Consider it Brought

Or, has President Bush learned to be very careful what he asks for?

by David McKenna

July 2 marked the fifth anniversary of George Bush's unprecedented challenge to Iraqi insurgents, made in response to questions about ongoing attacks on U.S. troops. "My answer is bring them on," he said, ensuring himself a place in history as the first U.S. president to urge enemies to attack U.S. troops. "We have the force necessary to deal with the situation."

Bush made his mind-boggling remark at a Washington, D.C., appearance before the press. It's not clear who was being asked to bring on the insurgents — al-Qaida in Iraq, America haters around the world, members of the media — but the message, it should be noted, got through loud and clear.

Prior to "Bring them on," just under 200 members of the U.S. military had died in Iraq. Five years later, the tally is more than 4,100.

And yet, in the years since the war started, the anniversaries of Bush's "Bring them on" speech haven't attracted as much media attention as the anniversaries of his "mission accomplished" fiasco, on May 1, 2003. The latter had a strong visual component — Bush emerging from a jet fighter on an aircraft carrier in a flight suit and codpiece, then prancing past cheering sailors to erroneously declare victory in Iraq.

Also, "Mission accomplished" was a mistake, whereas "Bring them on" was deliberate provocation. It is too painful a reminder that more than half the country stood with Bush in believing we owed the Muslim world a major payback, and so what if Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11?

On the night the war started I was in a café at the Doubletree Hotel, watching three college-age guys at the bar cheer CNN's footage of the first guided missiles hitting Baghdad. Like Bush, the guys at the bar could afford to be enthusiastic about the violence because they were physically remote from it. One of them said, "That's awesome," as if he were watching an Eagles game or fireworks at Penn's Landing.

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I wondered why they were cheering, just as, after "Bring them on," I wondered why Washington reporters didn't make a major issue of the fact that a U.S. president had stooped to speaking like a street gang leader. But I just rolled my eyes and ate my chicken sandwich.

After all, the insurgents weren't likely to make revenge bombings in Philly and the Bush-Cheney gang couldn't hurt my son because there was no draft. The war existed for me and most other Americans the way it did for Bush — on TV, in a sanitized form, with no images of the dead or wounded.

But now it's clear that the war was and is bigger than TV, even bigger than Iraq. Because of it, much of the world now thinks of the United States not so much as a superpower as a punch-drunk bully with bad credit.

Bush's empty bluster helped dash the myth that the U.S. could have its way with the rest of the world just because its bombs are more accurate. His "Bring them on" taunt not only energized Iraqi insurgents but also helped make enemies of First World countries we once counted as allies.

He thought the phrase made him sound tough. Instead, it revealed him as a profoundly insecure man who mistook the world of video clips and sound bites for the real one.

It's a mistake the rest of us will be living with for a long time.

To respond to David McKenna's Slant or to submit one of your own, e-mail your 625- to 650-word opinion piece to Brian Howard (bhoward@citypaper.net).