links for 2010-08-17

George Bush kept a large bust of Churchill in the Oval Office because — like so many right-wing, super-hawk, pseudo-tough guys — Bush fetishized Churchill for the warrior courage which Bush craved vicariously to possess but obviously lacked in himself and his own life. In stark contrast, Barack Obama sent the bust back to Britain because "his Kenyan grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, was imprisoned without trial for two years and tortured on Churchill's watch, for resisting Churchill's empire