No Future for the GOP?

craner

Beast of Burden
There's an interesting and well-sourced argument put forward in this book that the most over-looked and underrated moment of the first Bush administration was the Anthrax letters - that these, rather than solely 9/11, really pushed Bush and, particularly, Cheney into the bunker/gung ho mentality that made Iraq a foregone conclusion (therefore the aggression on intelligence, raw, false, or true, and all of that is still open to debate, actually).

It's also very interesting on Cheney's special interest in the extension of executive power, and its basis in Hamilton's Federalist papers, arguing against Madison and Jay, which is a barpartisan argument, rooted within the tradition of the convoluted US constitution and its miriad amendments, and is quite fascinating.
 

luka

Well-known member
the anthrax letters! ahahahhahhahahahahahhahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahhahahhahahhahhahahhahahhahahaha
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
also a direct link to the (excellent) Robert Draper piece on Rumsfeld that Frum quotes (via Abu M so I'm sure at least Vim's read it but for anyone who hasn't)

re: Rumsfeld - I need to skim thru that Frum piece real quick but the general impression I've been getting recently is that Rumsfeld is being set up as the fall guy/scapegoat for all the woes of the Bush admin. which seems like a neat sidestep - not that he wasn't a total f**king disaster - but surely the problems went far deeper & were far more systemic in nature.

useless trivia: Rumsfeld & I are from the same town.

*EDIT* tho I guess it makes sense that the SoD would be scapegoated - happened to McNamara over Vietnam didn't it (tho like Rumsfeld he actually deserved quite a lot of criticism he got). actually one more interesting Iraq/Vietnam parallell - strong SoD vs. relatively weak, or at least passive/unassertive, SoC (Dean Rusk), DOD/military taking over numerous areas of responsibility that should be State's, with mostly crappy results
 
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