We don’t get many real personal insights into the way George W. Bush thinks or was thinking during the Iraq war, but Pat Robertson’s remarks on the Paula Zahn show are extraordinary:
Pat Robertson, an ardent Bush supporter, said he had that conversation with the president in Nashville, Tennessee, before the March 2003 invasion. He described Bush in the meeting as “the most self-assured man I’ve ever met in my life.”
“You remember Mark Twain said, ‘He looks like a contented Christian with four aces.’ I mean he was just sitting there like, ‘I’m on top of the world,’ ” Robertson said on the CNN show, “Paula Zahn Now.”
“And I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, ‘Mr. President, you had better prepare the American people for casualties.’ “
Robertson said the president then told him, “Oh, no, we’re not going to have any casualties.”
Did anyone believe that outside the presidential cocoon? The problem with this president is not that he doesn’t have the will to win. It’s that he seems to suffer from an inability to see reality. Any president who believed that there would be no casualties in the Iraq liberation is unqualified to be commander-in-chief. The same goes for a president who believes there will be casualties and tells a loyal supporter that there won’t be. The only way this isn’t damning about Bush is if Robertson is lying. But why would he?
The Dish 