How about another terrorist attack; it worked last time.

This elephant arrived in the room "fully grown" and that is the problem with the narrative. Mr. Blumenthal indicates as such and is now urged to re-examine the tipping point.

Until 9-11, Bush et al showed no focus and, if memory serves me, had no real plan other than to work toward majority in 2002. WTC gave Mr. Bush and Mr. Rove a golden opportunity - first to pack the Patriot Act with all manner of nonsense that would never have seen the light of day if it handn't been written in the binders, and 2nd, to roll out national security to beat up on "sinners" so they wouldn't have to play "ruin him" in the halls of the WH when someone went off the reservation.

Instead of bull-horn George at WTC being the shinning moment of his leadership, we should look at that day, moment, as the time when Rove, Cheney et al (remember the secret shadow government in an undisclosed location???) went completely crazy and hatched this plan.

There were less than 20, some put it as less than 10 people directly responsible for Nazi Germany's rise to power and the awful stuff that came from it. Many were shot or eventually tried (and killed) after they lost power.

The neocons rank in that number, and they seem to be as destructive and caustic. (They will, at least some of them, retire as billionaires or very wealthy millionaires.)

What's the lesson that they seem to have learned from the Nazis?

"Have the person who has the most power, be the least visible. Let the people take their 'pot shots', if they care to, at someone who does not matter to 'the big plans'."

Note that the neocons found a likeable stooge (if you call Dubya's "aw, shucks, I was a C-student at Yale like you might've been" likeable) to install into the visible seat of power.

There are undoubtedly some fine examples from the monarchies of the past, and from Roman times, that follow this model. Installing a three-year-old as "king" and then running the country as his regent? It was always "good work if you can find it." (Occasionally such a regent was responsible and decent, but .... certainly not always.)

Is that what Rove/Cheney/Rumsfeld found, in the Bush family? A three-year-old (including occasional tantrums and profound intellectual laziness) they could talk into, well, anything?

Might be. But it strikes me as being "too clean" an explanation. Even a teenage-mind would eventually do something decent, something striking, just to show that he was capable of doing something on his own.

It's interesting watching people write that they don't understand the "Mayberry" comment. They seem like they are trying to be polite... but want to find a way to say that it's an un-p.c. putdown.

"Mayberry Machiavellis" is a reference to the country bumkins, the hicks, the fools who slept through 8th-grade civics and are now trying to reorganize the structure of the federal government.

Is the term "Mayberry" a bit of a slam against small-town folks? Sure it is. (And that's probably not nice.)

But imagine if Gomer and Goober, the two stupidest people in Mayberry, decided that they'd found God and wanted to make the US into a theocracy...

... or that they wanted to tell everyone that they were making it into a theocracy, when they really were being manipulated by power brokers who wanted a fascist state.

While we can't prove there is not god, the fact that the current adiministration exists strongly suggests there is no divine guidance in human affairs. At least not benevolent guidance. I find it hard to contemplate a more repulsive collection of hacks and idealogues at the helm. The void doesn't care. And if you still believe? It means god doesn't give a crap about truth, honesty, fairness or equity. Nice god you've got there...

Isn't the 'Mayberry' reference to the banality of evil, the cover of simple American values in a simpler time being used to commit domestic and war crimes? I also wish to see these people locked down for the rest of their lives. Let no one forget - every Iraqi, like every Amerian soldier had a mother, father, brother, sister, children etc. who have been destroyed by the machinations of little Karl Rove and Dead-eye Dick and all of the rest of Bushco.

Funny that this Esquire article should come back...I kept this issue of Esquire from 2002. At the time I read it, I thought, "this is just the beginning." So many things that John DiIulio said were disturbing and I knew that Rove and his cohorts would try to ruin this guy...mainly because he was telling the truth...that Bush and company had no clue what they were doing and exposed how ugly and pathological they could be. I also found the article very sad...that this administration, whom many trusted (not me!) to do the right thing were only interested in furthering their position of power, influence and wealth. I am not sure what happened to DiIulio...hopefully he is leading a normal life somewhere and Rove didn't ruin him. In any case, I am sure that he is not enjoying what has been going on the last six years...that what he said five years ago could be even more true now than then.

Congress should honor Mr. Rove by showing him just how well it has learnt the lesson of his political philosophy. It can do so by doing unto him what he has been doind unto others with such adeptness: "We will fuck him. Do you hear me? We will fuck him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever fucked him."

Isn't it more like the reign of the Blackberry Machiavellis?

Exactly correct. And Congress must persist in really going after all the evidence and as Pelosi put it, clean house. Unfortunately most Americans are too busy working two jobs or too uneducated to read serious articles such as this one. So all the evidence will have to be thrown at them. This administration ALWAYS lies. In fact the way to glean the truth is to assume that the opposite of what they say IS the truth. And somehow we have to figure out a way to make this sort of news sell cars or whatever the sponsors want to sell. Maybe a little War Music..jazz it up! Call it "the war on the American people" or some such but get these sleazy CRAZY guys nailed and on the MSM TV! (of course the MSM is owned and operated by the same guys who brought you this war..but there must be some way to reach them) People in this administration should go to jail for lying to the American people. It's not like they didn't know they were lying. They are a bunch of greedy criminals and their lies are responsible for untold numbers of lives ruined in order that this president and his supporters could get richer.