What Did You Do During the Run-up to War, Governor?

Our sisters and brothers on the right bristle at any mention of former president George W. Bush yet his presidency remains just as pertinent to the current campaign as it was to the 2008 campaign.  The former president, unlike his parents and one brother, may have decided to not endorse any of the GOP hopefuls but surely the candidates should go on the record about their opinions of the 8 years of George W. Bush.

Governor Romney, you've been relentless in your criticism of President Obama yet silent on the Bush presidency.  Do you believe President Obama has been a worse president than George W. Bush?  If so, how?

Imagine that President Obama was elected by way of a 5-4 Supreme Court decision, with cases of people being turned away due to false felony lists.  That he had appointed a horse trainer college roomate buddy to head FEMA and Katrina occurred under his watch.  Or that he took the more vacation days than any other president.

Think Govs. Romney and Santorum and Speaker Gingrich might mention it once or twice?  Maybe?

But those, incredibly, are actually small matters compared to the diseased core of the George W. Bush presidency:

Imagine that President Obama had manipulated intelligence and public heartache over 9/11--and repeatedly outright lied--to enter the United States into war with Iraq under the guise of looking for "weapons of mass destruction."  And there were none.

I'm pretty sure the GOP candidates would mention that little "whoopsie" had President Obama been the instigator.  The question is, why do they lack the integrity to mention it against Bush?  What's their defense?  That it's old news?  That it doesn't matter?  Would they recycle Bush's own after-the fact defense that the hundred thousand deaths and trillion dollars were worth the cost to get rid of a dictator? 

Any citizen, let alone one running for the presidency, would have an opnion on the subject, so put the questions to them:

How did you feel when you realized the Bush Administration misled the American people into going to war?  Were you suspicious that CIA employee Valerie Plame's identity was released shortly after her husband shot down the uraniun from Niger tale?  Were you angry?  Did you think it was appropriate that the prosecution of the war was "kept off the books" so it didn't gouge a hole into the budget?  And speaking of books, what books have you read about the lead-up to the war?

Are you just willing to let bygones be bygones over the largest ethical collapse since Watergate?

We as a nation can talk about the GOP budget later, but let's put first things first and have the conversation about the origins of the Iraq war.  Because of all of shortcomings real and imagained critics of the president whine about--the Affordable Care Act, that he's a secret Muslim / Socialist / Kenyan, that he's uppity / arrogrant / elitist, that he uses a teleprompter, that "he thinks he's better than you," etc. etc.--President Obama strikes me as being tempermentally unable to do anything as heinous as to lie his way into a phony war.