Well, what you don't know is that I had another, very similar, experience on that same beach just the other week. I went out for a walk, carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. I just needed a break from the butt-kissers I've surrounded myself with all kissing my butt, from the disastrous problems we've created, and - mostly - from myself. Sometimes I can barely stand to live inside my own skin.
So I'm walking on the beach, you see. And the Secret Service guys, they know, when I get like this, they know to leave me lots of space 'cause I can get real ugly real fast, and so that's what they did. And they'd even let me talk to strangers I might meet, though they keep a close eye, of course.
So I'm walking on the beach one day a week or two back and I see somebody walking the other way, and he sees me, and I'm instantly locked into this guy, for two reasons. One, I know he knows who I am, but unlike every single other person I've encountered in the last five years, he doesn't seem to care one bit. And the other is that I've never in my life seen another person who looked so totally and utterly calm and at peace with himself. I was drawn to this man like a Texan to bravado.
Then he said, quite sincerely and even compassionately, "Mr. President, you look awful". That was weird enough, 'cause nobody ever says that to me, but then another strange thing happened. I just opened up to this guy as if he were my mother, my best friend and my personal preacher all rolled into one. I just blurted out, "You have no idea the burden I carry". And then an even stranger thing happened. He said, "No, you're wrong, Mr. President. I carry some of the same burden, and I understand it completely."
Lord, I rocked back on my heels. He said, "Your burden is that you sold a war to the American people using what you knew were lies. Your burden is that good, innocent people are dying because you made a decision that you thought would benefit you, and you didn't much care about their fate. But you do now, and it's eating you up from the inside out, and every additional death is like another lash across your back, and you cannot find a way out, and you just want to scream your lungs out."
I was just standing there slack-jawed, whereupon the most amazing thing of all happened. He said, "I know all this because the path of my life has followed a similar though less prominent course. I know this because I carried, and still carry, a much smaller but similar burden myself. But I want you to know, Mr. President, that there is a way I've found to bring relief, and it's much tidier than the bottle, more real than religion, and far more satisfying than either. You can do what I've done, and while you may not ever be happy again, you'll be happier. You can do what I've done, and tell the truth. You can do what I've done, and dedicate the balance of your life to atoning for your crimes."
And with that he walked away.
I mean, he just walked right away from me, like I wasn't even president. But his words have not left my head since that day. They rattle inside my skull like a bag full of bottles going down a bumpy road. They echo in there like a cannon shot inside the Astrodome. I cannot shake what this man said to me, and now, today - just now - I realize that I don't want to.
He was right, and I've been so, so wrong. I cannot read another one of these ridiculous packages of canned garbage they put in front of me, stuffed with more lies than an infomercial marathon. I have to tell you something, and that something is the truth. I need to unburden myself and set us both free with the truth.
And here it is: Iraq - everything you know about it, especially everything I've ever said about it - it was all lies.
I don't just mean the BS about how we're making progress. I guess you already figured that out a long time ago, and still you were sitting here prepared to applaud at all the right moments, just like your CO ordered you to. No, not just the progress garbage. I mean the whole damn thing.
All that stuff about weapons of mass destruction and links to al Qaeda meant to justify the war - that was just a bunch of crap. Just as much crap as we could make, as fast as we could sling it. I can't believe how many people still haven't figured that out, after all the stuff come out from O'Neill, Clarke, Downing Street and more.
We lied about everything there is to lie about on this war, and until five minutes ago, I was planning to do the same here and now.
We lied about going to the UN. The only time we ever got serious about the weapons inspectors was when we made seriously damn sure to yank them out before they could undermine our other lies justifying the war.
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