Here, as promised some time back, is a second installment from the oral history of Bush’s administration in the current Vanity Fair. The speaker is Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s chief of staff at the State Department:
John [Bellinger] and I had to work on the 9/11-commission testimony of Condi. Condi was not gonna do it, not gonna do it, not gonna do it, and then all of a sudden she realized she better do it. That was an appalling enterprise. We would cherry-pick things to make it look like the president had been actually concerned about al-Qaeda. We cherry-picked things to make it look as if the vice president and others, Secretary Rumsfeld and all, had been.They didn’t give a shit about al-Qaeda. They had priorities. The priorities were lower taxes, ballistic missiles, and the defense thereof.
Ballistic missiles. Interesting that this seems to have been one of “their” two top priorities. Probably we can trace this back to Reagan and his Star Wars dreams. Reagan, like so many conservative Republicans, was a magical thinker. Their magic is Science. Ice cap melting? No problem, Science will take care of it. Peak oil? Relax and keep drilling, Science will turn sewage into electricity pretty soon. You’ll see.
So don’ worry, be happy.
Their magic is Science.
I think you meant "the Free Market". After all, conservative Republicans and scientific inquiry are about as diametrically opposed as one can get. Take Intelligent Design for instance...
Posted by: on February 3, 2009 2:38 PMThere's good science and there's bad science. Bad science is global warming, good science is clean coal. Good science is nuclear weapons, bad science is stem cell research. It all depends.
Posted by: Furber on February 3, 2009 6:17 PMI never saw Star Wars as anything other than a wealth-transfer program, a la Chomsky. Nobody but Reagan was stupid enough to imagine that such a thing could possibly work. It was just another way to channel money into the Pentagon system.
Posted by: Chuck Dupree on February 5, 2009 2:44 AMRead the other day about where Mr. Reagan may have gotten his idea for the "Star Wars" missile defense. Apparently in 1947 he starred as "Brass Bancroft" in yet another B-movie called Murder in the Air involving a similar weapon/defense. Not the first time Ronnie confused his movies w/history, remember how he claimed to have served in WWII? And of course the Bushies would have revived the program, not only is it a cash cow for their buddies in defense, it's a great way to needle the Russians & others. We the people are so screwed...
Posted by: darms on February 5, 2009 12:18 PM