Better than your country getting gutted by Hitler or Stalin.

It seems to me you could learn a lot from Shakespeare's Wars of the Roses plays - Richard 2 through to Richard 3.

The first imperative of any head of state is to survive - for many other people want that job, and they will all have terrific reasons for you giving it up.

My own position in the 1960's and 1970's was that I thought Ellsberg was a great patriot at the time, I thought that the watergate hearing - a source of shame to many Americans was an endorsement of the great Bob Dylan line - even the president of the united states sometimes must have to stand naked - a great exercise in democracy.

on reflection I'm not so sure. the Vietnamese were shafted with a stalinist administration for the next god knows how many years. all the suffering in those wars went for nothing - except perhaps to show that democracy wasn't going to go down without a fight.

I hope I don't sound like right wing 'hawk'. I felt betrayed and lied to, when no WMD's turned up in Iraq.
who the hell knows how history is going to turn out?