Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Just a Friend of the Family

I've found that one of the real joys of skipping around the blogosphere is chancing upon a post that happens to cover a subject I am currently obsessing over. I had one of those serendipitous experiences today.

Russ Baker has a wonderful post on Mickey Herskowitz and his failed attempt to ghost write a campaign autobiography of George W. Bush. Mr. Herskowitz apparently had pretty substantial access to the candidate because of a friendship which he had developed with George H. W. Bush, the candidate's father. Note the dates mentioned carefully:

Houston: Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in preparation for a planned autobiography.

“He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,” said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. “It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.’ He said, ‘If I have a chance to invade….if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.”


The project was pulled from Mr. Herskowitz when campaign managers began to think the material he was producing wasn't particularly helpful.

I think it safe to say that Dear Leader's decision to go to war with Iraq was more than just some Oedipal hang-up, but clearly, if Mr. Herskowitz is being straight, this certainly entered into the equation. I also think that Mr. Bush's current claims that he tried hard to get the world (via the United Nations) to convince Saddam Hussein to cooperate rings even more hollow than it did after the release of the Downing Street Memo.

Either/or, the dude is still a liar, and nearly 1700 young Americans have paid the price for his lies. I say, "impeachment now."

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