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Bush’s ‘Iraq’ Gaffe Meant More Than You Think

As the media takes him to task for his “Freudian Slip,” they’re totally missing the deeper questions.

Matt Gangloff
5 min readMay 20, 2022
Photo by History in HD on Unsplash

I fought in Iraq under Bush, did not like him, did not vote for him, thought he was an idiot, and did not support the war after seeing it first-hand.

I’m telling you that to give this opinion credibility: Bush’s Iraq gaffe suggests he has a conscience.

How did I do? Are you intrigued?

As you’ve undoubtedly heard, Former President Bush, mistakenly said Iraq instead of Ukraine, when condemning the invasion as “Unjustified and Brutal” in a speech last week, corrected his error and then added, “Iraq, too. I’m 75.”

As soon as those words passed his lips, I could almost hear the clickity-clacking of keyboards at every news outfit in the country, preparing to skewer him, and skewer they did. I can’t really blame them. It was quite the gaffe and the playbook for Bush gaffes was already written years ago. They just had to run the play.

Direct snap to intellectual superiority. Reverse to resentment. End run around self-awareness.

Lazy writing aside, the consequences of the gaffe being true on any level are massive, suggesting Bush could be implicated in a…

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Matt Gangloff
Matt Gangloff

Written by Matt Gangloff

I teach the how-to’s of Post-Traumatic Growth: How to heal and grow, find a new mission, become your best self and build a meaningful life. www.mattgangloff.com

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