The Iraqi war is the first in my memory when I and my fellow countrymen have not been asked to make sacrifices. No tax increase to fund the military. No belt tightening. Merely platitudes about making sacrifices while the war’s true impact is sanitized, the death toll ticks upward and the budget deficit quietly grows.
Nevertheless, the following exchange between Jim Lehrer and George Bush is mind blowing. (Italics mine):
LEHRER: Let me ask you a bottom-line question, Mr. President. If it is as important as you’ve just said — and you’ve said it many times — as all of this is, particularly the struggle in Iraq, if it’s that important to all of us and to the future of our country, if not the world, why have you not, as president of the United States, asked more Americans and more American interests to sacrifice something? . . .
PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, you know, I think a lot of people are in this fight. I mean, they sacrifice peace of mind when they see the terrible images of violence on TV every night.