Tom Engelhardt

Na alle leugens en chaos van de Amerikaanse buitenlandse politiek is de vraag: wat brengt 2006? Tom Engelhardt van het onafhankelijke 'TomDispatch' kijkt vooruit. Een opmerkelijk artikel: 'The Year of Living Dangerously. Bush v. Reality. War, Trials, Leakers, Investigations, Packed Courts, and a Constitutional Crisis. 2006 is sure to be the year of living dangerously -- for the Bush administration and for the rest of us. In the wake of revelations of warrantless spying by the National Security Agency, we have already embarked on what looks distinctly like a constitutional crisis (which may not come to a full boil until 2007). In the meantime, the President, Vice President, Secretaries of Defense and State, various lesser officials, crony appointees, acolytes, legal advisors, leftover neocons, spy-masters, strategists, spin doctors, ideologues, lobbyists, Republican Party officials, and congressional backers are intent on packing the Supreme Court with supporters of an "obscure philosophy" of unfettered Presidential power called "the unitary executive theory" and then foisting a virtual cult of the imperial presidency on the country. On the other hand, determined as this administration has been to impose its version of reality on us, the President faces a traffic jam of reality piling up in the environs of the White House. The question is: How long will the omniscient and dominatrix-style fantasies of Bushworld, ranging from "complete victory" in Iraq to non-existent constitutional powers to ignore Congress, the courts, and treaties of every sort, triumph over the realities of the world the rest of humanity inhabits. Will an unconstrained presidency continue to grow -- or not?' Lees verder: http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=48892