Lost in exceptionalism...

It is not often that a book review makes me immediately place an order, but the Economist on Bacevich's new work, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism sent me to Amazon straightaway.

He claims that the constitution has been perverted by the expansion of the presidency and by national security, at the expense of Congress. Concluding that America’s military power “turns out to be quite limited”, he argues that the country “doesn’t need a bigger army. It needs a smaller—that is, more modest—foreign policy, one that assigns soldiers on missions that are consistent with their capabilities..."

He expresses his judgments, some grumpy, some anguished, in sharp, epigrammatic language. “A grand bazaar”, he writes, “provides an inadequate basis upon which to erect a vast empire.” Americans have recast the Jeffersonian trinity—life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—to read: “Whoever dies with the most toys wins”; “Shop till you drop”; and “If it feels good, do it.”

This could be very interesting. Maybe even enough so to get me to write a review?

I feel really bad for Harper Lee and George Orwell...

If you look at the reader's choice list of the top 100 Best novels, you will too. (I should also feel a little bad for Tolkien, but you know he probably has a lot of crossover appeal with the Objectivists... though Orwell might too, which is unfortunate for them since he was definatively not of their ilk.)