Remember "Bring 'Em On," or "Just so long as I'm the dictator" Mr. President?

Huffington Post
Bob Cesca
Remember "Bring 'Em On," Mr. President?

Since the end of the 2004 election, my confidence in Senator Kerry as a viable 2008 presidential candidate has diminished. It's not really his fault, but the national discourse has evolved beyond his style and his skills will be much better served if he were to continue on as a senator.

That said, the man misspoke.
It was a world class FUBAR gaffe and I admit to cringing when I heard it, the same way I cringed when he said he voted for the -- errrm, you know the quote. But the comment was quite clearly directed at the president and not the troops. Duh.

Yet President Bush ripped into his "opponent" (the president can cut the crap and refer to Senator Kerry by name at this point) in a stump speech Tuesday. Yes, that President Bush. The President Bush who routinely drops words, makes up new words and generally hates words. Too wordy. President Bush, The Googler who sometimes peruses The Internets, seized the opportunity to grandstand in a crowd of friendlies and labeled Senator Kerry's remarks "insulting" and "shameful."

Insulting and shameful. Sort of like... I don't know... "Bring 'em on."

Americans, and especially military families, should never forget that their Commander-in-Chief actually encouraged Iraqi insurgents to attack our soldiers. "Bring 'em on" could be the most irresponsible gaffe in a long history of gaffes uttered by President "Get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit" Bush, and quite possibly the most irresponsible statement in the history of the presidency. And that's saying a lot.

Amongst the other not-stupid-duh-but-stupid-evil comments we find, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees," or, "And Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job," or, "Just so long as I'm the dictator," or, "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended," and the list goes on and on and on.

President Bush's "bring 'em on" remark in July, 2003 quite literally invited the deaths of American soldiers. For this one statement alone, President Bush has forfeited his right to comment on, exploit or joke about any gaffe spoken by anyone ever. EVER. Nailing Senator Kerry on his gaffe isn't just hypocritical like, say, Larry the Cable Guy criticizing another comedian for being unfunny, or Bill O'Reilly questioning someone else's honesty. No. President Bush gaffed up a huge puddle of blood and death. President Bush, like his Mini-Macaca across the river, is all too quick to throw the kill switch on political opponents, but only succeeds in boiling statements like "bring 'em on" to the surface of an already polluted crock of shit.

"Bring 'em on" was not only insulting and shameful, it was a death sentence.

I rarely write about Senator Kerry and did my fair share of defending him in 2004. I didn't intend to write about the senator's remarks today. But this evening when I screened the video of the president's stump speech and heard him say, "Our troops deserve the full support of our government," in the context of blasting the senator's gaffe, I instantly flashed back to "bring 'em on" and the six year nightmare this man's administration has wrought upon you and I and especially our soldiers in Iraq whose sacrifice was a premeditated and cynical political plot designed as the cornerstone of their Commander-in-Chief's strategy for winning a second term.

They deserve better than "bring 'em on" and the president deserves to be reminded of that statement for the remainder of his pathetic career in Washington.

Meanwhile, Mr. President... STFU.