that would have created a massive depression?
Never happen…not with all the stop-gaps the US Gov has in place…congratulations on propogating left-wing fear mongering.
crh3e Reply:
July 7th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
“Never happen…not with all the stop-gaps the US Gov has in place…congratulations on propogating left-wing fear mongering.”
-I dunno, never say never. After all, some of the stop gaps formed after the Great Depression were taken away and lo, we’re in a financial mess again.
July 7th, 2009 at 3:53 am
What kind of candy bar did Saddam eat Guido?
July 7th, 2009 at 8:05 am
Snickers.
I believe (but I’m not positive) Saddam was caught with a bag of Snickers bars.
I was trying to be “nice” in suggesting Cheney only had Saddam’s ear mounted on his wall. It’s more likely he has his ***** mounted and stuffed on the wall.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
It was Payday’s.
Daddio Reply:
July 8th, 2009 at 8:56 am
Snickers or Payday. It doesn’t really matter which.
They suited Saddam well. Both are full of nuts, sorta like Saddam.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:36 pm