Keith Olberman is on a roll these days.
<http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/08/30/keith-olbermann-delivers-
one-hell-of-a-commentary-on-rumsfeld>
( -or- http://tinyurl.com/zqqen )
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In a small irony, however, Mr. Rumsfeld’s speechwriter was adroit in
invoking the memory of the appeasement of the Nazis. For, in their
time, there was another government faced with true peril - with a
growing evil - powerful and remorseless.
That government, like Mr. Rumsfeld’s, had a monopoly on all the
facts. It, too, had the secret information. It alone had the true
picture of the threat. It too dismissed and insulted its critics in
terms like Mr. Rumsfeld’s - questioning their intellect and their
morality.
That government was England’s, in the 1930’s. It knew Hitler posed no
true threat to Europe, let alone England.
It knew Germany was not re-arming, in violation of all treaties and
accords.
It knew that the hard evidence it received, which contradicted
policies, conclusions - and omniscience — needed to be dismissed.
The English government of Neville Chamberlain already knew the truth.
Most relevant of all - it "knew" that its staunchest critics needed
to be marginalized and isolated. In fact, it portrayed the foremost
of them as a blood-thirsty war-monger who was, if not truly senile -
at best… morally or intellectually confused.
That critic’s name… was Winston Churchill.
Sadly, we have no Winston Churchills evident among us this evening.
We have only Donald Rumsfelds, demonizing disagreement, the way
Neville Chamberlain demonized Winston Churchill.
History - and 163 million pounds of Luftwaffe bombs over England -
taught us that all Mr. Chamberlain had was his certainty - and his
own confusion. A confusion that suggested that the office can not
only make the man, but that the office can also make the facts.
Thus did Mr. Rumsfeld make an apt historical analogy.
Excepting the fact that he has the battery plugged in backwards. His
government, absolute - and exclusive - in its knowledge, is not the
modern version of the one which stood up to the Nazis. It is the
modern version of the government… of Neville Chamberlain.
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-- Ed Leafe
-- http://leafe.com
-- http://dabodev.com
©2006 Ed Leafe |
