Blumenthal: A State of Chaos

[kskiska]

George Bush has purged the last of his father's senior advisers, handing over control to his neocon allies

The transition to President Bush's second term, filled with backstage betrayals, plots and pathologies, would make for an excellent chapter of I, Claudius. To begin with, Bush has unceremoniously and without public acknowledgement dumped Brent Scowcroft, his father's closest associate and friend, as chairman of the foreign intelligence advisory board. The elder Bush's national security adviser was the last remnant of traditional Republican realism permitted to exist within the administration.

At the same time the vice president, Dick Cheney, has imposed his authority over secretary of state designate Condoleezza Rice, in order to blackball Arnold Kanter, former under secretary of state to James Baker and partner in the Scowcroft Group, as a candidate for deputy secretary of state.

"Words like 'incoherent' come to mind," one top state department official told me about Rice's effort to organise her office. She is unable to assert herself against Cheney, her wobbliness a sign that the state department will mostly be sidelined as a power centre for the next four years.

(snip)

The outgoing secretary of state, fighting his last battle, is leaking stories to the Washington Post about how his advice went unheeded. Secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld, whose heart beats with the compassion of a crocodile, clings to his job by staging Florence Nightingale-like tableaux of hand-holding of the wounded while declaiming into the desert wind about "victory". Since the election, 203 US soldiers have been killed and 1,674 wounded.

more…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1380713,00.html

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. There is a hell of a train wreck coming.

I hope that "the little people" don't get hit by the flying debris.

These guys are on Hot Rails to Hell.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

2. I love that inside dirt!....

I'm off to look for more from Blumenthal. Thanks!

[TexasLawyer]

3. Great editorial

thanks

[KoKo]

4. This all can't be true....without Baker where is Bush? Why the Media

Lockdown...Baker is extremely powerful in DC...probably knows where all the bodies are buried and every skeleton in the basement. Has Blumenthal gone off the deep end?

There's no way Chimp would get rid of the "Godfather" (Baker). The rest of this is somewhat believable but still seems extreme...

Anyone else find this article very odd? :crazy:

[Demeter]

5. Everything Bush Touches is WEIRD

It gives me the creeps, just thinking about him.

[proudbluestater]

6. Blumenthal ALWAYS delivers in his columns

He's one of my favorites!!!

[biscotti]

7. Yes

I love him as well. His writing style is enjoyable and can be documented. His book Clinton Wars is one of my favorites. It is a chronology of his years in the White house. It is like a living history of the times.
I wish the U.S. Guardian would start soon, I think he was slated to be the editor.