Why We Fright

* james Wolcott takes a long look at "Why We Fight, and The Unrecovered, a meditation on 9/11" in the latest VF:

"What's valuable about Why We Fight is seeing Perle, Ken Adelman, arms-control director under President Reagan (he who sunnily predicted that the invasion of Iraq would be a "cakewalk"), and The Weekly Standard's editor, William Kristol, on-screen pickled in the juices of their own insider status and papal infallibility, devoid of any guilt or contrition over the bloody mess they helped unleash in Iraq. It would take a horse doctor to pry even a modest admission of error out of these guys. To see the beguiling smirk on Kristol's face as he faux-modestly soft-pedals the influence of PNAC (the neoconservative think tank Project for the New American Century), to hear Perle attest to the integrity of Dick Cheney with the fervency of one Borgia sticking up for another ("If I am sure of anything, I'm sure of this: Vice President Cheney had nothing to do with the award of any contract to Halliburton"), is to register the presence of a new species of bird of prey, one that preens not just its feathers but its claws." (link)