Re: PK

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Title: RE: [PEN-L] PK

I remember back when the US government regularly did the kind of stuff that the Bushmasters do these days (invading -- I mean "incursing" -- sovereign countries with out even a "by your leave" (Cambodia), overthrowing "bad" foreign leaders (Lumumba, Bosch, Arbenz, Allende, etc.), etc.) Then back in the 1960s, the "credibility gap" arose and grew larger and larger, so that the emnity between the President and the populace became a permanent fixture of the US scene. (This is one thing that hung up Bill Clinton; it wasn't just GOP guerilla war (the Whitewater investigations). The popular emnity was hardly just of the left-wing variety.)

Now the Bushies are trying to bring back the "good old days" quickly and with a vengeance (invading Iraq and now Syria, trying to overthrow Chavez in Venezuela, bringing back McCarthyism, etc.) Is it possible that this fast rise of 1950s retro politics will spawn a fast fall? after all, everything moves so quickly these days.

[NYTimes]
June 24, 2003
Denial and Deception
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Politics is full of ironies. On the White House Web site, George W.
Bush's
speech from Oct. 7, 2002 - in which he made the case for war with Iraq -
bears the headline "Denial and Deception." Indeed.

There is no longer any serious doubt that Bush administration officials
deceived us into war. The key question now is why so many influential
people are in denial, unwilling to admit the obvious.