A couple good ones from Orcinus, via Atrios: first, an op-ed discussing the implications of George Bush Sr.’s decision to give the 2003 George Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service to (drumroll please) Ted Kennedy.
Since the current President Bush veered away from the real war against terrorism in Afghanistan and went a’venturing in Iraq, much to his father’s dismay, just about everybody close to Washington politics has known of the policy schism between father and son.
It was politically and philosophically obvious. But people around Father Bush, a coterie of traditional internationalist conservatives who protect him like a wolf mother does her cubs, would heatedly deny any family rift — and nobody spoke publicly about it.
Now it’s all out. Father Bush has done it in his own preferred nuanced way — the way Establishment gentlemen operate — but he has revealed the depth of his disagreement with his impetuously uninformed son.
And won’t it be interesting to analyze the speeches citing Teddy, who is surely one of W’s primary political nemeses, for his public service and principles at the Bush Library Center on the Texas A&M campus on Nov. 7? One can bet they will be subtle — but also very clear.
The ideological rift between father and son has been growing ever since George W. began focusing on Iraq and, with that obsession, proposed “theories” of unilateralism (America needs room in the world) and preemption (kill even your perceived enemy before he kills you).
Second, the story of a terrorist discovered to have
a bunker containing a cache of weapons and explosives worthy of an army: an anti-aircraft gun capable of firing 550 rounds per minute up to four miles away, machine guns, explosives, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and booby traps. Investigators also find pictures of President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with scope cross-hairs drawn over them.
But not to worry: he’s a white guy terrorist. Which is probably why news of his arrest hasn’t made it much beyond the Grand Rapids Press.