Best opening line of the day

(Links updated; see below)

As p3 readers know, I'm an admirer of well-chosen first sentences. This morning at Salon.com, Sidney Blumenthal contributed this gem to my collection:

Every Bush presidency is unhappy in its own way.

One day, when historians take stock of the Bush administration (always assuming that by then we're still allowed to have history or historians--he's still got over two years to go), the predominant analytic approach probably won't be the standard themes, diplomacy, military strategy, or economic and domestic policy. Won't be much useful insight to offer about those in, let's say, 2020, except perhaps: "For the love of god, let's not do that again!"

No, I often think that historians will find that the most productive--endlessly productive--tack to interpreting the Bush II years might be the psychological approach. Understanding how Bush's resentment and envy of an emotionally distant father, his humiliations at the hand of a hardly-nurturing mother, his dry-drunk behavior patterns, and his learning disabilities all contributed to his wrecking this country like a drunken teenager trashing out his old man's car will keep scholars busy for a generation. It'll be like their own WPA program for the 21st century.

Blumenthal writes:

[…] Bush is trapped in a self-generated dynamic that eerily recalls the centrifugal forces that spun apart his father's presidency. George H.W. Bush, a World War II fighter pilot, was unfairly said by the media to suffer from "the wimp factor," "emasculated by the office of vice president," according to a notorious Newsweek cover story in 1987. (George W., acting as enforcer, his then favorite role, cut Newsweek's reporters off from further access.) It was not until the Gulf War that the public became convinced that the elder Bush was a strong leader and not the wimp he was stereotypically depicted as. But then almost immediately afterward came a recession. Bush's feeble response was not seen as merely an expression of typical Republican policy but as a profound character flaw. If Bush was strong, why didn't he solve the problem? The public concluded he was indifferent, and its view of him curdled into anger. Outdoing the father by subduing "the wimp factor," the son has not grasped that it was the father's presumed strength and not his weakness that undid him in the end.

Right now, his piece is behind an advertising speed-bump at Salon Premium; if it gets picked up at Truthout.org, as his essays often are, I'll update the link. Truthout.org has the article up now, via the Guardian.