Book Review: A Tragic Legacy, by Glenn Greenwald

by paradox

A Tragic Legacy, How Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency
Glenn Greenwald
Crown Publishing Group, Random House, Inc.
Copyright 2007, ISBN 978-0-307-35419-8

One of the most exasperating political elements to the phenomena of the worst president of all time (George Bush) is the clueless miscomprehension that Bush is, in fact, truly the worst of all time and the behavior just seen—even though enabled and glossed over by a sickening pack of propaganda hyenas called “journalists”—is extraordinary, amazing, and so arrogantly stupid one will never see an American president this bad again.

[One of the reasons I am still a Democrat (a belated, weary, sickened, cat-calling tomato-throwing constituent bitch of a Democrat) is that to a significant extent I do forgive them for failing to comprehend who Bush is and how radically he threw out the rules, rules everyone had always assumed were sacred and the only ones Democrats were ever trained to use. It’s easy for me to comprehend Bush because I hate all rules and have been trying to break them all my life.]

If the Herculean task of casting aside the denial of what Bush truly is (a frightening, lying killer who will crush any American ideal for any reason, something I’ve frantically tried to convey for seven long years) can actually be accomplished, a wondering American soul cannot help but ask: “Just who in the hell are these guys?”

Revolutionary powers, neocons, tribal racists, corporatists, sexist authoritarians, partisan extremists, or any combination thereof?

Glenn Greenwald, in his new book A Tragic Legacy, never examines Bush from that perspective at all. He uses a much simpler mental lens, disregarding why Bush acts as he does and starkly demonstrating that whatever Bush is, this is how he behaves: in a horrifyingly immature, stupid, and weak worldview strategy, Bush childishly divides the world into absurd dualities of black or white, right or wrong, a Manichean cleavage of evil or good.

In this rank Manichean mental environment, so suitable for felony and murder, the good is always a truly viable excuse or rationalization for any behavior, be it lying, killing, maiming, torture, desecrating the earth or shitting upon cherished American ideals like habeas corpus.

Like Sam Kennison in Back to School, eh, well, is he right? Greenwald uses 284 pages of very tight, well-crafted, interesting-to-read text to demonstrate that in fact he is correct, Bush does use a disastrous Manichean mental worldview which has lead to predictably tragic disastrous results.

Poignant validation is found on page 230, paragraph 3, where Greenwald brilliantly uses paradox to show the empirical results of Manichean behavior. If one can successfully arrive at paradox in the pursuit of knowledge or truth, go no further, the truth is revealed. In a profound mystery to our world paradox is the foundation for all truths and facts.

A moral crusade to change hearts and minds leading to all-time low world standing…vows to defend the good lead to horrible wrongs…vows to defend American values and freedoms lead directly to their dismantlement…by being sure America is the best force of good in the world one in fact ensures that America will be the worst force of evil in the world.

That’s how we got the worst of all time, and Greenwald deservedly uses the last 25% of the book to meticulously detail how Bush is oblivious to any responsibility of his actions and in fact, truly, is ramping up to attack Iran with the same Manichean insanity that was employed with Iraq.

That’s the secondary mission of the book, to desperately try and raise awareness that although it’s obviously plain incredible insanity for the United States to attack Iran, it’s not insane for the worst of all time felon run amok president George Bush, not in the least, and if something is not actively done right now to stop him Bush really will attack Iran. There’s always a great hope that America can start to recover from this foul murderer in 2009, but if he attacks Iran the country we once had will never, ever come back.

Any reader dedicated to truth and reality will come to the same conclusion after reading A Tragic Legacy, but even if they didn’t the book is worthwhile in its masterful prose and interesting readability, reaching a new height even for Greenwald, who is one of the best political writers in the country. It wasn’t until I got to the acknowledgements that I figured out how he did it: homie had two excellent editors, one pure diction, the next a very good publishing editor.

For its speed this is an amazingly clean work of grammar, punctuation and vocabulary with only one found error: “enemyless” is not a word, and repeated attempts to sound out the invention only lead to word enema, which I’m sure was not the author’s intent.

Lastly, at this writing A Tragic Legacy remains un-reviewed by all “mainstream” magazines and newspapers. As if those foul jackals haven’t done enough by enabling Bush and inflicting the country with the worst of all time, here they ignore a masterful work of truth, hope and sanity just to cover their own cowardly asses, to desperately hope their culpability in this incredible mess of Bush can somehow be avoided.