June 23, 2005

Blaming Bush for Baldness

This morning, as I waited to get on the train that takes me into New York, the topic of conversation among us on the platform turned to the young man from Bethel, Connecticut, who stole a plane from the Danbury Municipal Airport and flew it to the Westchester County Airport...while drunk. See, I catch the train from Bethel and Danbury is right next door, so there was quite a bit of local interest in the story.

One gentleman who rides regularly said, "And this is the president who is in charge of defending this country?"

I said, "You can't blame the president for some stupid kid who stole a plane from the Danbury airport."

He replied, "Yes I can. I can blame him for everything. I can blame him for [my] being bald."

Such is the attitude of the left...blame Bush for everything. Not about baldness, of course, but to make the assumption that Bush can be put under a microscope when some stupid 20-year-old and his 16-year-old pals take it into their heads to steal a small plane from a small regional airport is really ludicrous. What about the airport iteslf?

Danbury police suspect Patricio and the two teens slipped through a hole in the fence about 100 yards from where the plane was parked. The hole was small and overgrown with brush, and apparently had been there for a some time, police said.

[...]

[Airport manager Paul] Estefan said it was more likely [Phillippe] Patricio entered the airport through the gate after punching in an access code.

It turns out Patricio is a student pilot who lost his regular driver's license because of multiple drunk driving arrests.

So who's at fault here? That will take some time to figure out, and there will certainly be a lot of finger pointing by everyone involved. But to blame President Bush personally is not only ridiculous but unproductive. It's as bad as those who blamed him for the actions of the soldiers involved in the Abu Ghraib embarrassment. What happened to the personal responsibility of the perpetrators?

It's almost as bad as blaming Bush for one's baldness.

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