What? Are you trying to beat me on long article posts? Seriously, that was a good article. One thing I noticed that it skipped over was that toward the end of WW2 there was a dust up over whether or not there should remain a demand for the unconditional surrender of Japan in the face of the casualties that were projected for a land invasion. That so adamant were the people that the surrender should be unconditional, that when the A-bomb was shown to be workable, the pols lept at it because it would lead to less casualties for both sides and get them the unconditional surrender that everyone wanted. I was reminded of it by refs in both articles that sometimes the people are out in front of the pols in wanting to kick the bad guys collective butts. Days gone by?
Our ability to look at ourselves is inhibited by a negative media. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then just count how many countries have followed our election of Bush and elected conservatives themselves. It is a long list. Austria, Australia, Canada, Germany, France, Sweden.