Volume 50, Number 2 · February 13, 2003
On the West Wing
By Anthony Lewis
Bush at War
by Bob Woodward
Simon and Schuster, 376 pp., $28.00
The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush
by David Frum
Random House, 303 pp., $25.95
To an extent that we could not at first imagine, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, have transformed the politics and the policy of the United States. A president of dubious legitimacy, put in office by ballot confusion in Florida and a lawless majority of the Supreme Court, has become a charismatic leader admired by a large majority of Americans. He has used his wartime aura to silence critics, greatly enlarge presidential power, and suppress civil liberties. His administration, once cautious about foreign entanglements, now promises to use its military power aggressively in the world. Without a clear casus belli, the President is using the support he has for a war on terrorism to prepare for war on a different enemy, Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
Review, 5013 words
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