IMUS NEWS QUOTE OF THE DAY

Andy Rooney of CBS News discusses with Imus his views on war heroes.

"I have always objected to making a hero out of every American soldier. I think the civilians in this country can do it because they are glad to have them doing the job, and want to encourage them to stay at it. So they talk about all of them as if they were heroes. Most of the soldiers we have are just people. They are just guys like the rest of us. Some of them are brave and some of them are not. To make every soldier brave diminishes what the really brave ones have done, like Senator Dole."

Thoughts on Devils & Dust

The following is a post and response from the No Depression message board. My comments don't rise to the level of a complete review. Were I doing that, I'd say something about the beautiful "Jesus Was An Only Son," one of Bruce's best recent songs, and the fact that all the characters on this album (Jesus included, come to think of it) are like Bruce: members of the lower socioeconomic class who are inquisitive autodidacts with out of the ordinary verbal facilities.

--- In NoDepressionAltCountry@yahoogroups.com, Kevin Oliver
wrote:

At the risk of getting eviscerated like that guy from Slate, here's my review that ran in today's Columbia Free Times
(www.free-times.com). I only had 200 words to do it in, or I would
have expanded on a few of the thoughts here...

Bruce Springsteen
Devils & Dust
Columbia

By now, we've come to expect a lot from Bruce Springsteen.
His ability to pack both emotional impact and social commentary
into songs that make you want to sing along set the bar high
enough that even he sometimes has a hard time reaching it, as
about half of Devils & Dust proves. A semi-acoustic affair
recorded without the E Street Band, album tracks like, "Black
Cowboys," and, "The Hitter," fall into the tuneless storytelling of **The Ghost Of Tom Joad**, while "Reno," unsuccessfully
mirrors the gritty undertones of **Nebraska**. The album I would
most like this to be, though, is **Tunnel Of Love**, and on a few
songs it comes agonizingly close.

"Long Time Comin'," is most like vintage Bruce, with a
father-son storyline and arena-ready sound. "Jesus Was An Only
Son," is the best of the bunch, however, with a nice gospel organ
riff and a biblically-based tale making an effective comparison to
Bruce's own stories of love and loss, sin and redemption,
central themes that he returns to again and again, with classic,
or in this case, not-so-classic results.

Brief, but a cogent and accurate review, Kevin. I don't agree with
the amateur psychoanalysis of Bruce in the Slate article, and the
writer seems to have fallen hook line and sinker for the
ridiculous "Landau as Svengali" theory floated in the book
"Mansion on the Hill." Having said that, I've listened to D&D over
and over for the past week, and the album seems weaker with
each listening.

I'm not sure what the reasons are, but Springsteen's critical
faculties seem to have deserted him on this album. He reuses
so many portions (both lyrically and musically) from previous
albums that D&D should carry a stylized triangle like the ones
that appear on recycling bins.

Even potentially good songs are often marred by bad production,
hokey faux-ky vocal inflections, and clunky wordsmithing. "All the
Way Home" is one of those, being sung with Goober Pyle's
voice. "All I'm Thinkin' Bout" starts with a guy singing in an
annoying falsetto about "carrying a heavy load" while a blind man
waves by "the side of the road." (No doubt because of the seeds
they sowed.) Yes, I know what characterizations are, and yes, I
know what acting is. The role playing on this album is on the
level of John Wayne as Roman Centurion in "The Greatest Story
Ever Told."

The kid Rainey in "Black Cowboys" is supposedly devoted to his
mother, leaves home when she evidently has become addicted
to drugs (and involved with a boyfriend who appears to be in the
drug trade), yet he takes some of the boyfriend's hidden money
before he leaves. In the real world (not the Bruce song of that
name, but the actual universe), this would have gotten his
mother beaten up or killed.

After repeated listening, I've grown to appreciate the song "Devils & Dust." The line "What if what you do to survive kills the things you love" reminds me of the choice faced by the peoples of the West in Lord of the Rings. However, can you imagine being a soldier and having somebody like the narrator of that song bending your ear? Yeah, thanks, Bruce, for letting me know you were dreaming of me in a field of blood. That's gotta be good
karma. Shut up and scan the horizon.

And "The Hitter." First of all, why "The Hitter?" Nobody refers to
boxers that way. I know Paul Simon took that song title, but other
options were available. (Fighter? Scrapper? Pugilist? Hitter is
another inauthentic sports related reference on a par with "throw
that speedball" from "Glory Days.") The character and situation
also seem to exist in a world that exists only in movies from the
1930s.

I love Bruce Springsteen. I think the guy's got a good heart, and
even though I disagree with his politics, I've never questioned the sincerity of his beliefs. To his credit, he has always been
accepting and welcoming of his fans who differ from him in this
way.

Bruce has mentioned in some interviews that he took the failure
of the Vote for Change effort to bring about a Kerry election pretty hard. I think after he roused himself from what he's described as around a three week funk, he decided the way he could best effect change was the way he does it best-by telling stories of the underclass and the downtrodden. Unfortunately, in his drive to do this, his ability to edit and make sense of songs seems to have deserted him.

This album seems to me like a single disc version of Tracks,
with stuff put together that didn't rise to the level of being able to be included on other albums. Amy Phillips mentioned in her
Voice review that is sounded like Bruce had found a Bruce
Springsteen Internet Lyric Generator. Slapping something called
"Nashville String Machine" and adding a few other instrumental touches on largely tuneless workouts doesn't redeem mediocre songs, either.

All in all, the album's a mess.

IMUS IN THE MORNING NEWS QUOTES OF THE DAY

Imus: "So, is the President in a second term slump here or what? What's the problem?"

Radio talk show host, Jay Severin: "He is. He is. I mean he's not only in the doldrums, I mean not only does he not have any wind in his sails, but the issues he has chosen, or the issue he has chosen, social security, is a loser. I mean, he's picked something about which virtually nobody cares about and the ones that do care don't agree. That's what we call a real hot button issue politically."

Imus: "Should anybody care?"

Jay Severin: "Well, at this point, look we're Americans. We live on credit cards. We do the homework that was due yesterday, tomorrow. Are we going to care about something that is going to go bust in whatever it is, 30 years, now? Of course it's why it's the third rail. What the President forgot is when you grab onto the third rail you try to touch other people, you kill them too. I mean, its crazy. He's squandering political capital that he is going to need for a real legacy. His real legacy is going to be the appointments he may get to make to the United States Supreme Court. And the fear that I have, and I know I'm not alone, is that having squandered all of this political capital from the so called mandate, you know 60 cities in 60 days on the social security tour, no one's noticed. It's over. It's a loser. And now his political capital is pretty much gone, and what happens if tomorrow he has a Supreme Court vacancy to fill? Does he say to himself, 'You know what, I really don't have the juice right now for a fight, so let me nominate Pee-Wee Herman'. You know, 'Let me not nominate a real conservative because I don't have the juice to get him through'. That's the thing that's going to kill him in this politically."

QUOTE OF THE DAY #2

Jay Severin discusses with Imus his views on Democracy in Iraq.

Jay Severin: "I would not be surprised if Al Sharpton ends up running the country. This is a country with an 8,000 year history and not once in that 8,000 year history was there a yearning for Democracy. The notion that a foreign potentate would come to a President of the United States, literally or figuratively, and say, 'Could we have your young men come to die for our freedom?', the first response would be, 'You must be joking'. The second response would be, 'Just out of curiosity where are your young men? Where is your history?'. Some nations rise up and fight their oppressors for freedom. We did against the strongest nation on the face of the globe, and we won. Some people do it, some people don't. The Iraqi's have never evinced any evidence that they want to be a Democracy, yet we're sending our nineteen year-olds there to die to try to turn it into Phoenix, Arizona. Someone wrote, there was a piece in The New York Times on Sunday, that said (that) there is absolutely not any history in the Arabic or Islamic region of Democracy as we know it, or even of nations and states as we know it. There is still to this day not a word in the Arabic language that is the equivalent of the word citizen. It's crazy. It's crazy. If the only question left to us, I don't want to be a bummer, but I've been saying this for months, the only question left, the only thing within our control now is how many names do we want on the Iraq War memorial? We're throwing good lives after good."

Nuclear Option in a Religious War
By Patrick J. Buchanan

As the world mourned the passing of John Paul II, who never ceased defending the right to life of the unborn, a thought occurred. If George W. Bush had nominated John Paul II to a federal judgeship, every Senate Democrat would have voted to kill his nomination, and filibustered it to death if it ever reached the Senate floor.

For the convictions of John Paul II, rooted in the teachings of Christ and the church—on abortion, homosexual unions, stem-cell research, Terri Schiavo, women’s rights—are all extremist by the standards of the Democratic Party.

Which underscores a point: The Left has succeeded in imposing a social revolution on America only by its seizure and control of the least democratic and most autocratic branch of the government, the judiciary. But now that bastion of liberalism could fall. Thus, all the sound and fury of the establishment and media over the “nuclear option” being considered by the Republican Senate.

What does that option entail? If a federal judicial nominee is approved in committee and sent to the floor, he or she will get a vote. A minority bloc of senators will not be allowed to kill every Bush appellate or Supreme Court nominee by talking it to death. The nuclear option means majority decides. How radical is that?

In this fight, there is no small humor in seeing liberals who preach pure democracy defending the club Strom Thurmond and his Dixiecrats used to use to beat civil rights bills to death. Liberals—who welcomed priests, nuns, rabbis and ministers at peace rallies—are now denouncing, as a violation of church and state, “Justice Sunday” at Louisville’s Highview Baptist Church, where Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist spoke to advance the cause of giving the president’s judges a vote.

Can this be the same Democratic Party whose nominees have campaigned for decades from the pulpits of black churches?

Bush is having his problems selling Social Security reform and John Bolton to be U.N. ambassador, but the nuclear option looks like a winner for the White House and GOP, if they don’t go wobbly.

Majority Whip Mitch McConnell says he has the 51 votes. Vice President Cheney says he will be in the chair to break any tie. And while Minority Leader Harry Reid is howling about Frist being a “radical Republican” for speaking at a church, Joe Biden is talking compromise. He is offering to accept some nominees, if Bush will jettison the rest. The GOP response should be: no deal.

The Democrats’ retaliatory threat? All Senate business will be shut down if Republicans exercise the nuclear option. But this is a bluff or a threat of suicide. Should Senate Democrats walk out or go on a sit-down strike because Bush nominees win a majority vote, Democrats will become a national joke and set themselves up to be blamed for every congressional failure between now and November 2006.

The Democrats are issuing an ultimatum they cannot carry out without killing their party. Have they forgotten what happened to Newt Gingrich when, after he shut down the government, he said he did not like the way he had been treated by having to walk out the rear door of Air Force One? That is what Senate Democrats are inviting with their threat to halt all Senate business.

The importance of the Judges War to the Bush legacy, the GOP agenda and the nation is not easily overstated.

For decades, radical secularists like William Douglas, Earl Warren, William Brennan, Thurgood Marshall and Harry Blackmun have abused their power as Supreme Court justices to impose their values and views on a society that opposed or even detested those values and views. We have seen voluntary prayer, Bible-reading and the Ten Commandments purged from public schools; the pornography industry, once a sordid criminal enterprise, given First Amendment protection; and children forcibly bused across town on judicial orders because of the color of their skin. We have seen abortion, once a crime in 50 states, declared a constitutional right, followed by the discovery that the Constitution protects homosexual sodomy, though Jefferson equated it with rape.

We are no longer a democratic republic. The Supreme Court picks what cases it will hear, what laws it will permit to stand, what rights it shall invent. We overthrew a rule of kings. Now we are oppressed by a rule of judges.

The nuclear option is a way to change the composition of the courts, but this is a project of years. In the near term, the needed remedy remains for Congress to remove from U.S. court dockets all moral and social issues that the Founding Fathers believed should be decided by the people through elected representatives. It is in the power of this Congress to overthrow this judicial dictatorship and restore our lost republic. They must not fail.

No compromises. Exercise the nuclear option.

COPYRIGHT 2005 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Wither America?
By Paul Craigh Roberts

What is America’s future? Prediction is no one’s strong point. A century after the fall of Rome, no one could have predicted that Roman armies would reappear to reclaim for the Empire “that which was lost to neglect” and destroy the Ostrogoths in Italy and the Vandals in Africa. Neither could anyone have predicted that Justinian the Great’s restoration of the Roman Empire would be undone in the following century by the rise of an obscure people united under the banner of Islam.

It is easier to note that which America is losing to neglect than to predict the consequences. Failings are everywhere apparent. President Bush has led us into a gratuitous war that has destroyed America’s soft power and demonstrated the limits of its hard power. In the name of fighting terrorism, Bush has eroded already weakened civil liberties. President Bush’s “war on terror” has inflicted greater costs on America than that inflicted by the terrorists themselves.

The opposition party does not oppose. The Bush administration has given Democrats more opportune targets than President Clinton’s sexcapade with Monica Lewinski provided Republicans. But the Democrats are too weak to capitalize on the political opportunities.

The failures of Democrats and Republicans offer chances to libertarians. But libertarians are politically impotent. Their ideology and abstract commitments are perceived as taking precedence over the well-being of their fellow citizens. Libertarians cannot differentiate between the comparative advantage case for free trade and labor arbitrage based on absolute advantage that is destroying the jobs and hopes of Americans.

America is so fractured by diversity, multiculturalism, organized special interest groups and race- and gender-based legal privileges that the concept of the public interest has simply disappeared.

America’s intellectual camps have become boosterish echo chambers that dismiss out of hand any contrary thought. Preaching to the choir while demonizing others is a path to intellectual impotence.

The rule of law has been replaced by the rule of regulators and prosecutors, who interpret the law to suit their careers and agendas, and by the rule of plunder in torts.

Faced with these grave challenges to America’s integrity, the political energies of the American left are focused on gay marriage and abortion; that of the American right on the opposite. Twenty million evangelical Christians, who once focused on saving their souls, now seek an avenue to heaven through war in the Middle East, which they believe will bring on Armageddon and the Rapture.

A once-independent media are now highly concentrated and speak mostly with a single voice in behalf of the interests of advertisers and a new aggressive American nationalism. To save its existence, even National Public Radio feels pressured to partake of the Karl Rove spin.

Democracy struggles under the best of circumstances. When the people are woefully uninformed on almost every subject and totally dependent on spun news, success must rest on outside events and the failure of others.

Was America’s 20th century pre-eminence the result of democracy and free trade, or was it the result of two wars, which devastated Europe, and the rise of communism, which set back the clock in Russia and Asia for decades?

It is very easy to be pre-eminent while every other economy must recover from ruin.

Today, America is failing, while Asia rises as the economic powerhouse and Europe seeks to unite.

America’s once-powerful manufacturers are today little more than brand names with sales forces. Some still assemble foreign-made parts, but many simply market products of foreign innovation, design, engineering and manufacture. As more and more of America’s economy is outsourced, America’s engineering and design professions decline, as does the value of a college education. In the 21st century, America has been unable to create jobs in export and import-competitive sectors.

America’s financial pre-eminence is based on the dollar’s role as reserve currency, a role threatened by the dollar’s long downward slide in value as the result of trade and budget deficits.

America’s strong communities and neighborhood schools are gone, destroyed by an ideology that used bussing to break them apart.

Feminism has put great pressure on families by weakening women’s commitments to children and marriages with the new commitment to career and independence.

Parents cannot discipline children without risk of government intervention through Child Protective Services. Acceptable standards of behavior decline, and children become sexually promiscuous and partake of alcohol and drugs at earlier and earlier ages.

Shame is a lost concept.

University students are stressed to find a major that cannot be outsourced. Students are discovering that outsourcing and work visas have closed many occupations to them.

America’s borders are not protected against legal and illegal immigration that long ago dispelled any pretense of assimilation. Disparate interests, races and values have overwhelmed the abstract basis of American unity. Patriotism is being destroyed by the government’s indifference to, if not preference for, immigrant invasion. Patriotism’s place is being taken by a dangerous nationalism.

Will the Republican Party’s neo-Jacobin ideology reunite the country in an aggressive nationalism against the world, or will America’s Asian bankers cease to finance the empire of red ink?

Does America still have an edge, or is America in retirement, living off past accomplishments?

Whither America is a question that deserves a lot more attention than it gets.

COPYRIGHT 2005 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

From Rolling Stone.com:

Cream Rise in London

Rock & Roll Hall of Famers rediscover blues ancient and modern at Royal Albert Hall

On November 26, 1968, Cream walked off the stage at London's Royal Albert Hall for what they fully expected to be the last time. Exhausted by infighting and non-stop touring, their rare instrumental telepathy creeping into formula and all but obliterated by arena-PA volume, rock's first supergroup -- guitarist Eric Clapton, bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker, already individual stars in Britain when they formed in 1966 -- held rock's first super-wake in this majestic Victorian concert hall, playing two final shows of what Clapton once described as "Blues Ancient and Modern" to audiences that literally begged them not to go, with massed cries of "God save the Cream!"

Those prayers were finally answered, thirty-seven years later. At 8:10 p.m. on May 2nd, Clapton, Bruce and Baker walked back on to that stage to a standing, delirious, disbelieving ovation, opening the first of four shows this week at the Albert Hall with the perfect, galloping sentiment: the Skip James blues "I'm So Glad," from their first album, Fresh Cream. This was, admittedly, not the breakneck, juggernaut Cream of the concert half of 1968's Wheels of Fire or the post-mortem live albums. Clapton's old wall of Marshall cabinets was gone; he played through just two small tube amps, with a Leslie for that majestic bridge lick in "Badge." And Clapton has long since exchanged the assaultive snarl of his original Cream weapons -- the Gibson SG and Les Paul -- for the cleaner ring and bite of a Stratocaster. There was less assault in the music, but more air, which allowed the original swing in Cream's power blues to come through: the conversational way Bruce improvised inside Clapton's slalom runs and grinding notes during the instrumental breaks in "Spoonful" and "N.S.U."; the taut fire of Baker's snare and tom-toms under Clapton's solo in "Sleepy Time Time."

Clapton's brief remarks to the crowd suggested lingering nerves and fears of overexpectation. "Thanks for waiting all these years," he said, after a rare live outing of "Outside Woman Blues," from Disraeli Gears. "I think we're going to do every song we know," quickly noting, "We'll play them as well as we can." But when Clapton pointed out that "the slings and arrows of misfortune cut us down in our prime," Bruce was having none of it. "What do you mean?" he interjected with needling glee. "This is our prime."

It was a bold claim for a band, which, with the exception of a brief reunion set at their 1991 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, had not played together in nearly four decades. And much that was once remarkable and unique to Cream -- the fusion and compression of jazz and blues dynamics into pop song; the instrumental democracy of the power trio; the license to jam at great length -- is now established rock & roll language and tradition. But the deliberate tautness of the performances tonight, sounding at first uncomfortably close to overrestraint, was probably closer to the way Cream first heard themselves in 1966 and early '67 -- a modern R&B trio of equal, virtuoso soloists; blues purists with futurist nerve -- before the live extremes and routines of '68 took over.

Many of the highpoints were in the details: the odd bent and time of Bruce's and Clapton's twinned riffing in "Politician" against Baker's straight, anchoring motion; the heightened tension of Bruce's high, choking bass notes and Baker's tom-tom bombs under Clapton's solo in "Sweet Wine." In a stunning exhumation of the trance-rock gem "We're Going Wrong," from Disraeli Gears, Baker's mallets rolled across his tom-toms in liquid 6/4 time as Bruce sang with operatic despair over the simple, climbing tension of Clapton's strumming. And at the end of the encore, "Sunshine of Your Love," Clapton, Bruce and Baker locked into a powerful, mounting suspense, a droning, one-chord crescendo that, frankly, climaxed too soon with a final reentry into that immortal riff.

The only venture outside Cream's recorded library was a cover of T-Bone Walker's "Stormy Monday," a Clapton vocal-and-guitar showcase that made clear how the balance of power and celebrity has shifted since he was the band's junior genius and the quiet mediator between Bruce's and Baker's combative tempers. "Crossroads" also bore the matured Clapton's touch, taken at the country-funk gait he has long favored in his own shows. But the surprise of the night was the focused power and undiminished strength of Baker, who sat ramrod straight as he fired off precise, provocative accents -- cymbal stings, snare gunshots and double-kick-drum eruptions -- without loosening his grip on the pulse. Even in the inevitable "Toad," he soloed with startling control, never breaking the snapping, high-hat beat as his sticks flew over the rest of his kit.

And it was Baker who left the audience with the defining image of the night: stepping out from behind his drums after "Sunshine of Your Love" with a huge smile, pumping his fists in the air like a former championship boxer who had just gone twenty rounds with history -- and won.

The set list:

I'm So Glad
Spoonful
Outside Woman Blues
Pressed Rat and Warthog
Sleepy Time Time
N.S.U.
Badge
Politician
Sweet Wine
Rolling and Tumbling'
Stormy Monday
Deserted Cities of the Heart
Born Under a Bad Sign
We're Going Wrong'
Crossroads
Sitting on Top of the World
White Room
Toad

Sunshine of Your Love

DAVID FRICKE
(Posted May 03, 2005)

From The Telegraph;

Cream Reunite at Royal Albert Hall

Diminished version of their former selves, but very, very good
By David Cheal

(Filed: 03/05/2005)

When I first heard that Cream were getting back together for a series of concerts at the Albert Hall, I called out across the arts desk: "I have to be there."

This, surely, was the mother of all reunions, the great sixties super group back together on stage 37 years after they called it a day - and in the very same concert hall where they performed their farewell show in 1968.

I had good reason to stake my claim to that precious reviewing slot: Best of Cream was the first album I ever bought, a precocious teenager hooked on the British blues boom of the sixties, but this one was personal.

Along with the excitement came the nagging worries. The three members of Cream are all now in their sixties. Drummer Ginger Baker has an arthritic knee. Bassist Jack Bruce has had a liver transplant. Would it be a night to recapture the magic of their famous semi-improvised jams, or would it be turn out to be an embarrassment, three wrinkly old rockers desperately trying to recapture their glorious youths?

Well, it didn't exactly hit the ground running. Having been greeted with a huge roar of affection from the crowd, they limbered up with the lightweight I'm So Glad. Eric Clapton rattled off a so so solo. Bruce sounded tense.

Song two, the slow, slinky blues of Spoonful, was more encouraging: Bruce's voice started to show some grit, the music began to click. Clapton's solo here was sharper, fiercer, more fluent. Strange, though, to see him as just one third of a band, rather than as the star of the show.

When they'd been on stage for 20 odd minutes I did begin to wonder whether this was going to be a bit of a letdown: another slow blues tune, Sleepy Time Baby, reinforced this impression.

Then came NSU, their first chance to embark on one of those famous instrumental excursions. Baker drove the song along in his utterly distinctive and deceptively easy going style, Bruce's fingers were flying, Clapton began to strut. Then came Badge, and Clapton gave us one of his yodels. Finally, Cream were up and running.

Politician was dark and groovy. Rolling and Tumbling, with Bruce on harmonica, was sensational, an express train of a song, hurtling along with purpose, power and unstoppable momentum. For the first of many occasions during the evening, I had to sit, blink, look around the stage and remind myself that I was watching Cream at the Albert Hall - and they were very, very good.

Inevitably, they were a diminished version of their former selves. There was less of the brutal physicality that used to be their hallmark. Bruce periodically reclined against a high stool, songs such as Crossroads were taken at a slower lick. They are not young men, and they were not playing, as they once did, as if their lives depended on it.

But they were never less than good, often brilliant, occasionally inspired. And they got better as the night went on. White Room was massive, glorious.

Many reunions are tawdry, half-baked affairs. But this one was different, special. It didn't quite live up to the expectation, but still: in years to come, I'll be able to say with pride: Cream, Albert Hall, 2005. I was there.

Call Me Unaccountable: Woodrow Wilson and George Bush
By Paul Craig Roberts

The passage of time permits historians to be truthful in their assessments of presidents. Abe Lincoln, a Republican Party icon since 1865, was exposed in the 21st century as America’s first tyrant by Thomas DiLorenzo. Woodrow Wilson, a Democratic icon since the early 20th century, has now been knocked off his pedestal by Jim Powell in Wilson’s War: How Woodrow Wilson’s Great Blunder Led to Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and World War II (Crown Forum, 2005).

Declaring Wilson to be “the worst president in American history,” Powell makes a strong case that the rise of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were unintended consequences of Wilson’s arrogance.

Powell argues that the war, which began in 1914, was stalemated by 1917 and would have ended in a compromise peace. Wilson’s entry into the war won it for Britain and France, and allowed the disastrously vindictive Versailles Treaty to be imposed on Germany. The British economist John Maynard Keynes knew the treaty was unrealistic, as did Count von Brockdorff-Rantzau, the leader of the German Peace Delegation.

The Germans were aghast at “the victorious violence of our enemies.” The count told French President Georges Clemenceau that “the exactions of this treaty are more than the German people can bear.” The treaty required massive losses of German territory: part of East Prussia (“amputated from the body of the state, condemned to a lingering death and robbed of its northern portion, including Memel”) and most of West Prussia, Danzig, Pomerania, Upper Silesia, the Saar, the overseas German colonies, plus occupation of Rhenish territory for 15 years.

On top of the dissolution of the German state was added confiscation of all German assets abroad and the German merchant fleet, and reparation payments that would condemn the German people “to perpetual slave labor.”

Powell shows how this insane treaty brought Hitler to power and how Wilson’s bribe to the Russian government to continue in the war produced the Bolshevik Revolution, Stalin and the Cold War. One hundred million deaths resulted from Wilson’s decision to turn the stalemated European conflict into World War I.

Like the current president, George W. Bush, Wilson became a warmonger once he gained power. In his first Inaugural Address, Wilson declared that the U.S. government “has too often been made use of for private and selfish purposes, and those who used it had forgotten the people.” Government was afflicted with “many deep secret things” and was “too often debauched and made an instrument of evil.”

In his August 1914 address to Congress, Wilson warned against taking sides in the war. “The United States must be neutral in fact, as well as in name . . . impartial in thought, as well as action.” By the following March, Wilson was disregarding his declared neutrality. Wilson “went along with Britain’s naval blockade—a blatant disregard for international law.” Wilson invited war by insisting “Americans had the right to travel anywhere, including a war zone.”

By June 9, 1915, it was clear to Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan that Wilson was heading America to war. “Under increasing pressure to march to war with Wilson, Bryan resigned as secretary of state.”

If only Colin Powell had done the same. Bryan’s resignation could not stop Wilson from entering an ongoing war, but Colin Powell could have thrown a monkey wrench into Bush’s naked aggression against Iraq by refusing to deliver that packet of lies to the United Nations. Colin Powell would have saved his own reputation and that of his country, along with thousands of lives. Instead, he allowed the White House morons to commit a fantastic strategic blunder, the consequences of which will allow future historians to excoriate the hapless George W. Bush.

Jim Powell presents the disastrous 20th century as the unintended consequences of Wilson’s blunders. In contrast, Claes Ryn sees Wilson as America’s first Jacobin neoconservative. Powell could be speaking of Bush when he asks what gave Wilson the idea “that he could impose his will on millions of people who lived thousands of miles away?”

Historian Margaret MacMillan’s observation that Wilson’s “ability, self-deception perhaps, to frame his decisions so that they became not merely necessary, but morally right” applies equally to George W. Bush—as does Alexander and Juliette George’s observation that “to justify his aggressive treatment of opponents, (Wilson) needed to regard himself as the best interpreter of the people’s true aspirations.”

America’s claim to virtuous hegemony is contradicted by the disasters inflicted on the world by America’s arrogant and blundering leaders.

COPYRIGHT 2005 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.