and a great line: "Moreover, the Administration’s defense ignores, or more accurately is unaware of, a simple chronological truth. Today is tomorrow’s history."

In light of your Halberstam quotes, I thought this news from today fits right in:

From Think Progress:
"In his interview with Rush Limbaugh this afternoon, Karl Rove claimed that the people criticizing Bush are 'sort of elite, effete snobs who can’t hold a candle to this guy. What they don’t like about him is that he is common sense, that he is Middle America." Limbaugh suggest that Bush critics are frustrated the the President 'outsmarts 'em.' Rove argued Bush is far more intelligent than people give him credit for, and is 'one of the best-read people I've ever met' whose 'passion is history.'"

Yep, history boys indeed. Read again, Rove saying that Bush is one of the "best-read people" he's ever met, probably is true for the college dropout. Either everyone in the Republican establishment reads less than Bush or Rove is a liar, or in what may explain the crazy dissembling media environment we've lived through in the last six and a half years, perhaps both things are true. Whoa!