How would Bush have handled this terrorist attack?

[jmowreader]

In September 1982, someone stole Extra-Strength Tylenol Capsules from stores in the Chicago area, dumped the drug out of the capsules, refilled them with cyanide and put the packages back into the stores. Seven people died and the entire nation was terrorized for months. At the time it was a far worse attack than the WTC was in 2001--Tylenol was one of the most trusted brands in the world.

I remember my mom's reaction--she threw away the Tylenol she had in the house even though it wasn't the kind the terrorist hit and she'd owned the bottle since the 1970s. Then she called every one of her adult children to make sure they did the same thing. I think half of America did likewise.

In 1982, the president of Johnson and Johnson reacted by recalling all of the Extra Strength Tylenol, converting the production line from capsules to caplets, introducing a triple-secured bottle, and launching a massive PR campaign. The only input from government officials was the mayor of Chicago asking people not to take Tylenol until they could assure the safety of the product.

If George W. Bush would have been in office at that time, how many countries would he have started a war against?

[Lefty48197]

1. Clearly the Canadians were behind the tylenol attacks.

They were trying to show that our drugs are just as dangerous as theirs are. Watch out for cruise missiles canuks.

[jeff30997]

2. He would have invaded...

Canada since it's the closest country from Chicago.Then he would have invaded Grenada anyway but he would have blamed the Tylenol poisoning on them.

[soothsayer]

3. eye-rack. everything is iraq to that guy. n/t

[HawkerHurricane]

4. Didn't they track down who did it?

I seem to remember reading how it was a woman who wanted to kill her husband. She poisoned a bunch of tylenol, put it on shelves, and then waited for a news report of a death... and then poisoned her husband.

Oh, and the government solution to this was for the U.S. Military to buy massive quantaties of Tylenol for use by servicemen.

[jmowreader]

5. According to all the sites that deal with this disaster...

the terrorist is still at large.

And I remember the government's solution. I was at Fort Campbell when this happened. My platoon sergeant was a staff sergeant everyone in the battalion called Swing, because he was a professional jazz musician before he joined the service. Swing had to go to the doctor for something or other right after the Tylenol disaster, and he came back with this weird look on his face.

"What's wrong?"

'They don't like me.' And pulled out three bottles of Tylenol.