Former President George W. Bush is probably kicking himself today after making a gaffe in a speech that seemed to call out truths about a decision he made while in the Oval Office. Of course, his purpose for making that speech has nothing to do with his presidency, it was about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Bush spoke at Southern Methodist University’s George W. Bush Institute on Wednesday and was aiming to condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin for his unwarranted attack on Ukraine. Well, the former politician took a big swing, and he missed — he wound up mistakenly criticizing himself. “Political opponents are imprisoned or otherwise eliminated from participating in the electoral process,” Bush said, via The Guardian. “The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.”
Yes, it was Bush who invaded Iraq during his first term in office, selling Congress on the idea that Saddam Hussein was sitting on a pile of weapons of mass destruction. The 2003 invasion dragged on for almost a decade and thousands of American soldiers lost their lives fighting for something that didn’t even exist — and many Iraqi civilians were also the sad casualties of war. Bush realized his mistake almost immediately during the speech and tried to recover with a slight giggle and a shake of his head, adding, “I mean — of Ukraine.” But we all heard him… he said what he said.
In true Bush form, he softened the blow with a quip, blaming his senior-citizen status for the gaffe. “Anyway, I’m 75,” he continued while the audience laughed. He still considers the post-9/11 conflict the “biggest regret” from his time in office, per ABC News, so maybe that bit of guilt still lives with him when he’s thinking of what Putin is doing to the people of Ukraine.
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