Happiness the aim of life. Virtue the foundation of happiness Utility the test of virtue . . . Virtue consists in Prudence Temperance Fortitude Justi… - Thomas E. Ricks

foremost with President Bush himself, but his incompetence and arrogance are only part of the story. It takes more than one person to make a mess as big as Iraq. That is, Bush could only take such a careless action because of a series of failures in the American system. Major lapses occurred within the national security bureaucracy, from a weak National Security Council (NSC) to an overweening Pentagon and a confused intelligence apparatus. Larger failures of oversight also occurred in the political system, most notably in Congress, and in the inability of the media to find and present alternate sources of information about Iraq and the threat it did or didn’t present

Jefferson did not detail his objections, but he likely was irked by Montesquieu’s conclusion that a major cause of Rome’s decline was Epicurean thought.

In his youth, he had been interested in Caesar and had read a bit about him. Later, as an adult, he sought to model his public persona upon Cato — upright, honest, patriotic, self-sacrificing, and a bit remote. Then, fighting for American independence, Washington had a new Roman role thrust upon him, that of the celebrated general Fabius, who defeated an invader from overseas mainly by avoiding battle and wearing out his foe. Finally, after the war, he would play his greatest role, the commander who relinquished power and returned to his farm, an American Cincinnatus.