The buck stops on Bush's desk

By HELEN THOMAS
HEARST NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON -- Though President Bush is not a student of history, he surely has heard of Harry Truman's famous declaration: "The buck stops here."

That slogan was enshrined in a desk-top sign in Truman's Oval Office. I thought of it while watching all of the buck-passing that has become a White House ritual lately, especially in the sticky fallout from the U.S. invasion of Iraq and its aftermath.

There have been presidents who have taken blame for a catastrophe, bad judgment or a plan gone wrong.

In the case of the Iraq attack, Bush may yet own up to his mistake in leading the nation to war on the basis of false advertising about weapons of mass destruction and Iraq as haven of Sept. 11 terrorists. That rhetoric in the rush to war has turned out to be a bunch of hooey.

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