Tom Cotton And Right-Wingers’ Revisionist History

Congressman Tom Cotton’s speech this week on the House floor is going viral on various right-wing websites because it delivers exactly what they crave – a good storyline devoid of facts.

On Wednesday, the freshman Congressman took to the House floor to make political hay over the recent Boston Marathon attack. In his speech, Cotton said the following:

“In the over seven years after 9/11 under George W. Bush, how many terrorists reached their target in the United States?” he added. “Zero! We need to ask, ‘Why is the Obama Administration failing in its mission to stop terrorism before it reaches its targets in the United States?'”

Notice what Cotton did there? Cotton completely glossed over the cataclysmic failure by George W. Bush to protect the U.S. on 9/11.

On President George W. Bush’s watch, America suffered its worst terrorist attack in its history. That’s a sad and an undisputed fact, but right-wingers don’t like facts getting in the way of good storyline where Bush was strong against terrorism, while Barack Obama is weak.

When right-wingers claim that Bush kept us safe from terrorists, I always like to ask: You mean other than the time when four planes were hijacked by terrorists and rammed into buildings and the ground killing almost 3,000 people, Bush kept us safe from terrorists?

They hate when I do that since it’s hard to argue with the truth.

Moreover, Cotton is either mistaken on terrorist attacks under Bush, or lying since, unfortunately, other terrorists reached their targets while Bush was in the White House.

Let’s not forget the 10 people killed by John Allan Muhammad, aka the Beltway sniper, the 5 people killed by anthrax attacks via mail in 2001, and Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber” who failed only because of quick thinking by the airline passengers he was attempting to blow up.

But these are mere facts that dispute the storyline some right-wingers are pushing: Bush kept us safe from terrorism while Obama has failed to do the same.

And while we’re talking about historical facts, here’s one to remember: George W. Bush failed to prevent 9/11 and never did catch Osama bin Laden. Barack Obama found bin Laden and took him out.