History's Lessons

Despite it's misleading subtitle, there were no history lessons to be found in The Note: History's Lessons, Part VII.  Nor is there anything particularly "Note"worthy, unless of course you count there announcement that Don Rumsfeld is making an un-announced trip to Baghdad.

Digby provides us with a timely history lesson in the form of his exclusive sneak preview of Rick Perlstein's forthcoming book, Nixonland.  This episode covers Tricky Dick's welcoming of the uproar surrounding the court martial of Lt. Calley for the Mai Lai massacre as a opportunity for distraction from his dismal approval ratings (hovering around 40 at the time.)  Any similarity to the current West Wing resident is apropos, including the refusal to follow White House Counsel John Dean's legal wisdom.

Speaking of John Dean (I sense a theme this week), quite by accident of clicking on my site meter, I found Liberas' excellent examination of the complete lack of historical knowledge possessed by Lindsay Graham and the rest of the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee who grilled Dean about Watergate and showed just how little they know about what brought the last imperial president to disgrace.

For whomever wants to debunk the revisionist history surrounding who outed who to whom, when whoever wanted to open up Who's Who would discover the secret identities of not only Valerie Plame, but also Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, and Peter Parker; read Emptywheel's outstanding point-by-point analysis who said what to whom and whose story doesn't add up.

Saddly, the fact that The Coultergeist's column is being dropped by some newspapers doesn't necessarily mean she's history -- but since Mom told me that there are no ponies in Santa's Who's Who (I guess that's what he calls his list of naughty and nice kids), I'm holding out for a new puppy at the very least.