I like Condi too. I was hoping for a Condi vs Hillary GE in 2009. Condi vs Obama wouold have been cool too.

Bush administration had very clear goals. Regime change. The installaiton fo miltayr bases. Control of Iraq's oil. None of these could have been achived otherwise.

All of these were clear goals? I remember that the goals brought to the UN was to get Saddam to comply with UN resolutions. Nevertheless, if we had French, Russian and German troops and the full endorsement of the invasion and most importantly, the post invasion would have been better, a real "surge" when we most needed it.

Chavez nationalised the oil assets and we started labelling him a dictator. Chavez has never said he was an enemy fo the US. In fact, he has offered cheap heating oil to Americans who could not afford it.

Come on, seriously. The heating oil thing was an obvious PR move, and he knew that we would never take him up on it. I have to admit, it was a genious move by him though.

How is Chavz a communist, when Venezuela is a recognised democracy?

That is hilarious! Maybe you heard of the Venezuelan recall referendum, 2004? Jimmy Carter was involved in that mess too (suprize). Jimmy Carter is a Communist too. To me it looked like he lost 58 to 42 but he is still in power.

In other words, this country has effectively been in a permanent state of war.

The world is always in a perminant state of war, and always will be regardless of whether the US is in power.

The most distrubing part of it is our lack of self awareness.

We all get the irony, but Americans LOVE irony!

By the way, you commentened on the how much the country has gone to the right, and I diasgree. I know you probably think I'm a conservative loon but I'm not all that conservative. I'm a scientist that can't stand religion of any kind, I'm pro gay rights, pro choice etc. So I bet that we agree on more than you think. I live near and work on a college campus so everyone is a lefty, and let me tell you, sadly there is no place on Earth were fewer people think for themselves than on college campuses in the US. No wonder they want young people to vote more. Anyways, because everyone is a lefty I instictively start leaning a little more right, when I'm back home in northern Califoria (the foothills were there are still a lot of rightys) I lean more left. That being said, my main loves are Capitalism and Nationalism so that is where I am coming from in most of these posts. Also, you leftys dominate Slate and the Fray too, and with the exception of Greenwich and a few others (I disregard the crazy ones, I'll give it to your side, you definately have less crazies...I blame religion) there are few to oppose here. Just doing my part :)