Thanks for posting that Bruce. I have found over the course of the Bush presidency Dean has been one of the most interesting and compelling voices out there. He is an excellent writer and speaker and does a fantastic job of clearly communicating why we should be worried about Bushco. You can't overlook the perspective he brings to the table.

In trying to understand the Bush presidency and the direction they are moving us in, I've found myself looking back to the Nixon years on several occasions. Many of the crew that now haunt the halls of the White House have ties to the Nixon presidency. I think it was around that time that this movement we identify as neoconservatism began to cohere. Maybe Nixon's brutal and shocking failure played a large part in uniting these forces within the Republican party as a response to what was a major crisis for their party.

Ford rode out the next few years and I believe many knew it would be inevitable we'd end up with a Democrat as president in the wake of Watergate. The Republicans would need a definite plan to scuttle several years of a Democrat in the White House. Carter only had his one term. It was interesting that the energy industry played such a large and negative role during the Carter years. The hostage crisis is, of course, always haunted by the rumor that Bush the 1st and his CIA ties negotiated a deal to have the hostages released only after Reagan had won the 1980 election. Carter was viciously attacked by the Republicans at that time and is still widely used today as a symbol of  Democrat weakness. Carter is, for the most part, treated as filth when he's discussed by many on the conservative side.

Basically, I see this as all a growing wave of propaganda against the left that had it's genesis during the Nixon presidency. Carter was the last real Democrat to hold the office. Clinton, like Reagan and the Bushies, was more of a half breed. None of these presidents really represent what either the Republican or Democrat party once stood for. The Democrats have been very divided over the years by the variety of social agendas that seem to swamp the party. The Republicans have been hijacked almost entirely by the Big Energy and Big Industry thanks to Reagan and Bush 1 & 2. So what we're left with is a government in complete disarray plagued by a variety of small warring factions that are all self serving.

Bushco, or the neoconservatives, have seized the moment it seems and have been hell-bent on forwarding their agenda by any means possible. I think this is what Dean does so well. He reveals the process and the little man or men behind the curtain. It something well worth discovering and I'll certainly be reading his book.