from HuffPost:
Anis Shivani
WriterPosted: November 14, 2010 06:30 AM
Bush's 'Decision Points' Is A Terrifying Journey Into the Authoritarian Mind This would be less grim to talk about if Bush weren't still with us. But he is, in every way that matters. The Bush Doctrine lives. No leading American politician can disavow the two key aspects of the Bush Doctrine: that we cannot distinguish terrorists from the countries where they live, and that we must act preemptively against gathering threats before they materialize (propositions contradicting international law). Bush's memoir is arguably the most important book of the year because it reveals -- far better than do books by Charlie Savage, Isikoff and Corn, or Bob Woodward -- how he fundamentally reconceptualized the functions of the presidency, the balance of power among the branches of government, and the expectations and obligations of citizens, with lasting effects.
Reviews in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and New York Times treat Bush respectfully -- much as a Machiavellian prince would desire to be treated after going into retirement; too often reviewers play Bush's game by humanizing him, or treating him with humor, or safely relegating him to history. But Bush truly was a transformative president, among the rare few, and we deceive ourselves -- as many in the commentariat continue to do, as with Maureen Dowd's light-hearted mockery of him -- if we consider him an anomaly, a rare eruption of a virus that won't repeat itself. This book's ideas will have resonance with a large segment of the population, and a notable number among the elites; we need to study Decision Points (Crown, Nov. 9) seriously, as onerous a task as it may be, if we are to make sense of the perpetual aura of crisis that has enveloped America, and why we seem to be stuck on a self-destructive path.
Decision Points is a classic recipe for a benign dictatorship, a uniquely American form of dictatorship, to be sure -- from its rigid understanding of morality (good versus evil) to its distorted valuation of life (only American lives matter; Bush is not concerned about the loss of civilian life in the countries he attacked) -- that gives comfort to many in a time of economic and cultural stress.
The beauty of the Bush philosophy of governance is that it creates and accelerates those very conditions of stress (radical economic inequality promoted by tax cuts for the wealthy and concomitant cuts in public services for the less well-off) that then provide fertile ground for popular acceptance of measures intended to further worsen conditions for the subject class. An example would be to purposely inflate the housing bubble and then use the succeeding bailout to further enrich the wealthy elites at the cost of the average worker. Or to execute a reckless Medicare drug expansion plan, catering to pharmaceutical companies and knowing it would lead to insolvency, to set the stage for drastic future cuts in Medicare -- and other entitlements, while they're at it. The same principle applies in foreign policy, such as in retreating from Bill Clinton's tentative rapprochement with Iran and North Korea as Bush's first order of business, demonizing these countries as evil, and then setting in motion offensive strategies once those countries predictably react. The principle is evident in attacking and occupying Middle Eastern countries, then justifying the war on terror by pointing to the increased radicalization ensuing from the invasion. .................(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anis-shivani/the-prince-and-the-pauper_b_782881.html 
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