Accountability Moment

“Well, we had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 election. And the American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me, for which I'm grateful.”

Am I alone in finding the above comment made by George Bush in a recent interview not only stupid but downright chilling? I mean like the remark, “Who today still speaks of the massacre of the Armenians?” THAT kind of chilling?

What is he saying? “Since 51% of the American people who voted voted for me, that means I am not to be held accountable for anything I did, any decision I made, in my first term.” Is it something like that? That his re-election makes him immune from any blame?

Sounds like a guilty man, acquitted by an incompetent jury, breathing a huge sigh of relief as he cites his constitutional protection from double jeopardy. Think of O.J. Simpson post murder trial.

Because Bush has been re-elected, he is no longer accountable, for example, for war crimes committed by our side in Afghanistan and Iraq? (Recall that after WWII it was primarily the Nazi leadership, rather than the soldiers who committed atrocities, that were tried and condemned).

Bush is not accountable for the long-term effects of the “Bush Doctrine” of pre-emptive war? If he is not, then who is? Is it God? Should it instead be called the "God Doctrine"? Perhaps, because, after all, it was God who put Bush in office. So Bush assures us.

Perhaps it is God alone who will ultimately hold Bush responsible for his actions, since -- God knows!-- the American people clearly lack the wisdom, and Congress the backbone, to do so.