Sick of the Willful Amnesia

Because of the riots in the Mideast, the attacks on U.S. embassies, Michele Bachmann (R-MN) calls President Barack Obama the "the most dangerous president we have ever had on foreign policy." Where was this woman on 9/11? Did she call President Bush "the most dangerous president we have ever had on foreign policy" then?

As early as May 2, 2001, "the Central Intelligence Agency told the White House of a report that 'a group presently in the United States' was planning a terrorist operation. Weeks later, on June 22, the daily brief reported that Qaeda strikes could be 'imminent,' although intelligence suggested the time frame was flexible." Yet Bush's neo-con advisors pooh-poohed the idea, and the government did not go on high alert. [Kurt Eichenwald,  "The Deafness Before the Storm," New York Times, 10 September 2012; a reason why Eichenwald's reminder matters here--"Why the New Pre-9/11 Disclosures Matter," Alec McGillis, The New Republic, 11 September 2012.]

(I almost laughed aloud in disbelief when a relative of mine told me recently that George W. Bush had "kept us safe." The attacks on the Twin Towers came almost eight months into Bush's first year in office--and then there were the anthrax attacks, in which five people died and at least 22 people were infected with the deadly virus!)

Did Michele Bachman call President George W. Bush "the most dangerous president we have ever had on foreign policy" when:

• A car bomb killed 10 people and injured over 50 others outside the U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2002?
• Explosions erupted near the U.S. and Israeli embassies in Uzbekistan in 2004?
• Gunman "stormed the American Consulate" in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, in 2004?
• Armed gunmen attacked the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, Syria, in 2006?
• An antitank grenade was fired on the U.S. Embassy in Athens in 2007?
• Protesters set fire to the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade, Serbia, in 2008?
• Ten people were killed in an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Yemen in 2008? (h/t Media Matters-- When I started looking up information on embassy attacks, I discovered that others had done the work already.) 

How about the 2005 riots in Afghanistan over "a report that interrogators desecrated Iran's holy book at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay"? 

Or how about these Pew Research Findings in 2006, well into George W. Bush's second year in office:

Positive views of the United States have declined sharply in Spain (from 41% to 23%), India (71% to 56%), and Turkey (23% to 12%). Even in Indonesia, where U.S. tsunami aid helped lift America's image in 2005, favorable opinions of the U.S. have fallen (from 38% to 30%). . . .[snip] Majorities in 10 of 14 foreign countries surveyed say the war in Iraq has made the world a more dangerous place. In Great Britain, 60% say the war has made the world more dangerous, compared with 30% who say it has made the world safer.

Did Michele Bachmann think then, "uh, oh, President George W. Bush is falling down on the job in foreign policy"?

Have we forgotten Abu Ghraib?  Whose Mideast policy was responsible for that blot on our nation?

Discussing policy differences is fine and necessary. Willfully forgetting the past in order to propagandize the present is stupid. But even more stupid? Believing those who do this.