The return of the Bushies

August 26th, 2011 - 475318 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.filibustercartoons.com%2Findex.php%2F2011%2F08%2F26%2Fthe-return-of-the-bushies%2FThe+return+of+the+Bushies2011-08-26+19%3A07%3A12J.J.http%3A%2F%2Fwww.filibustercartoons.com%2F%3Fp%3D4753

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Feeling nostalgic for the George W. Bush years yet? If so, you’ll certainly have lots of time to wallow in the memories over the next couple of weeks.

Former vice president Dick Cheney is scheduled to release his memoirs in the coming days, and judging from those who’ve read a preview copy, it’s likely to provide no shortage of headline fodder. True to character, Cheney is apparently utterly remorseless for the decisions he made during his eight years as second-in-command, including the invasion of Iraq, the approval of waterboarding, the Valerie Plame affair, the One Percent Doctrine, and all the other delightful anti-terror initiatives he came to be associated with. He also admits outright that he was in favor of broadening the War on Terror to include Syria, and tried to press President Bush to bomb the country in 2007 — only to be overruled by Bush and the rest of the cabinet. The cabinet, in turn, seems to be the subject of much Cheney ire; according to preliminary reviews, the VP bashes both Condi Rice and Colin Powell as naive peaceniks who, (at least in the case of Powell) he admits actively working to undermine.

Cheney’s book release is obviously strategically timed, coming out only two weeks before the 10th anniversary of 9-11, an event which will doubtlessly thrust the Bush years back into limelight. The former president will visit Ground Zero alongside Obama on the day itself — his first major public appearance in years — and has already recorded an extensive interview with (weirdly) National Geographic TV that will air that evening. More fuel still will be added to the gossip fire later this fall, when former Bush national security advisor cum secretary of state Condoleezza Rice is expected to debut a memoir of her own.

All three of these figures obviously have something of a vested interest in ensuring that history regards their political careers fondly, and in the wake of the 9-11 decennial, all will be working overtime to retroactively justify both their overall philosophy of the War on Terror and the wisdom of the specific schemes they hatched to wage it. And at one time, such efforts would be regarded as bitterly — or even pathetically — defensive, the sad work of a disgraced ruling clique whose aggressive, intrusive, legally dubious approach to surveillance, subversion, and war had twice been thoroughly repudiated by the American people at the ballot box, first in 2006 and again in 2008.

Three years into the Obama presidency, however, the transition has not been nearly as sharp as many once hoped. Much of the Bush-era surveillance apparatus remains in effect — if not strengthened — the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have been winding down much slower than anticipated, Gitmo remains open, and new military adventures have been launched in Libya and Yemen. But going even further than that, I’d say it’s the overall foreign policy climate heralded in by the Bush administration that remains most firmly entrenched; this kind of hazy, dark, back-of-the-brain sense that we’re always at war and always a target. The morose, weary pessimism of men like Cheney, once seen as a gross character flaw, is now the default state of pretty much everyone in Washington associated with security and defense. Perhaps the-ends-justifies-everything attitude has been lessened somewhat — waterboarding is now explicitly banned, for instance — but the idea that we’ve made any sort of clean, decisive break with the larger anti-terror regime of Dubya I’d say is much harder to argue.

Does this reality, in turn, vindicate the second Bush presidency at all? Does it make its major players seem somewhat less villainous in the eyes of liberals and Democrats?  I’ll leave that for you guys to discuss.

Oh, and talking of Condi Rice, have you seen this insane story yet? Apparently during a rebel raid on one of Quaddaffi’s compounds, insurgents dug up several creepy stalker scrapbooks containing photo after photo of Condoleezza Rice. Sounds like Peter Mackay has a rival.

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