OLC

Yesterday, I was looking with some bemusement at the books I'd just gotten out of the library -- a collection of thoughts by women on adversity, a collection of cake recipes, and a collection of chili recipes -- which was sitting next to a book I was reading -- Swordpoint -- which was, in turn, next to a book that I'd started twice, liked each time, and then put down because I had so much else to read -- An Army at Dawn -- and thought you know, there's that book on the Bush Administration and terror by the head of DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel; I ought to finish that, because it's due back to the libe soon. So, last night, I stayed up for about an hour, reading that, and I'm glad that I did.

I didn't learn anything new, but it reinforced the idea that the people who did the things which which I disagree in that administration relation to the action formerly known as the War on Terror didn't necessarily do them because they were evil people. Cheney, for example, really believed that the authority of the Presidency ought to supercede that of the Congress, let alone the Supreme Court; it could not, should not, and ought not to be abrogated or limited in any way, and even suggesting that getting the support of the Congress would be a good idea was, to him, the equivilent of voting to diminish the power of the Presidency. I was of the opinion that he would say those things because he was, effectively, the President, and didn't want to limit his own authority because of his own personal lust and greed for power. Now I begin to think that he said those things because he truly believed them; if he was a general store operator in West Chepeapod, he'd still firmly believe them. Circumstance put him in a position where he could act on those beliefs, and he surrounded himself with people who believed it as strongly -- perhaps with less intellectual underpinnings, but as strongly -- who in turn surrounded themselves with similar acolytes. I think that they were wrong in so believing, but I am beginning to reluctantly realize that my thinking that has the same intellectual rigor relative to their thinking that a five year old explaining earnestly why Santa Claus is real has to the thinking of the amused adult patiently listening. Which is to say, not even in the same universe. Makes me wonder where I've been all my life.

I am really enjoying reading this, and it irritates the hell out of me that it's taking me so long to do it. Not to mention writing about it. Why does writing take me so much time, these days? Why is it so tough to put together coherent thoughts? I've even, god help me, contemplated sketching out drafts on yellow paper!