Here is a long but great article from Salon taking a slightly different tack on W. Instead of Bush the Idiot, it offers us the exploits of Bush the Extremist. The writer also brings in an array of quotes, events, and rage-inducing (furiferous?) plots that you may have forgotten, making lots of interesting connections and weaving all the cacophony of the last 6 years into a mostly compelling narrative.
I, for instance, had forgotten that Bush's national security team met to discuss an invasion of Iraq 10 days after his first inauguration. And that the idea of a presidential signing statement was devised by none other than Rehnquist-aide Samuel Alito during the Reagan Administration.
There's one particular idea I've been hearing a lot of people bounce around lately, and that's neoconservatives as the intellectuals heirs of the Leninists/Trotskyites of the 20th century. Like totalitarians without a social conscience, I guess. But wouldn't that just make them run-of-the-mill authoritarians, even (in W's case) monarchists?
Not that it's not still an apt comparison, of course.
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