Actor Rob Lowe fired up Twitter Saturday night by asking Ivy Ziedrich, the 19-year-old University of Nevada student who cornered potential presidential candidate Jeb Bush last week, if she'd describe the loss of six Marines in Nepal as "American exceptionalism."
Lowe, a frequent tweeter, asked Ziedrich, without mentioning her by name, one simple question,
reports the website IJReview.com:
By Sunday morning, Lowe's comment had been retweeted 627 times and "favorited" 975 times.
Last week during a town hall event, Bush blamed President Barack Obama for the rise of ISIS and the dangers the militant organization poses to the United States and the world. His argument is one posed often by Obama opponents who say the president created a void in the Middle East by removing troops from Iraq, allowing groups like the Islamic State to gain power.
Ziedrich, a political science major, confronted Bush, telling him that his brother, former President George W. Bush, "created ISIS."
“Why are you saying that ISIS was created by us not having a presence in the Middle East when it’s pointless wars where we send young American men to die for the idea of American exceptionalism?" she said. "Why are you spouting nationalist rhetoric to get us involved in more wars?”
She further called Bush "pedantic" when he did not immediately answer her.
“We respectfully disagree, we have a disagreement,” he ended up telling her. "“Look, we can rewrite history all you want. But the simple fact is that we are in a much more unstable place because America pulled back.”
After Lowe addressed Ziedrich's confrontation of Bush, Twitter followers lined up to respond to him. Many supported his question:
And, of course, Lowe was criticized as well:
And Lowe continued to defend his point, replying to several tweets, including this response: