Faustian Implosion

Wow.

An incredible piece here from Blumenthal.

Sidney Blumenthal has always been a cold fish, his writing clear, crisp and lined with steel. If he jokes, the jokes are dry to the point of invisibility and laced with an icey meanness. But he knows of what he speaks - the geneology and composition of power in the Republic - and he delivers his information with clarity and eye to the literary and historical:

Bush is haunted by the history he insisted on defying.

Is the Shakespearian introduction to a piece which relentless concludes like this:

A sharp reversal of policy and turnover in personnel are the only actions that may enable Bush to salvage the shipwreck of his presidency, as they did for Reagan. But bringing in the elders, even if they could be summoned, would be psychologically devastating to Bush, a humiliating admission that his long history of recklessness and failure, from the Texas Air National Guard to Harken Energy, with rescue only through the intervention of his father and his father's friends, has reached its culmination.

Like I said, devastating. Read it.