Quote Of The Week: GOP Hitman Roger Stone Regrets Bush

Roger Stone, according to thedailybeast.com, “has had a hand in everything from Nixon’s dirty tricks to Eliot Spitzer’s resignation to spreading discredited rumors of a Michelle Obama ‘whitey’ tape during the 2008 Democratic primaries.”

However, the biggest feather in Stone’s cap was the “Brooks Brothers riot” of the 2000 election recount (wonderfully recreated in Danny Strong and Jay Roach’s HBO film RECOUNT). Stone led a massive group of pro-Bush protesters to intimidate the Miami-Dade County election board and succeeded in stopping the recount and, many would say, gave George W. Bush the White House. 

So it’s fascinating to hear Mr. Stone’s reflections on that event today:

“There have been many times I’ve regretted it. When I look at those double-page New York Times spreads of all the individual pictures of people who have been killed [in Iraq], I got to think, ‘Maybe there wouldn’t have been a war if I hadn’t gone to Miami-Dade. Maybe there hadn’t have been, in my view, an unjustified war if Bush hadn’t become president.’ It’s very disturbing to me.”