[mburbank]

I'm not upset. I think it's pap.

Find me the first main press story you can after 9/11 mentioning W. stupidity or richboy connections. Late night talk shows stopped making fuun of the guy. Slate stopped publishing Bushisms for over a year, which I think is a tragedy for the history of comedy.

I agree, the situation was unprecedented, but I'm guessing the Bush free ride after 9/11 went on longer than FDR's after Pearl Harbor.

Congress gave W a blank check for war in Iraq. The press didn't dig at what turned out to be ludicrous statements. I'm not talking about the general disagreement over WMD, I'm talking Cheney saying Iraq had nuclear weapons. The patriot act? Congress for the most part admits it was passed WITHOUT BEING READ. The whole country lined up behind W, and perhaps they should have. It would be nice to feel W had risen to the occasion. Personally I feel his cabal of weasels and wolves used it to get everything on a political wish list that predated 9/11 and in many cases was not even tangientially related. But that's neither here nor there, since this issue is about free rides.

W was an investigation free zone for well over a year. For a guy who immediately acted as if he had a sweeping mandate when in fact most people didn't vote for him, that's a historically unprecedented free ride.