Yes, I'll say this much for Vile Niall: He seems able to recognize when reality has blown up in his face -- a sharp contrast to, say, "Deep Denial Dick" Cheney. From Richard Cohen's WashPost column today:
"On 'Meet the Press' on Sunday, Dick Cheney said that if he had it to do all over again, he would still go to war in Iraq -- 'we'd do exactly the same thing,' he said. Why? Is the man incapable of learning from experience? We now know from umpteen reports that there was no link between bin Laden and Hussein. We now know, the Weekly Standard notwithstanding, that Mohamed Atta did not meet in Prague with someone from Iraqi intelligence. We now know that Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and that the Iraq war -- which has cost America more than 2,500 lives, 20,000 casualties, the respect of the world and billions of dollars -- is for naught. Talleyrand said of the Bourbons that they forgot nothing and learned nothing. It will be said of Cheney that he forgot everything and learned nothing."
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/11/AR2006091100880.html>
Carl
>-----Original Message-----
>From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
>On Behalf Of Carl Remick
>Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2006 11:28 AM
>To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>Subject: [lbo-talk] Niall Ferguson bewails US imperial decline
>
>[Imperial fantasist Niall Ferguson wrings his hands over America's feckless
>approach to empire-building in the lamentation excerpted below. I guess
>what's most surprising about this article is the endnote and learning that
>the peripatetic Ferguson is now "Laurence A. Tisch professor of history at
>Harvard University." Who knew there was such a chair? The eternal search
>for "Veritas" propels Harvard some pretty strange directions.]
>
>Empires with Expiration Dates
>
>By Niall Ferguson
>September/October 2006 ...
>
><http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3550>