Thuds and Screams from Inside the Topkapi Palace

Capitol Blue is not always accurate, but always entertaining. A Tiny Revolution writes:

A Tiny Revolution: Let The Thinly-Sourced Rumor-Mongering Begin!: Would it be irresponsible to link to a Capitol Blue story simply because it bolsters my belief system, even though Capitol Blue has been egregiously wrong in the past?

It would be irresponsible not to:

An uncivil war rages inside the walls of the West Wing of the White House, a bitter, acrimonious war driven by a failed agenda, destroyed credibility, dwindling public support and a President who lapses into Alzheimer-like periods of incoherent babbling...

The war erupted into full-blown shout fests at Camp David this past weekend where decorum broke down in staff meetings and longtime aides threatened to quit unless Rove goes...

White House staff members say the White House is "like a wartime bunker" where shell-shocked aides hide from those who disagree with their actions and office pools speculate on how long certain senior aides will last.

Bush, whose obscenity-laced temper tantrums increase with each new setback and scandal, abruptly ended one Camp David meeting by telling everyone in the room to "go f--- yourselves" before he stalked out of the room.

Senior aides describe Bush as increasingly "edgy" or "nervous" or "unfocused." They say the President goes from apparent coherent thought one moment to aimless rambles about political enemies and those who are "out to get me."

"It's worse than the days when Ronald Reagan's Alzheimer's began setting in," one longtime GOP operative told me privately this week. "You don't know if he's going to be coherent from one moment to the next. What scares me is if he lapses into one of those fogs during a public appearance."

Today did see Scott McClellan direct press-delivered tacnukes against Karl Rove. Rove burned McClellan by sending him out to tell the press that Rove had nothing to do with the leaking of Valerie Plame Wilson's covert CIA identity--and now that this is well-known McClellan's credibility with journalists and his career are both over unless he can get Rove fired. No press secretary can survive if people think the rest of the White House regards him as a patsy to be fed lies.

Comments

[dearieme]

Had I been American, I might well have voted for Gore rather than W, because I entertained reservations about a dried-out alcoholic who'd found God. Stereotyping or a legitimate heuristic?

[david]

"No press secretary can survive if people think the rest of the White House regards him as a patsy to be fed lies."

I doubt that's true, but in any case, is it really better if you're Ari Fleischer, and you're one of the gang knowingly feeding lies? It's the same lies getting told from the same podium.

[BroD]

Jesus! Any self-respecting person, recognizing that he's been played the fool, would resign with a "Kiss my ass!"

That McClellan didn't do that suggests he understands that he's as much a total loser as Brownie.

[Matt]

Well, maybe, at least, we've heard the last of the 'Unappreciated Genius of George Bush' meme.

[Emma Anne]

BroD, but what kind of person would work for this administration in the first place? Self-respecting isn't the term I would use . . .

[Ginger Yellow]

"They say the President goes from apparent coherent thought one moment to aimless rambles about political enemies and those who are "out to get me""

How is this different from one of his press conferences?

[sm]

Sounds like Nixon to me.

[kharris]

Didn't the story of Bush going incoherent make the rounds once before? If memory serves (and I'm a bit worried about that), it was during the weakest point for Bush during his second presidential campaign. He'd never actually faced much pressure till he began running for President, had he?

[Saam Barrager]

I'm not sure he faced much pressure until 2005. He's been able to avoid the little pressure that he otherwise would have faced in the first term.

I keep hearing that he's cracking up, and I think: "what the hell are you cracking up about? You've done less in 5 years than I've done in 2." (Yes, I actually do believe that.)

[save_the_rustbelt]

In his book "Up the Organization" Robert Townsend suggested any manager or executive with any pride would type an undated letter of resignation, keep it in his suit jacket at all times, and sign and date it whenever his boss asked him/her to something idiotic.

Maybe it is time for some resignations.

Better yet some firings.

If Bush isn't smart enough to clean house, it will be a long three years.

[Linkmeister]

But rustbelt, to whom would Bush hand his letter?

[Johnny]

W is used to failing upwards, so go easy on the guy. It's gotta be hard for him now that he's making mistakes so huge not even his Daddy's oil buddies can bail him out.

[bcinaz]

Ya know, we only have Scotty's word that he asked Karl and Scooter if they were the leakers; it would not be unlike this WH to just make shit up. Like Bush promising to fire the leakers. Scotty may be between a rock and hard place created by senior staff, not as a lie about what happened, but as spin about what happened. Afterall, I doubt they expected to be so thoroughly investigated by their own Justice Department.

[ED]

Rove burned McClellan by sending him out to tell the press that Rove had nothing to do with the leaking of Valerie Plame Wilson's covert CIA identity

I note in both the indictment and his press conference Fitz had avoided using the word “covert” to describe Plame’s CIA employment. The reason might be she might not be “covert” in the strict legal sense as required by the Intelligence Identity Protection Act as she had not been stationed overseas for 5 years prior to the outing. Fitz did make it clear that her status was confidential , and revealing confidential information was still a crime. The conservative pundits are clinging to their last straw on this “covert” issue, so I think we should be careful in choosing our words.

[Maynard Handley]

"You don't know if he's going to be coherent from one moment to the next. What scares me is if he lapses into one of those fogs during a public appearance."

I guess this thought is scary to the GOP. To me it sounds like it would be laughing out loud hysterical. I can't wait for him to go full-scale Captain Queeg in public.
"Ah, but the Iraqi nuclear weapons! That's where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes, but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt, and with geometric logic, that the Democrats were in cahoots with Al Qaeda to suppress the teaching of Christianity in the USA!"

[christo]

deja vu all over again. Reading the piece Tiny Revolution/Capital Blue I too couldn't tell whether it was describing Nixon or Bush. Nixon did have some abilities, he could read and write. Bush is handy with the remote. The Hide side of Bush was reported during the Katrina disaster.

[J Thomas]

"W is used to failing upwards, so go easy on the guy."

You think maybe after this he'll be the Pope?

[DOR]

What do you call the crime of knowing that someone is a serious danger to himself and others, but still continue to facilitate his actions rather that ensure that he is prohibited from causing harm?

If that person is (P)resident in the White House, the crime is called treason. The Republican’ts got away with it under Reagan and they’re getting away with it now.
.

[dearieme]

DOR: and the Democrats got away with it with Woodrow Wilson & JFK. Is there a flaw in the Constitution here, or just flawed people?

[Jonathan King]

I'm not sure I buy (yet) any stories about bouts of Bush incoherence that couldn't be better explained as him just being not very insterested in governing combined with being a truly poor public speaker at times. I only heard his speech nominating Alito on the radio, but that was pretty horribly delivered; if there hadn't been a script right in front of him, the result might have seemed quite incoherent. We saw this on display during the debates, after all; it still amazes me that millions of Americans saw his live performance in those and then still chose to pull the lever beside his name because they thought they would be safer with him leading.

In any case, his approval number is now down to 37% in the Gallup (I think), and his chances of getting any of his own policies implemented in the remainder of the second term would seem to be drying up.

[Michael Carroll]

[McClellan Directed Tacnukes...]

I've been living in airports for the last couple days. What the hell is Brad talking about???

[ricardo]

Hey J Thomas:

Nah...he's auditioning for the Jesus role (if you think his speeches in English are bad you should hear his Aramaic - but his base loves it)...

[bad Jim]

I don't get it.

I can't stand to watch all his speeches, but I did watch all the debates.

Bush is a seriously dumb, seriously screwed up guy. Who, having seen him perform before, could possibly be surprised?

[KevinNYC]

Ed, we can be sure Valerie Plame was covert.

Absolutely. She didn't need to be "stationed" overseas, but to have "served" overseas.

Here is what Larry C. Johnson, Plame's ex-CIA classmate has said about this.

"FACT 10--Valerie Plame was still undercover when Bob Novak published her name.
Although Valerie had been based in the United States for several years, her cover was intact until compromised by White House officials. She had conducted several overseas missions as part of her cover job. Although she was in the process of moving from non-official cover to official cover status, she was still undercover."

http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/11/is_max_boot_usi.html

"Then there is the claim that the law to protect intelligence identities could not have been violated because Valerie Wilson had not lived overseas for six years. Too bad this is not what the law stipulates. The law actually requires that a covered person “served” overseas in the last five years. Served does not mean lived. In the case of Valerie Wilson, energy consultant for Brewster-Jennings, she traveled overseas in 2003, 2002, and 2001, as part of her cover job. She met with folks who worked in the nuclear industry, cultivated sources, and managed spies. She was a national security asset until exposed by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby."

[Barry]

Brad, about Scottie - remember, these are many of the same reporters who lapped up Ari's lies, and came back for more. Any reporter who only lost respect for the WH press guy in the last month is somebody whose standards are one notch above zero, IMHO.

[Aunt Deb]

Emma anne, I believe the proper descriptive term is "self-important".

[Anderson]

"W is used to failing upwards, so go easy on the guy."

Brilliant! Let's have Kofi Annan resign and Bush replace him ASAP as Secretary-General!

It's like out-Boltoning Bolton!

[JRoth]

What _would_ Bolton do with Bush at the head of the UN? I mean, he hates the UN more than he loves, Bush, America, or puppies. But surely that would provide him with quite a quandary.

[Stewart Schoder]

My only quibble is with the title of Brad's post. It's unfair to the Ottomans, who were never this dysfunctional.

[Roger Albin]

"What do you call the crime of knowing that someone is a serious danger to himself and others, but still continue to facilitate his actions rather that ensure that he is prohibited from causing harm?
If that person is (P)resident in the White House, the crime is called treason. The Republican’ts got away with it under Reagan and they’re getting away with it now."
"DOR: and the Democrats got away with it with Woodrow Wilson & JFK. Is there a flaw in the Constitution here, or just flawed people?"

This is an entirely separate issue, that of medical incapacity. Wilson was definitely incapacitated by his stroke, Eisenhower's performance was impaired by his coronary artery disease, and there are reasonable concerns about Reagan being in the initial stages of his Alzheimer's disease during his second term. JFK is probably a different case, he had significant medical problems but his most recent biographer, Robert Dallek, does not think it impaired his ability to govern. Allowing significantly impaired Presidents to govern (or to let the country drift, which is largely what happened with Wilson), is highly undesirable but hardly treason. There has been a fair amount written about this problem but no one has found a mechanism to evaluate Presidential health critically while in office.
Whatever else you can say about this Bush, his poor performance has nothing to do with medical incapacity. Bush, unlike Wilson or perhaps Reagan, is perfectly competent in any medical sense.

[Doctor Memory]

DOR: to be fair-ish, the GOP did eventually rein in Reagan. After the post-Iran-Contra white house staff purge, Howard Baker essentially ran the country for 2 years, and we were better off for it.

Sadly, there don't seem to be any grownups in a position to implement such a thing now.

[John Steven]

But rustbelt, to whom would Bush hand his letter?

Per the Presidential Succession Act of 1792, the President does so to the Secretary of State... which is why Nixon's resignation letter was addressed to Kissinger.

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/american_originals/resign.jpg

[David W.]

"It's worse than the days when Ronald Reagan's Alzheimer's began setting in," one longtime GOP operative told me privately this week. "You don't know if he's going to be coherent from one moment to the next. What scares me is if he lapses into one of those fogs during a public appearance."

To which the obvious rejoinder is: How could we tell? [/Dorothy Parker]

[Doug]

Hey, I thought "Go f--- yourself" was Cheney's line. Can't the man even come up with his own insults?

[J Thomas]

"Whatever else you can say about this Bush, his poor performance has nothing to do with medical incapacity."

We won't know whether that's true until his unedited medical records are revealed.

[Jim]

"How could he tell?" was Dorothy Parker's response to news that President Calvin Coolidge was dead. Cal wasn't a really "out there" kind of guy.

[PaulC]

Sounds like nothing a stiff drink can't fix. C'mon, Georgie Boy. Just one won't hurt.

[Stormy]

http://www.impeachpac.org/?q=node/6

If the scandals go too much higher...especially with Powell's former chief of staff talking...and the Libby tree being shaken....everywhere you turn, rocks are slowly being turned over...even Tomlinson...

If he lied about the Iraq war, then impeachment is a real possibility and will receive support...

[anne]

http://select.nytimes.com/2005/11/05/opinion/05dowd.html

November 5, 2005

Fashioning Deadly Fiascos
By MAUREEN DOWD

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Men are simply not biologically suited to hold higher office. The Bush administration has proved that once and for all.

These guys can't be bothered to run the country. They are too obsessed with frivolous stuff, like fashion and whether they look fat. They are catty, sometimes even sabotaging their closest friends. They are deceitful minxes and malicious gossips.

And heaven knows they're bad at math. Otherwise, W. would realize that a 60 percent disapproval rating, or worse, means that most Americans would like some fresh blood in the administration. It's appalling to see ringleaders of the incompetent, mendacious crew who rushed into Iraq but not New Orleans getting big promotions and posh consulting jobs.

Let's first consider the astonishing new cache of Brownie e-mail released by the Congressional panel investigating the heartbreaking Katrina non-response.

Batting away the frantic warnings of death and doom in New Orleans, bubbleheaded Brownie boasted of his style sense, replying to a staffer who told him his outfit looked "fabulous" on TV: "I got it at Nordstrom."

In another e-mail to staffers, he preened: "If you'll look at my lovely FEMA attire, you'll really vomit. I am a fashion god."

Brownie had other things on his mind besides managing the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history: restaurants and dog sitters, and marshaling spin for stories about his past management gaffes at the International Arabian Horse Association.

By Sept. 4, with disaster apartheid in full view, Brownie was getting e-mail advice from his press secretary: "You just need to look more hardworking," Sharon Worthy wrote the FEMA Fashionista. "ROLL UP THE SLEEVES!"

It may seem unfathomable that W. has kept Brownie, one of the biggest boobs in U.S. history, on the federal payroll as a $148,000-a-year consultant.

But President Bush may be empathetic to Brownie's concerns about looking good....

[Bruce Webb]

"W is used to failing upwards, so go easy on the guy."

You think maybe after this he'll be the Pope?"

Perhaps the oddest, yet most telling, moment of the Bush Presidency was his giving an American Medal of Freedom to Pope John Paul II.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/06/images/20040604-3_p41259-29-515h.html
If I was a Catholic I would be profoundly insulted, the Holy Father doesn't need validation from some earthly leader, you don't award honors up, Bush was just trying to take this Leader of the Free World thing to a new level.

As a non-Catholic I was just astonished at the brashness. In the Pope's eyes he already has the Medal of Honor pinned on, to have the President give him the equivalent of a Good Conduct ribbon is just ridiculous.

[Cranky Observer]

> Whatever else you can say about this Bush,
> his poor performance has nothing to do with
> medical incapacity.

I would be curious to know the reasoning behind your statement. The stumbling, incoherence, repeated instances of falling off the bike / just falling down (not a few times, but repeatedly), the slurring, the droop of the left side of his mouth, and his near breakdown in the first debate with Kerry (had it been a British-style back-and-forth the guy would have been crying after 30 minutes) all indicate to me the strong _possibility_ that Bush has a fairly serious medical or emotional problem.

Cranky

[anne]

http://select.nytimes.com/2005/11/04/opinion/04krugman.html

November 4, 2005

Defending Imperial Nudity
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Hans Christian Andersen understood bad rulers. "The Emperor's New Suit" doesn't end with everyone acclaiming the little boy for telling the truth. It ends with the emperor and his officials refusing to admit their mistake.

I've laid my hands on additional material, which Andersen failed to publish, describing what happened after the imperial procession was over.

The talk-show host Bill O'Reilly yelled, "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" at the little boy. Calling the boy a nut, he threatened to go to the boy's house and "surprise" him.

Fox News repeatedly played up possible finds of imperial clothing, then buried reports discrediting these stories. Months after the naked procession, a poll found that many of those getting most of their news from Fox believed that the emperor had in fact been clothed.

Imperial officials eventually admitted that they couldn't find any evidence that the suit ever existed, or that there had even been an effort to produce a suit. They insisted, however, that they had found evidence of wardrobe-manufacturing-and-distribution-related program activities.

After the naked procession, pro-wardrobe pundits denied that the emperor was at fault. The blame, they said, rested with the C.I.A., which had provided the emperor with bad intelligence about the potential for a suit.

Even a quick Web search shows that before the procession, those same pundits had written articles attacking C.I.A. analysts because those analysts had refused to support strong administration assertions about the invisible suit.

Although the imperial administration was conservative, its wardrobe plans drew crucial support from a group of liberal pundits. After the emperor's nakedness was revealed, the online magazine Slate held a symposium in which eight of these pundits were asked whether the fact that there was no suit had led them to reconsider their views. Only one admitted that he had been wrong - and he had changed his mind about the suit before the procession.

Helen Thomas, the veteran palace correspondent, opposed the suit project from the beginning. When she pointed out that the emperor's clothes had turned out not to exist, the imperial press secretary accused her of being "opposed to the broader war on nakedness."

Even though skeptics about the emperor's suit had been vindicated, TV news programs continued to portray those skeptics as crazy people. For example, the news networks showed, over and over, a clip of the little boy shouting at a party. The clip was deeply misleading: he had been shouting to be heard over background noise, which the ambient microphone didn't pick up. Nonetheless, "the scream" became a staple of political discourse....

[lise]

Maureen Dowd is wonderful.

"I've said it before and I'll say it again: Men are simply not biologically suited to hold higher office. The Bush administration has proved that once and for all."

[lise]

There we have the gender question finally and forever settled :) There is Brownie worrying about his "outfit." Poor dear.

[lise]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/politics/06intel.ready.html

November 6, 2005

Report Warned Bush Team About Intelligence Doubts
By DOUGLAS JEHL

WASHINGTON — A top member of Al Qaeda in American custody was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, according to newly declassified portions of a Defense Intelligence Agency document.

The document, an intelligence report from February 2002, said it was probable that the prisoner, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, “was intentionally misleading the debriefers’’ in making claims about Iraqi support for Al Qaeda’s work with illicit weapons.

The document provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts voiced by American intelligence agencies about Mr. Libi’s credibility. Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, and other administration officials repeatedly cited Mr. Libi’s information as “credible’’ evidence that Iraq was training Al 8Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons.

Among the first and most prominent assertions was one by Mr. Bush, who said in a major speech in Cincinnati in October 2002 that “we’ve learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases.’’

The newly declassified portions of the document were made available by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Mr. Levin said the new evidence of early doubts about Mr. Libi’s statements dramatized what he called the Bush administration’s misuse of prewar intelligence to try to justify the war in Iraq. That is an issue that Mr. Levin and other Senate Democrats have been seeking to emphasize, in part by calling attention to the fact that the Republican-led Senate intelligence committee has yet to deliver a promised report, first sought more than two years ago, on the use of prewar intelligence....

[dilbert dogbert]

And no wonder she is funnier than A Zarkov.

[lise]

There is evidence on level after level that the rush to war in Iraq was filled with purposeful deception after deception. The Administration conjured fear and revenge, falsely, to drive us to war and the press largely largely went along each step.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/13/opinion/13dowd.html?ex=1263358800&en=f871ef134050f2e4&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

January 13, 2005

Men Just Want Mommy
By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

A few years ago at a White House Correspondents' dinner, I met a very beautiful actress. Within moments, she blurted out: "I can't believe I'm 46 and not married. Men only want to marry their personal assistants or P.R. women."

I'd been noticing a trend along these lines, as famous and powerful men took up with the young women whose job it was to tend to them and care for them in some way: their secretaries, assistants, nannies, caterers, flight attendants, researchers and fact-checkers.

Women in staff support are the new sirens because, as a guy I know put it, they look upon the men they work for as "the moon, the sun and the stars." It's all about orbiting, serving and salaaming their Sun Gods.

In all those great Tracy/Hepburn movies more than a half-century ago, it was the snap and crackle of a romance between equals that was so exciting. Moviemakers these days seem far more interested in the soothing aura of romances between unequals.

In James Brooks's "Spanglish," Adam Sandler, as a Los Angeles chef, falls for his hot Mexican maid. The maid, who cleans up after Mr. Sandler without being able to speak English, is presented as the ideal woman. The wife, played by Téa Leoni, is repellent: a jangly, yakking, overachieving, overexercised, unfaithful, shallow she-monster who has just lost her job with a commercial design firm. Picture Faye Dunaway in "Network" if she'd had to stay home, or Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction" without the charm.

The same attraction of unequals animated Richard Curtis's "Love Actually," a 2003 holiday hit. The witty and sophisticated British prime minister, played by Hugh Grant, falls for the chubby girl who wheels the tea and scones into his office. A businessman married to the substantial Emma Thompson falls for his sultry secretary. A writer falls for his maid, who speaks only Portuguese.

(I wonder if the trend in making maids who don't speak English heroines is related to the trend of guys who like to watch Kelly Ripa in the morning with the sound turned off?)

Art is imitating life, turning women who seek equality into selfish narcissists and objects of rejection, rather than affection....

[DOR]

Roger Albin,
Perhaps I should have used Nixon as the example, rather than Reagan.

Doctor Memory,
Who elected Howard Baker?

For the record,
The first sign was the pretzels . . .

[DOR]

Roger Albin,
Perhaps I should have used Nixon as the example, rather than Reagan.

Doctor Memory,
Who elected Howard Baker?

For the record,
The first sign was the pretzels . . .

[Aaron Shakow]

Your esoteric reference to the Ottomans as the apotheosis of barbaric imperial behavior (c.f. http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2003_archives/000815.html) strikes me once again as ill-informed. Surely James II would do just as well?

Insulting the Turks for their "despotism" is a centuries-old theme in European imperialist literature, and given that a distinct echo of it can be seen in the neoconservative drumbeat for war in Iraq, it seems a bit ironic that you pick it up here too.

[snowball]

Aaron: I think Prof. DeLong was suggesting only that there are subtle signs of a palace coup at the White House, as (frequently) occurred in the Ottoman Empire, especially the later period of decline. There's nothing controverial about *that* fact of Ottoman history, and nothing disparaging to Turks in general in making a half-serious reference to it.

[Aaron Shakow]

I couldn't care less whether Turks per se are disparaged. But insulting "the Turks" (i.e. the Ottoman government) is in fact an old theme in European propaganda, intended to reinforce our parochial sense that justice and political fair dealing are monopolies of Europe and its settler colonies, justifying economic, political and/or military intervention. Since it's precisely that parochialism at the heart of the serial foreign policy debacle of the last five years, I find it unfortunate that DeLong or any other progressive would adopt it.

Your generous reading strikes me as not very plausible. This skit on Capitol Hill Blue is about the madness of King George, referring to his whimsical nastiness and abuse of subordinates. It's not about fratricidal sniping between Rove and McClellan.

[ajay]

"This skit on Capitol Hill Blue is about the madness of King George, referring to his whimsical nastiness and abuse of subordinates"

I find the reference to Bush as 'King George' extremely offensive. George III, though he suffered periodically from an unfortunate mental disorder, was not a cruel or tyrannical man; certainly he was not notably given to 'whimsical nastiness and abuse of subordinates'. This sort of anti-British stereotyping has no place in civilised discourse - especially from someone who leaps so quickly to the defence of the Ottomans! - and is clearly meant to perpetuate the stereotype of Europe as being an undemocratic home of decaying, oppressive monarchical government, unworthy of proper consideration. Since it's precisely this self-satisfaction that is at the heart of the serial foreign policy debacle of the last five years, I find it unfortunate that Aaron or any other progressive would adopt it.

Nor, for that matter, was James VII and II the "apotheosis of barbaric imperial behavior" (in any case, I think you mean apogee or possibly epitome. Apotheosis means the act of becoming a god. That would be, say, Augustus Caesar.)

[Aaron Shakow]

Last post. These flame wars are dumb.

Monument to missing the point. My argument is that stereotyping Ottoman rulers--and non-Western governments in general--as dysfunctional and brutal is both inaccurate and counterproductive, and that a legacy of this long-lived "meme" is the absurd discourse on democratizing the Middle East. Ergo, DeLong should not engage in it if he wants to present an alternative.

"The Madness of King George" is a 1994 movie. And while the original meaning of apotheosis was 'deification,' the word has in the two millennia since Octavian taken on the figurative meaning of "an exalted or glorified example; a model of excellence or perfection of a kind."