[APPLAUSE] - Thank you.
Welcome back.
This week, the US invasion of Iraq turns 15 years old.
Seems like just yesterday it was a baby.
Now, it's old enough to have a learner's permit,
a septum ring, and a skeezy boyfriend
pressuring it to do butt stuff.
[LAUGHTER]
Despite overwhelming evidence saying, hey, don't do this war,
we did it anyway, killing hundreds of thousands
of Iraqi civilians along the way.
Even after our fake withdrawal in 2011,
the fighting has continued.
But unlike the people who live in Iraq,
the war's architects have been able to move on
with their lives.
Remember how much we used to hate this numbnuts
for oopsy-ing us into the war?
Thanks to our short attention span
and Trump trauma, George W. Bush is
now just another early aughts icon
ready for a nostalgic reboot, kind of like "The Gilmore
Girls" if Lorelei ignored Hurricane Katrina and Rory
allow Abu Ghraib to happen.
Still not as bad as season 7.
Just listen to all the otherwise intelligent liberals
who are now pining for the guy we used to call
the worst president in history.
I have to say, this week, I've been
nostalgic for the good old days of George W. Bush.
I'm so sorry, President Bush.
I never thought I'd pray for the day
that you were president again.
Aw, miss the guy who started the Iraq war.
I'm sorry.
I couldn't even hear what that last harpy was saying
over overall the shrillness.
Of course, Bush isn't our only new conservative bae.
Lots of anti-Trump neo-cons have reluctantly
wandered into our camp.
And like the self-loathing doormats we are,
we've readily embraced them.
David Frum, you announced you're
voting for Hillary Clinton.
You make your best choice from bad alternatives.
Max Boot, who are you voting for?
Hillary Clinton, and I never thought I would be saying that.
REPORTER: Bill Kristol, lifelong conservative,
tweeted, "The GOP tax bill's bring out my inner socialist.
The sex scandals are bringing out my inner feminist.
Donald Trump and Roy Moore bringing out my inner liberal.
What is happening?"
Careful, Bill.
Don't sprain your arm patting yourself
on the back for your wokeness.
[LAUGHTER]
Yes, of course it's good to have conservatives
who speak out against Trump.
But remember that 15 years ago, just one "Stranger Things" kid
ago, these reasonable conservatives
were doing everything they could to send
us guns-a-blazing into Iraq.
What are the consequences if the US does not
finish off this Saddam Hussein as a second step
in the war on terrorism?
It would mean that the president, having declared
a global war on terrorism, didn't follow through,
didn't take out the most threatening
terrorist state in the world.
Yes, after 9/11, Kristol's magazine
kept pressuring Bush to go to war,
culminating in its late 2002 cover story, "What
are you, George, a pussy?"
Meanwhile, as a speechwriter for Bush,
David Frum helped sell the war by coining the president's
most iconic phrase.
You're square dancing in trains,
and obviously, balloon hats.
No, his other most iconic phrase.
[LAUGHTER]
States like these and their terrorist allies
constitute an axis of evil.
Look, we all made mistakes in the early 2000s,
whether it was marketing a disastrous war
or appearing as Cinnabon Cashier in "The Love Guru."
[LAUGHTER]
So don't get too self-righteous, liberals,
because we also sucked.
More than 100 Democratic lawmakers voted
in favor of invading Iraq.
Perhaps worst of all was the willingness
of the press to accept the White House's justification for war.
Today, reporters are martyrs, enduring
attacks by the president and lies from furious West Wing
radishes.
But back in 2003, they weren't quite so tough.
That's the president, looking very much like a jet--
you know, a high-flying jet star.
Americans love having a guy who's president--
a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical.
Women like a guy as president.
Check it out.
Women like this war.
He looks great in a military uniform.
He looks great in that cowboy costume
he wears when he goes out west.
Easy, there, Chris.
Take a cold shower.
[LAUGHTER]
And save the cowboy fantasies for "Hardball After Dark."
[LAUGHTER]
No, this has been a fun trip down memory lane,
but for a lot of people, this isn't history.
The actions of Cowboy McJetstar and his enablers
are still actively destroying people's lives.
And don't forget that it was the decider and his team who
decided to disband the Iraqi army,
giving a group of armed, unemployed,
and disgruntled soldiers the opportunity
to found a scrappy little startup that would
one day be called ISIS.
All of the adorkable memes in the world
cannot undo the damage he did.
So now, 15 years later, what have we learned
from the stupidest war ever?
Apparently nothing, because we might
be making the same mistake all over again.
The administration reportedly planning
to replace National Security Advisor HR McMaster
with Ambassador John Bolton.
You might only know John Bolton as that guy
on the news who looks like Wilford
Brimley hit a witch with a car, and she
cursed him to get thinner.
[LAUGHTER]
But he was also one of the top cheerleaders
for the invasion of Iraq.
And he's made a virtual career of going on cable news
and showing off his rage boner for a certain other Middle
Eastern country.
Our goal should be regime change in Iran.
REPORTER: You've written an op-ed today
in the "New York Times."
To stop Iran's bomb, bomb Iran.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Are we better off attacking Iran--
If you're worried--
--or having Iran have nuclear facilities?
I think we're better off attacking.
OK, two things-- first, congratulations,
Chris Matthews, on keeping it in your pants this time.
And second, John Bolton has been calling for us
to bomb Iran forever, I believe going
all the way back to the 1950s.
[LAUGHTER]
And now he's got the desiccated, beef-jerky-like ear
of our impressionable president, ready to lead us into "Iraq 2:
Iran," the most unwanted sequel since Donald Trump, Jr.
[LAUGHTER]
But does Bolton really have a chance of getting a job
in the Trump administration?
REPORTER: According to "The Washington Post,"
during the transition, several of Trump's associates
said they thought that John Bolton's brush-like mustache
was one of the factors that handicapped
him in the sweepstakes for Secretary of State.
And now we can only pray, because we're just
one case of mustache blight from starting
the next disastrous war.
We'll be right back.
[APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC PLAYING]