Bush: Race Not a Factor in Katrina Response

Bush defended Vice President Dick Cheney’s pre-war assertion that the United States would be welcomed in Iraq as liberators.

“I think we are welcomed,” he said. “But it was not a peaceful welcome.”

Bush makes a key distinction here that a lot of folks miss. Most people, like the people who write the dictionary, think that “welcome” means “to receive with pleasure and hospitality.”

But no definition specifies that welcomes have to be peaceful. For example, when my sister came home from the hospital after her kidney transplant, we had a “Welcome Home” party. But instead of throwing confetti, we threw grenades.

Or, take my brother, for example. On the front step of his house, he has a welcome mat. But unlike most welcome mats, this one is rigged with an improvised explosive device. It says to the visitor, “We appreciate your presence at our home so much, we’d like to disembowel you with a deadly hail of ball bearings and rusty nails.”