This very succint, tightly focussed essay of Blumenthal's goes directly to at least two very salient points. It hinges on recalling that on his so-called 're-election' Shrub proclaimed that "We go forward with complete confidence." He also urged "our youngest citizens" to see the future "in the determined faces of our soldiers," to choose between "evil" and "courage." But, Blumenthal reminds us, "as he listened that day, Vice-President Dick Cheney knew the election had been secured by a cover-up." Shrub's administration "has become its own republic of fear, and Bush is a prisoner to the right."<snip>
Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday November 3, 2005
The Guardian
...
On September 30 2003 President Bush emphatically stated that he wanted anyone in his administration with information about the Plame leak to "come forward". On June 10 2004 he pledged that anyone on his staff who leaked Plame's name would be fired.
When the Libby indictment was announced, Bush and Cheney praised him as a fine public servant. Still under investigation, Rove remains in the West Wing. But Cheney knew during the presidential campaign that he had discussed with Libby how to deal with Plame. Now Bush knows that Rove had enabled Robert Novak to publish her identity. But the president's promise to fire officials is suddenly inoperative.
Libby's alleged cover-up was undertaken in the spirit of neoconservative Leninism. Any tactic is rationalised by the vanguard, which sets all policy and uses the party as its instrument. If he had testified truthfully in October 2004 the result would have consumed the final days of the {election} campaign. His Leninist logic permitted him to protect the Republican cause, but he has tainted Bush's victory in history.
Bush took his 2004 win as a resounding mandate for a rightwing agenda. With each right turn, however, his popularity declined. Iraq acted as an accelerator of his fall. His nomination of Harriet Miers for the supreme court was an acknowledgement of his sharply narrowed political space. While the Republican masses supported him, the Leninist right staged a revolt. In Bush's cronyism and opportunism they saw his deviation. With the prosecutor's indictment imminent, Bush withdrew Miers. Broadly unpopular, he could not suffer a split right. His new nominee, federal judge Samuel Alito, a reliable sectarian, is a tribute to his bunker strategy.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1607353,00.html