The Internets offer up this long but worthwhile discussion of why the GOP needs enemies, be they Al Queda/Osama bin Forgotten, Saddam Hussein, China (remember when they were the looming threat?)/Iran. I wonder if Osama doesn’t understand the psyche of the American public better than the punditocracy and the campaign consultants. Even if he hadn’t destroyed the WTC — suppose his crew only managed to take over flight 93 — he still would have ensured the invasion of Iraq and the once-in-a-lifetime recruiting opportunity it represented.
Here’s a story of importance, via Matthew Yglesias, who doesn’t seem to appreciate the gravity of what he’s discovered. Francis Fukuyama, the apostate neoconservative, says that in the 1990s, neocons tried to manufacture an enemy, because they felt that the Republican Party “didn’t do as well” when there wasn’t a ruthless, monolithic pinkomuslimcommienihilist threat to America.
And if you want more, you can read the incomparable Billmon’s review of the Nero Administration. Felons and hookers and bribes, oh my.