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Sidney Blumenthal

  • Retreat Into a Substitute Reality
    4 October 2004 par (Open-Publishing)
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    By Touching on Bush’s Ambivalent Relations with His Father, Kerry Exposed His Delusions about Iraq
    by Sidney Blumenthal
    After months of flawless execution in a well-orchestrated campaign, President Bush had to stand alone in an unpredictable debate. He had traveled the country, appearing before adoring pre-selected crowds, delivered a carefully crafted acceptance speech before his convention, and approved tens of millions of dollars in TV commercials to belittle his opponent. In the (…)

  • The bubble boy Bush lives in a world immune from the realities of Iraq.
    25 September 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    By Sidney Blumenthal
    The news is grim, but the president is "optimistic." The intelligence is sobering, but he tosses aside "pessimistic predictions." His opponent says he has "no credibility," but the president replies that it is his rival who is "twisting in the wind." The secretary general of the United Nations speaks of the "rule of law," but Bush talks before a mute General Assembly of "a new definition of security." Between the rhetoric and the reality lies the campaign.
    A reliable (…)

  • Far graver than Vietnam
    17 September 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    Most senior US military officers now believe the war on Iraq has turned into a disaster on an unprecedented scale
    by Sidney Blumenthal
    ’Bring them on!" President Bush challenged the early Iraqi insurgency in July of last year. Since then, 812 American soldiers have been killed and 6,290 wounded, according to the Pentagon. Almost every day, in campaign speeches, Bush speaks with bravado about how he is "winning" in Iraq. "Our strategy is succeeding," he boasted to the National Guard (…)

  • Rewriting the script
    11 June 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    Unlike the current occupant of the White House, Reagan was willing to improvise on the far-right script, which is what ultimately saved his presidency.
    By Sidney Blumenthal
    Ronald Reagan’s presidency collapsed at the precise moment on Nov. 25, 1986, when he suddenly appeared without notice in the White House briefing room, introduced his attorney general, Edwin Meese, and instantly departed from the stage. Meese announced that funds raised by members of the National Security (…)

  • The Bush orthodoxy is in shreds
    29 May 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    A series of investigations has shattered neocon self-belief
    By Sidney Blumenthal
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1225600,00.html
    The Guardian (UK)
    At a conservative thinktank in downtown Washington, and across the Potomac at the Pentagon, FBI agents have begun paying quiet calls on prominent neoconservatives, who are being interviewed in an investigation of potential espionage, according to intelligence sources. Who gave Ahmed Chalabi classified information about (…)

  • What Colin Powell saw but didn’t say
    25 April 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    The rush to war in Iraq echoes Reagan’s Iran- contra scandal
    Sidney Blumenthal
    "History? We won’t know," George Bush tells Bob Woodward. "We’ll all be dead." But in his book, Plan of Attack, Woodward’s facts move the past from the shadows, adding significant new documentation to the story of the rush to war in Iraq.
    The serious constitutional issues and governmental abuses, the methods and even the continuity of some personnel that Woodward catalogues evoke memories of the Reagan (…)