Regrets

I found a fascinating collection of short essays, on the website The Daily Beast, by people who regret their association with the outgoing Bush Administration. There were two in particular that interested me.

The first was by the author of the book "My Pet Goat". I have long wondered what the writer of that now famous children's book thought about President Bush sitting there for an agonizingly long period of time reading to school children after learning about the attacks on the World Trade Centers. This is what Zig Englemann, author of the book had to say:

I wrote this story that they were reading during 9/11 and I've really hated to be associated with that kind of publicity, but there it was. That's what they were reading in the Booker Elementary School when he got news of 9/11. It was a horrible event and a horrible situation in terms of how Bush handled—or didn't handle—it. It struck me that, “Holy cow, what's our priority now—listening to kids read a book or doing something about this unbelievable disaster?" There was a reporter who said to me, "Well, everyone gets 20 minutes in the spotlight, and this is your 20." Well, I don’t like the color of that spotlight one bit. Just being associated with it is ugly.

The second of the essays that interested me was by Roger Stone. You're probably not familiar with his name but he is the man who organized what is known as "The Brooks Brother Riot" in Miami during the 2000 election recount. You will recall that officials in Miami-Dade county were planning to recount the votes to see who had won the state and therefore the Presidential election of 2000. Stone, a GOP consultant, sent a group of well dressed Republicans down from Washington to the elections office in Miami to shout down the workers and create a chaotic scene. Their goal, which succeeded, was to intimidate the officials into stopping the count. I am very surprised to hear that Stone now regrets that action:

There have been many times I've regretted it. When I look at those double-page New York Times spreads of all the individual pictures of people who have been killed [in Iraq], I got to think, “Maybe there wouldn't have been a war if I hadn't gone to Miami-Dade. Maybe there hadn't have been, in my view, an unjustified war if Bush hadn't become president.” It's very disturbing to me.