As the "long national nightmare" draws to a close I want to enter a preemptive protest to all future historians. Do not lay this past eight years of the systematic destruction of American values entirely at the feet of George W. Bush. To do so would allow the real culprits to escape with their place in this story untarnished by their crimes.
Bush is an insignificant, shallow, foolish man. A man of no substance. A cardboard cutout of trivial posturing, sold to an inattentive public, immersed in navel gazing. He lacks the strength of character, intellect, or moral bearings to have committed the crimes for which his administration will be held accountable for generations.
The real culprits are the people who Vice President Richard Cheney inserted into the sealed bubble of the Oval Office, after claiming the role of Shadow President for himself.
Cheney was determined to recast the role of the President in ways that had been rejected during his years in the Nixon White House. And, in spite of a rejection of that Imperial Presidency by the people, and the Congress, Cheney felt he had a absolute right to determine how the business of the Republic will be conducted, free of any interference by the people, or their representatives. He usurped the office of VP in order to recast the entire government in an image he felt was ordained, and he has never brooked any argument, or offered any justification, in his execution of this task.
To achieve this goal, Cheney immediately proceeded to surrounded himself with a cast of miscreants who had no understanding of divided government, no respect for the US Constitution, and nothing but derision for the people of this country. They had goals and plans that they felt transcended the mere rule of law, or the values of democracy.
George Bush lacked the talent or skills to identify this power grab, block or divert it, or realize how his Presidency was being usurped by the silent power brokers with which Cheney had infested the Executive Branch. A vain, egotistical, foppish poser, it is not at all clear that Bush could be aroused from his dreams of beating Poppa long enough to realize what was being done in his name. Lacking the internal resources, or judgment to run the Oval Office, he did as he was told.
Led by the madness of Cheney, the real culprits, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, David Addington, John Yoo, Lewis "Scooter" Libby and Karl Rove, along with a complicit Republican Congress, constructed a shadow government, with Cheney at its head. They had strong ties to AIPAC and drove all of the resources of American foreign policy to the tune of Israel's dance of survival.
They imagined an American of unlimited power, flexing its muscle at the whim of those who would determine, in secret, what must be done. Cheney named his old friend from the Nixon days, Donald Rumsfeld, to lead this newly tuned war machine.
Rumsfeld with his dreams of upending the Department of Defense and clutching imaginary Viet Nam glory from his "transition" fantasies, was equally manipulated by Cheney to wage a new war based on smoke and mirrors. And, the emotional cipher that is the current President, was flattered and convinced to allow the Generals to run that war. This poor, inadequate man never understood that the President is in charge, not the Generals. Of course, he never really was in charge of anything that Cheney did not allow.
Never before has a Secretary of Defense been given that kind of freedom. But, there was no President to halt him. There was no President to evaluate and weigh the statements made by the acolytes that preached a gospel of Preemptive War, and American Exceptionalism. These Old Man, hold overs from another failed Administration, pulled in a lunatic fringe of zealots who could be cultivated to say, and do, what ever was wished. And it was then presented to a limited, vapid man with a skill and cunning that trapped him into accepting the daily plot to overthrow the government of the United States and replace it with a hegemony of commercial and international interests that cared not one wit for America.
Truman's famous sign, "The Buck Stops Here", was predicated on a simple premise. The premise that the President would always possess sufficient sophistication, knowledge and intelligence to manage his power. A man competent to serve as an Executive. George Bush never met that criteria.
So when you write your histories in the coming years, remember to place the real crimes at the feet of those who committed them. Get the hit men. Not the get away driver.
It was George Bush's Administration. It was a continuation of the glory dreams of the Sr. Bush, and corporate interests of his wealthy friends. And they must all forever be tarred with the complete failure of this period in American history. But it's not nice to kick a cripple. Go after Cheney and his henchman who wooed the Fool and used him to effect a great crime.
Note: The connections between the gang of Neo-Cons and PNAC is referenced in several of the comments. I have not included a discussion of that association because the link to the PNAC site is no longer active.