Not really. He just focuses on Jefferson’s opinion of the press before he became president when it was a useful adjunct in the struggle against the Crown and then instrumental in forming the new government and constitution. It was a love/hate/acceptance relationship that progressed through those stages over time. Jefferson had his own administration press organs during his tenure in the WH. He just would have liked to silence the opposition. Not easily done without seeming too hypocritical. It’s is a tool, like any other. It can be abused and misused and will be..

Glenn does vitally important work, but I wish he would devote a little more time to exposing that it is not simply the Republican party, the MSM and the defense establishment that is corrupt, but much of federal government and the Democratic party as well, both to deliberately benefit elite, corporate insiders and to “fix” problems that are often created by government in the first place.

I personally do not imagine ever being a full-blown Democrat — but then I never joined the GOP, either. But at this moment, and as a libertarian, I think the two ideologies of liberal/libertarian should join as much as possible against a great evil.

Oh, and yeah, GG is teh awesome.

I wasn’t aware of Art of the Possible before (although, looking at the masthead, I do recognize Jim Henley from Unqualified Offerings!). Now that I’ve read this, I will come back often.

Keep up the good work.

I confess some skepticism about any long-term improvements in U.S. foreign policy because of Iraq–at least if America’s position as sole superpower and strongest military power remains intact, and the Democratic establishment retains its current views.

Mr. Greenwald’s description of the public’s skeptical attitude, and the “undermining of its reflexive support” of imperialism, seems like an exact description of the Vietnam Syndrome. That in itself would be good, of course. It kept us out of Angola, among other things, and probably lowered the U.S. profile for at least a decade.

But in the long term, unfortunately, much greater structural changes will be required to rein in the U.S. government. The neoconservatives are just an extreme version of an overall elite consensus, shared by mainstream Democrats and Republicans, that has been aptly summarized by Noam Chomsky as “We own the world.” The problem with Iraq isn’t that the U.S. doesn’t have the *right* to run the rest of the world, but merely that Bush made an error of judgment in this particular case. All still agree that the U.S. is rightfully, as Huntington put it, “hegemonic power in a system of world order.”

Both Clinton and Obama are committed to the U.S. being the largest military power in the world. They both fully accept the fundamental principle of the U.S. being the only power in the world with the *right*: 1) to define its “national security interests” so broadly as to include what any country does anywhere in the world; 2) to define as “aggression” against those interests what a country on the other side of the world does within a few hundred miles of its own borders; and 3) to define as a “threat” the ability to challenge U.S. hegemony or defeat an American attack. In short, they assert the U.S. government’s sole right to engage in “defensive” behavior that every other country in the world rightly considers aggression.

John Kerry is a supporter of Plan Colombia, and accused Bush of being “soft” on Hugo Chavez. Kerry, Clinton and Obama have all bought into the official narrative on the “Iranian threat,” and complained that the Iraq adventure has weakened America’s ability to deal with that “threat.” All refuse to take any “option” off the “table.”

While a decade or so of Iraq Syndrome would be nice, I’d much prefer the U.S. government be rendered *incapable* of using military power for any purpose other than actual defense of its own territory. About the only realistic long-term hope for reining in Empire is a catastrophic collapse of capability along the lines of Guevara’s “One, Two, Many Vietnams.” I hope that before the Gulf conflict is over, Iraq will be one component of such a one-two knockout (perhaps coupled with the judicious application of Sunburn missiles to carriers).

I’m afraid I wasn’t able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I’ve given up. Sorry it didn’t work out.

doapf at theartofthepossible.net:
Sorry, no mailbox here by that name. (#5.1.1)

(I replaced the “at” symbol in the email address when I posted this comment.)

Hi Nell! No, it is three.

I’m bookmarking your site because I too think that libertarians have much more in common with those on the left than they do with those on the right. I look forward to reading future posts by your contributors.

(bookmark complete!)

Surely that’s two books: … both of which?

Great interview, thanks!