A startling new book released today and reviewed on Politico offers perhaps the most disturbing account yet of the gross malfeasance that a growing parade of critics and ex-insiders alike say seems to permeate the current executive branch of our government. “The Way of the World,” written by author and Pulitzer Prize-winning former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind, goes far beyond various past accounts that have claimed the White House in the run-up to Operation Iraqi Freedom intentionally ignored any intelligence or evidence that interfered with its own predetermined war mindset. If only they had stopped there.

Beginning from the standpoint of the retired general who oversaw the U.S. Army’s investigation into the Abu Ghraib debacle, historian Jeremy Brecher and legal analyst Brendan Smith have offered The Nation an outline of the various accountability options that are available and where things stand today. However one may feel about exactly how to reach closure on this most awkward of topics, their points generally are quite well taken and certainly provide every American with food for thought…however difficult it may be to digest.