"Bush's War"

On Spencer Ackerman's recommendation, I checked out Frontline's "Bush's War" last night. It was, to me, physically difficult to watch. The idea of seriously sitting down to interview Richard Perle about Iraq -- your interviewer here, your cameraman there, etc. -- is, to me, vaguely repulsive. How could you listen to him when you ought to be punching him? I dunno. Do I want to watch him talk on my television? Or John Yoo? Even in the context of a documentary that makes it clear that they're repulsive sociopaths? Not really.

The die-hards, though, at least stand by their war. It's puzzling to think about the rest of them. John McLaughlin, Deputy Director of the CIA throughout the pre-war period, has a ton of reasonable things to say about Iraq and the decision-making process. You're sitting there thinking, this is a smart, knowledgeable, insightful guy if only he'd been a high-ranking government official of some kind maybe he could have stopped this! He could have quite and said "holy shit! the government's being run by crazy people, don't let these psychos invade Iraq!" Of course Richard Clarke and Rand Beers did resign and no good came of it. Maybe there was no stopping the madness.