"The History Boys"

We are a long way from the glory days of Mission Accomplished, when the Iraq war was over before it was over—indeed before it really began—and the president could dress up like a fighter pilot and land on an aircraft carrier, and the nation, led by a pliable media, would applaud. Now, late in this sad, terribly diminished presidency, mired in an unwinnable war of their own making, and increasingly on the defensive about events which, to their surprise, they do not control, the president and his men have turned, with some degree of desperation, to history. In their view Iraq under Saddam was like Europe dominated by Hitler, and the Democrats and critics in the media are likened to the appeasers of the 1930s. The Iraqi people, shorn of their immensely complicated history, become either the people of Europe eager to be liberated from the Germans, or a little nation that great powerful nations ought to protect. Most recently in this history rummage sale—and perhaps most surprisingly—Bush has become Harry Truman.


http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/08/halberstam200708

It sank like a stone, but I think it's one of the best I've read in a long time.

Thanks for reposting it. I hope it gets the attention is truly deserves.

K & R

I wish I could write half as well and I did post-grad work in Government...

connected the right-wing Pukes and their hatred of FDR and Truman to the present assholes in charge.

It was brilliantly written. Our nation lost a great historian and writer when Mr. Halberstam was killed in that car accident. He was definitely one of the "best and the brightest".

As if there were really other choices....

We need to remember that Bulgaria and Hungary as well as Romania were members of the Axis!

The American public wouldn't have tolerated a war about the spoils of war...

Then in 48 came the Long Telegram and also the First Berlin Crisis, then Budapest. . .
Pretty smart to have waited in the long run, wasn't it? Now NATO has all of them and the EU well on its way!

Would these murderers have their friends whack someone because of this?

I don't know but, as always, having Halberstam out of the way is an incredible stroke of luck for the Royal Bushies. Did the obedient ex-CIA Loyal Bushies like Charlie Kane make it happen?

We shall never know but at this point I am always suspicious when a critic of The Bushie Party dies in an "accident", the sme way and for the same reason I'd be suspicious if a person publicly critical of the Nazi party died in an accident shortly before his article was to be published.

Probably not, but it is a question that bears asking.