Ogre

One of our pressing duties to the future — not just to 2010 and 2012 but for decades to come — is to capture and keep fresh the ghastly memory of an administration that relished torture, rewarded greed, and embraced incompetence. We don’t just need to get rid of Bush; we need to turn Bush and Karl and Scooter and Cheney into cautionary tales with which to frighten children.

Our parents had Joe McCarthy and Stalin. The Founding Fathers has Charles I and Cromwell. Augustus had Marius and the Gracchi. (The wingnuts have FDR and LBJ, and their ancestors had Lincoln and John Brown. Oy)

Writing in the Times [of London], Charles Bremner catches how quickly the rest of the world has understood this.

With Russian tanks only 30 miles from Tbilisi on August 12, Mr Sarkozy told Mr Putin that the world would not accept the overthrow of Georgia’s Government. According to Mr Levitte, the Russian seemed unconcerned by international reaction. “I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls,” Mr Putin declared.

Mr Sarkozy thought he had misheard. “Hang him?” — he asked. “Why not?” Mr Putin replied. “The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein.”

Mr Sarkozy, using the familiar tu, tried to reason with him: “Yes but do you want to end up like [President] Bush?” Mr Putin was briefly lost for words, then said: “Ah — you have scored a point there.”

Thanks, Andrew Sullivan.