Like other citizens concerned about the fate of the Republic, I wonder what the Bush legacy will be.

 To some concerned with foreign affairs, the Bush era will be remembered most for the acceleration of America's putative march to empire.

As for the once-dynamic duo who characterized much of this administration - Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (and those clustered around their "offices") - the only "empire" that really counted for them was the parochial world of Washington, DC, with its lobbyists, bureaucrats, politicians, and assorted supporting think-tankers, all absorbed in their petty turf-wars about who among them would get government money for their minions and projects, overseas or at home. This was the narcissistic province that the Vice President and Secretary of Defense had the urge to dominate with their "unitary executive," "wartime," commander-in-chief presidency and the foreign wars that made it all possible.