A textbook definition of cowardice
Keith Olbermann comments on Bill Clinton's Fox News interview
SPECIAL COMMENT
By Keith Olbermann
Anchor, 'Countdown'
MSNBC
Updated: 8:29 p.m. ET Sept 25, 2006
The headlines about them are, of course, entirely wrong.
It is not essential that a past president, bullied and sandbagged by a monkey posing as a newscaster, finally lashed back.
It is not important that the current President’s portable public chorus has described his predecessor’s tone as “crazed.”
Our tone should be crazed. The nation’s freedoms are under assault by an administration whose policies can do us as much damage as al Qaida; the nation’s marketplace of ideas is being poisoned by a propaganda company so blatant that Tokyo Rose would’ve quit.
Nonetheless. The headline is this:
Bill Clinton did what almost none of us have done in five years.
He has spoken the truth about 9/11, and the current presidential administration.
"At least I tried," he said of his own efforts to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. "That’s the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They had eight months to try; they did not try. I tried."
Thus in his supposed emeritus years has Mr. Clinton taken forceful and triumphant action for honesty, and for us; action as vital and as courageous as any of his presidency; action as startling and as liberating, as any, by any one, in these last five long years.
The Bush Administration did not try to get Osama bin Laden before 9/11.
The Bush Administration ignored all the evidence gathered by its predecessors.
The Bush Administration did not understand the Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in U.S."
The Bush Administration did not try.
Moreover, for the last five years one month and two weeks, the current administration, and in particular the President, has been given the greatest “pass” for incompetence and malfeasance in American history!
President Roosevelt was rightly blamed for ignoring the warning signs—some of them, 17 years old—before Pearl Harbor.
President Hoover was correctly blamed for—if not the Great Depression itself—then the disastrous economic steps he took in the immediate aftermath of the Stock Market Crash.
Even President Lincoln assumed some measure of responsibility for the Civil War—though talk of Southern secession had begun as early as 1832.
But not this president.
To hear him bleat and whine and bully at nearly every opportunity, one would think someone else had been president on September 11th, 2001 -- or the nearly eight months that preceded it.
That hardly reflects the honesty nor manliness we expect of the executive.
But if his own fitness to serve is of no true concern to him, perhaps we should simply sigh and keep our fingers crossed, until a grown-up takes the job three Januarys from now.
Except for this.
After five years of skirting even the most inarguable of facts—that he was president on 9/11 and he must bear some responsibility for his, and our, unreadiness, Mr. Bush has now moved, unmistakably and without conscience or shame, towards re-writing history, and attempting to make the responsibility, entirely Mr. Clinton’s.
Of course he is not honest enough to do that directly.
As with all the other nefariousness and slime of this, our worst presidency since James Buchanan, he is having it done for him, by proxy.
Thus, the sandbag effort by Fox News Friday afternoon.
Consider the timing: the very weekend the National Intelligence Estimate would be released and show the Iraq war to be the fraudulent failure it is—not a check on terror, but fertilizer for it.
The kind of proof of incompetence, for which the administration and its hyenas at Fox need to find a diversion, in a scapegoat.
It was the kind of cheap trick which would get a journalist fired—but a propagandist, promoted:
Promise to talk of charity and generosity; but instead launch into the lies and distortions with which the Authoritarians among us attack the virtuous and reward the useless.
And don’t even be professional enough to assume the responsibility for the slanders yourself; blame your audience for “e-mailing” you the question.
Mr. Clinton responded as you have seen.
He told the great truth untold about this administration’s negligence, perhaps criminal negligence, about bin Laden.
He was brave.
Then again, Chris Wallace might be braver still. Had I in one moment surrendered all my credibility as a journalist, and been irredeemably humiliated, as was he, I would have gone home and started a new career selling seeds by mail.
The smearing by proxy, of course, did not begin Friday afternoon.
Disney was first to sell-out its corporate reputation, with "The Path to 9/11." Of that company’s crimes against truth one needs to say little. Simply put: someone there enabled an Authoritarian zealot to belch out Mr. Bush’s new and improved history.
The basic plot-line was this: because he was distracted by the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Bill Clinton failed to prevent 9/11.
The most curious and in some ways the most infuriating aspect of this slapdash theory, is that the Right Wingers who have advocated it—who try to sneak it into our collective consciousness through entertainment, or who sandbag Mr. Clinton with it at news interviews—have simply skipped past its most glaring flaw.
Had it been true that Clinton had been distracted from the hunt for bin Laden in 1998 because of the Monica Lewinsky nonsense, why did these same people not applaud him for having bombed bin Laden’s camps in Afghanistan and Sudan on Aug. 20, of that year? For mentioning bin Laden by name as he did so?
That day, Republican Senator Grams of Minnesota invoked the movie "Wag The Dog."
Republican Senator Coats of Indiana questioned Mr. Clinton’s judgment.
Republican Senator Ashcroft of Missouri—the future attorney general—echoed Coats.
Even Republican Senator Arlen Specter questioned the timing.
And of course, were it true Clinton had been “distracted” by the Lewinsky witch-hunt, who on earth conducted the Lewinsky witch-hunt?
Who turned the political discourse of this nation on its head for two years?
Who corrupted the political media?
Who made it impossible for us to even bring back on the air, the counter-terrorism analysts like Dr. Richard Haass, and James Dunegan, who had warned, at this very hour, on this very network, in early 1998, of cells from the Middle East who sought to attack us, here?
Who preempted them in order to strangle us with the trivia that was, “All Monica All The Time”?
Who distracted whom?
This is, of course, where—as is inevitable—Mr. Bush and his henchmen prove not quite as smart as they think they are.
The full responsibility for 9/11 is obviously shared by three administrations, possibly four.
But, Mr. Bush, if you are now trying to convince us by proxy that it’s all about the distractions of 1998 and 1999, then you will have to face a startling fact that your minions may have hidden from you.
The distractions of 1998 and 1999, Mr. Bush, were carefully manufactured, and lovingly executed, not by Bill Clinton, but by the same people who got you elected President.
Thus, instead of some commendable acknowledgment that you were even in office on 9/11 and the lost months before it, we have your sleazy and sloppy rewriting of history, designed by somebody who evidently read the Orwell playbook too quickly.
Thus, instead of some explanation for the inertia of your first eight months in office, we are told that you have kept us "safe" ever since—a statement that might range anywhere from zero, to 100 percent, true.
We have nothing but your word, and your word has long since ceased to mean anything.
And, of course, the one time you have ever given us specifics about what you have kept us safe from, Mr. Bush, you got the name of the supposedly targeted Tower in Los Angeles wrong.
Thus was it left for the previous president to say what so many of us have felt; what so many of us have given you a pass for in the months and even the years after the attack:
You did not try.
You ignored the evidence gathered by your predecessor.
You ignored the evidence gathered by your own people.
Then, you blamed your predecessor.
That would be a textbook definition, Mr. Bush, of cowardice.
To enforce the lies of the present, it is necessary to erase the truths of the past.
That was one of the great mechanical realities Eric Blair—writing as George Orwell—gave us in the book “1984.”
The great philosophical reality he gave us, Mr. Bush, may sound as familiar to you, as it has lately begun to sound familiar to me.
"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power...
"Power is not a means; it is an end.
"One does not establish a dictatorship to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.
"The object of persecution, is persecution. The object of torture, is torture. The object of power… is power."
Earlier last Friday afternoon, before the Fox ambush, speaking in the far different context of the closing session of his remarkable Global Initiative, Mr. Clinton quoted Abraham Lincoln’s State of the Union address from 1862.
"We must disenthrall ourselves."
Mr. Clinton did not quote the rest of Mr. Lincoln’s sentence.
He might well have.
"We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country."
And so has Mr. Clinton helped us to disenthrall ourselves, and perhaps enabled us, even at this late and bleak date, to save our country.
The "free pass" has been withdrawn, Mr. Bush.
You did not act to prevent 9/11.
We do not know what you have done to prevent another 9/11.
You have failed us—then leveraged that failure, to justify a purposeless war in Iraq which will have, all too soon, claimed more American lives than did 9/11.
You have failed us anew in Afghanistan.
And you have now tried to hide your failures, by blaming your predecessor.
And now you exploit your failure, to rationalize brazen torture which doesn’t work anyway; which only condemns our soldiers to water-boarding; which only humiliates our country further in the world; and which no true American would ever condone, let alone advocate.
And there it is, Mr. Bush:
Are yours the actions of a true American?
© 2006 MSNBC Interactive
Olbermann is on a roll... could be the Edward R. Murrow of our times.
Monday, September 25, 2006
Friday, September 22, 2006
Torture USA
What can be said regarding the total capitulation of Senators McCain, Warner and Graham on the torture bill? A reading of the compromise seems to indicate that the primary function of rewriting the bill, and with it our non-compliance with Common Article 3 of the Geneva Accords, is to relieve those individuals at the top of the chain of command, who actually issue the guidelines for interrogation, from all culpability in the torture of prisoners, leaving that responsibility to those low level people in the ranks who actually perform the torture.
Let us understand this, we are not talking about "playing loud music" or "depriving prisoners of sleep" (although that is quite inhumane) or any of the other ridiculous acts that those on the right are saying this legislation is about. No, we are talking about torture by any standard, for who among us is willing to concede that 'waterboarding' is not torture, knowing that the act entails covering the head of a prisoner with plastic wrap or cellophane, etc. then running water over his face in an effort to simulate drowning? Who among us has had their sense of morals so warped by the fear mongering of Bush and his enablers that they cannot see 'waterboarding' for what it is, torture plain and simple?
When Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al agree to endure "waterboarding" or any other of the "alternative interrogation" methods (read torture), then, perhaps then will I rethink my opposition to such unamerican methods. There is no chance that such a scenario will come to pass because first and foremost Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al are morally bankrupt cowards who would never submit themselves to that which they wish to impose on others.
Somewhere The Founders surely weep at what has become of the dream that was America, certainly the citizens of this great country whose moral and ethical compasses still read true to the ideals of those great men are outraged at the path this cowardly and corrupt administration has taken the nation.
As for the Democrats, sorry to say that it seems they are only concerned with keeping their positions rather than standing up to those who would corrupt the American ideals of ethics, morality and above all, fair play. Democrats have not earned the right to retake the halls of congress for they have shown themselves to be as cowardly as the Republicans they wish to replace.
A pox on both their houses.
Let us understand this, we are not talking about "playing loud music" or "depriving prisoners of sleep" (although that is quite inhumane) or any of the other ridiculous acts that those on the right are saying this legislation is about. No, we are talking about torture by any standard, for who among us is willing to concede that 'waterboarding' is not torture, knowing that the act entails covering the head of a prisoner with plastic wrap or cellophane, etc. then running water over his face in an effort to simulate drowning? Who among us has had their sense of morals so warped by the fear mongering of Bush and his enablers that they cannot see 'waterboarding' for what it is, torture plain and simple?
When Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al agree to endure "waterboarding" or any other of the "alternative interrogation" methods (read torture), then, perhaps then will I rethink my opposition to such unamerican methods. There is no chance that such a scenario will come to pass because first and foremost Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al are morally bankrupt cowards who would never submit themselves to that which they wish to impose on others.
Somewhere The Founders surely weep at what has become of the dream that was America, certainly the citizens of this great country whose moral and ethical compasses still read true to the ideals of those great men are outraged at the path this cowardly and corrupt administration has taken the nation.
As for the Democrats, sorry to say that it seems they are only concerned with keeping their positions rather than standing up to those who would corrupt the American ideals of ethics, morality and above all, fair play. Democrats have not earned the right to retake the halls of congress for they have shown themselves to be as cowardly as the Republicans they wish to replace.
A pox on both their houses.
What he said!
RE: The Torture Agreement
Hullabaloo: "Kudos to Digby for calling this exactly right from the start. Shame, shame, shame on the cowards in both parties that permitted this disgracefully grotesque farce to happen. This is as inexcusable a stupidity as the neglect that permittted the 9/11 attacks, the idiotic reasoning and intellectual blindness that advocated and executed the Bush/Iraq war, and the failure to prepare for Katrina. What the hell is going on, that a country that prides itself on its heritage of freedom and liberty, that fought such an awful war over the degrading enslavement of human beings - that such a country would vote to permit some of the most repulsive and evil practices human beings are capable of and place the power to do so directly in the hands of a moral midget?"
The shame and anger at what has become of America is overwhelming this day. The anger is not only focused on the republicans who went along with this farce because they are republicans after all. No, the lion's share of the anger and shame is reserved for the democrats who would not, could not find the backbone to stand for America and say ENOUGH!
There is not much pride in being an American this day.
Hullabaloo: "Kudos to Digby for calling this exactly right from the start. Shame, shame, shame on the cowards in both parties that permitted this disgracefully grotesque farce to happen. This is as inexcusable a stupidity as the neglect that permittted the 9/11 attacks, the idiotic reasoning and intellectual blindness that advocated and executed the Bush/Iraq war, and the failure to prepare for Katrina. What the hell is going on, that a country that prides itself on its heritage of freedom and liberty, that fought such an awful war over the degrading enslavement of human beings - that such a country would vote to permit some of the most repulsive and evil practices human beings are capable of and place the power to do so directly in the hands of a moral midget?"
The shame and anger at what has become of America is overwhelming this day. The anger is not only focused on the republicans who went along with this farce because they are republicans after all. No, the lion's share of the anger and shame is reserved for the democrats who would not, could not find the backbone to stand for America and say ENOUGH!
There is not much pride in being an American this day.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Preznit Toretureboy
Perhaps it is time to ask the pathological liar and certifiable psychopath in the White House if he would be willing to undergo the procedures that he wants to inflict upon others. I suspect that everyone of the ankle biting bedwetters on the right would soil themselves at the prospect of enduring some of the non-torture interrogation techniques favored by the Coward-in-Chief.
His performance at the press conference was eye opening to say the least. One gets the impression that he is ever so close to totally losing it on national television. The grimaces, contortions, the tics and whining were highlighted by the redness of his face, as he strained mightily to keep his famously petulant, fratboy temper in check. Let it go George, blow your stack on national TV and show America just how unfit you are to hold the office of president.
The time is coming when he will lose it completely, ranting and raving at the reporter who asked the question, looking for all the world like the petulant, immature failure he is.
His performance at the press conference was eye opening to say the least. One gets the impression that he is ever so close to totally losing it on national television. The grimaces, contortions, the tics and whining were highlighted by the redness of his face, as he strained mightily to keep his famously petulant, fratboy temper in check. Let it go George, blow your stack on national TV and show America just how unfit you are to hold the office of president.
The time is coming when he will lose it completely, ranting and raving at the reporter who asked the question, looking for all the world like the petulant, immature failure he is.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
The ABC (Always Blague Conservative) Crockudrama, "The Path to 911"
So now comes the latest in a long line of conservative hit pieces. This time playing upon the pain and anguish of the events of September 11, 2001. While it is not surprising that those without ethics or honor would try to use the grief and shock of that infamous day for partisan political advantage, it is quite astounding that they would try and pass off as fact situations and circumstances so obviously constructed of distortions of fact and outright lies.
If one is determined to create a 'docudrama' of an historical event, especially one of such mind bending, heart searing import as that which transpired on September 11, 2001, it would be wise to tell the tale truthfully. Failing that requirement, if the telling of the tale was meant to be a propaganda piece, as this crockudrama obviously is, it would seem that the major requirement of the telling would be to wait until those who were witness to the events had passed on to their final reward.
The perpetrators of this sick fantasy have much in common with all those who have traded in lies and slander in service to a political idea, party or leader. They need an uninformed citizenry and a willingness to invent circumstances, situations and dialogues for those whom they wish to defame under the guise of dramatic license. Dramatic license is a colloquial term used to denote the distortion or complete ignorance of fact.
While the creators of 'The Path to 911' clearly distorted the facts of the years leading to that terrible day it cannot be said to have been done out of ignorance for the perpetrators of this outrage are the ulra-conservative relatives of other shameless prevaricators on the right. There is no lie too outrageous, no slur too low when it comes to trying to deflect blame for the events of that tragic day away from the current occupier of the People's House.
Facts be damned, in the manner of childish whiners the world over, they scream, 'It's not our fault!' In this they remind me of the scene from The Blues Brothers in which John Belushi as Jake Blues, when confronted by Carrie Fisher, playing his jilted lover, goes into a litany of lies, each more outrageous than the last, explaining why he did not show up for their wedding.
That one scene captures the essence of the extreme conservative effort to recast the tragedy of September 11, 2001 for purely partisan ends. Perhaps there is fear on the right that maybe, just maybe, the people have had enough of the lies and deceptions of Bush and his minions. That they have had enough of the lies and deceptions of the republican majority in congress, a majority that seems hell bent on destroying the civil liberties and time honored constitutional guarantees that have made America a beacon of freedom and opportunity.
Perhaps they are fearful that the people will come out and vote for change in such numbers that no amount of tweaking of voting lists by corrupt Secretaries of State or underhanded adjustments of vote counting programs by Diebold, Sequoia or ES&S will prevent the tidal wave of voter outrage that just may occur on November 7. Perhaps they decided that one more outrageous attempt at propaganda, worthy of a Joseph Goebbels, is all that stands between them, and their enablers, of a true judgement day at the hands of the people. Perhaps they are so desparate that they concluded that a lie of such magnitude about the signal event of the new century is all that will keep them from reaping the justice they so richly deserve for their incompetence, their arrogance and most of all, their lies.
The time for truth is long past. The time for retribution draws near. Above all things, remember that truth and retribution is what the ultra-conservative fears most. For the warcrimes of allowing torture and gulags, to the waging of war, and squandering our national treasure and the lives of our children, built on boldfaced lies, to bringing America down to the moral standards of a third world dictatorship, to the avalanche of lies told to the people, for all this and more, the day of reckoning draws nigh.
If one is determined to create a 'docudrama' of an historical event, especially one of such mind bending, heart searing import as that which transpired on September 11, 2001, it would be wise to tell the tale truthfully. Failing that requirement, if the telling of the tale was meant to be a propaganda piece, as this crockudrama obviously is, it would seem that the major requirement of the telling would be to wait until those who were witness to the events had passed on to their final reward.
The perpetrators of this sick fantasy have much in common with all those who have traded in lies and slander in service to a political idea, party or leader. They need an uninformed citizenry and a willingness to invent circumstances, situations and dialogues for those whom they wish to defame under the guise of dramatic license. Dramatic license is a colloquial term used to denote the distortion or complete ignorance of fact.
While the creators of 'The Path to 911' clearly distorted the facts of the years leading to that terrible day it cannot be said to have been done out of ignorance for the perpetrators of this outrage are the ulra-conservative relatives of other shameless prevaricators on the right. There is no lie too outrageous, no slur too low when it comes to trying to deflect blame for the events of that tragic day away from the current occupier of the People's House.
Facts be damned, in the manner of childish whiners the world over, they scream, 'It's not our fault!' In this they remind me of the scene from The Blues Brothers in which John Belushi as Jake Blues, when confronted by Carrie Fisher, playing his jilted lover, goes into a litany of lies, each more outrageous than the last, explaining why he did not show up for their wedding.
That one scene captures the essence of the extreme conservative effort to recast the tragedy of September 11, 2001 for purely partisan ends. Perhaps there is fear on the right that maybe, just maybe, the people have had enough of the lies and deceptions of Bush and his minions. That they have had enough of the lies and deceptions of the republican majority in congress, a majority that seems hell bent on destroying the civil liberties and time honored constitutional guarantees that have made America a beacon of freedom and opportunity.
Perhaps they are fearful that the people will come out and vote for change in such numbers that no amount of tweaking of voting lists by corrupt Secretaries of State or underhanded adjustments of vote counting programs by Diebold, Sequoia or ES&S will prevent the tidal wave of voter outrage that just may occur on November 7. Perhaps they decided that one more outrageous attempt at propaganda, worthy of a Joseph Goebbels, is all that stands between them, and their enablers, of a true judgement day at the hands of the people. Perhaps they are so desparate that they concluded that a lie of such magnitude about the signal event of the new century is all that will keep them from reaping the justice they so richly deserve for their incompetence, their arrogance and most of all, their lies.
The time for truth is long past. The time for retribution draws near. Above all things, remember that truth and retribution is what the ultra-conservative fears most. For the warcrimes of allowing torture and gulags, to the waging of war, and squandering our national treasure and the lives of our children, built on boldfaced lies, to bringing America down to the moral standards of a third world dictatorship, to the avalanche of lies told to the people, for all this and more, the day of reckoning draws nigh.
Friday, September 01, 2006
Keith Olberman!
The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack. Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet.
Mr. Rumsfeld's remarkable speech to the American Legion yesterday demands the deep analysis--and the sober contemplation--of every American.
For it did not merely serve to impugn the morality or intelligence -- indeed, the loyalty -- of the majority of Americans who oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land. Worse, still, it credits those same transient occupants -- our employees -- with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither common sense, nor this administration's track record at home or abroad, suggests they deserve.
Dissent and disagreement with government is the life's blood of human freedom; and not merely because it is the first roadblock against the kind of tyranny the men Mr. Rumsfeld likes to think of as 'his' troops still fight, this very evening, in Iraq.
It is also essential. Because just every once in awhile it is right and the power to which it speaks, is wrong.
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 its own policies, its own conclusions -- its own omniscience -- needed to be dismissed.
The English government of Neville Chamberlain already knew the 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 -- have 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.
But back to today's Omniscient ones.
That, about which Mr. Rumsfeld is confused is simply this: This is a Democracy. Still. Sometimes just barely.
And, as such, all voices count -- not just his.
Had he or his president perhaps proven any of their prior claims of omniscience -- about Osama Bin Laden's plans five years ago, about Saddam Hussein's weapons four years ago, about Hurricane Katrina's impact one year ago -- we all might be able to swallow hard, and accept their "omniscience" as a bearable, even useful recipe, of fact, plus ego.
But, to date, this government has proved little besides its own arrogance, and its own hubris.
Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally or intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to Katrina, to the entire "Fog of Fear" which continues to envelop this nation, he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies have -- inadvertently or intentionally -- profited and benefited, both personally, and politically.
And yet he can stand up, in public, and question the morality and the intellect of those of us who dare ask just for the receipt for the Emporer's New Clothes?
In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised? As a child, of whose heroism did he read? On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one day to fight? With what country has he confused the United States of America?
The confusion we -- as its citizens-- must now address, is stark and forbidding.
But variations of it have faced our forefathers, when men like Nixon and McCarthy and Curtis LeMay have darkened our skies and obscured our flag. Note -- with hope in your heart -- that those earlier Americans always found their way to the light, and we can, too.
The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and this administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City, so valiantly fought.
And about Mr. Rumsfeld's other main assertion, that this country faces a "new type of fascism."
As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he said that -- though probably not in the way he thought he meant it.
This country faces a new type of fascism - indeed.
Although I presumptuously use his sign-off each night, in feeble tribute, I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalist Edward R. Murrow.
But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could I come close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew everything, and branded those who disagreed: "confused" or "immoral."
Thus, forgive me, for reading Murrow, in full:
"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty," he said, in 1954. "We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.
"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular."
And so good night, and good luck.
Mr. Rumsfeld's remarkable speech to the American Legion yesterday demands the deep analysis--and the sober contemplation--of every American.
For it did not merely serve to impugn the morality or intelligence -- indeed, the loyalty -- of the majority of Americans who oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land. Worse, still, it credits those same transient occupants -- our employees -- with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither common sense, nor this administration's track record at home or abroad, suggests they deserve.
Dissent and disagreement with government is the life's blood of human freedom; and not merely because it is the first roadblock against the kind of tyranny the men Mr. Rumsfeld likes to think of as 'his' troops still fight, this very evening, in Iraq.
It is also essential. Because just every once in awhile it is right and the power to which it speaks, is wrong.
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 its own policies, its own conclusions -- its own omniscience -- needed to be dismissed.
The English government of Neville Chamberlain already knew the 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 -- have 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.
But back to today's Omniscient ones.
That, about which Mr. Rumsfeld is confused is simply this: This is a Democracy. Still. Sometimes just barely.
And, as such, all voices count -- not just his.
Had he or his president perhaps proven any of their prior claims of omniscience -- about Osama Bin Laden's plans five years ago, about Saddam Hussein's weapons four years ago, about Hurricane Katrina's impact one year ago -- we all might be able to swallow hard, and accept their "omniscience" as a bearable, even useful recipe, of fact, plus ego.
But, to date, this government has proved little besides its own arrogance, and its own hubris.
Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally or intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to Katrina, to the entire "Fog of Fear" which continues to envelop this nation, he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies have -- inadvertently or intentionally -- profited and benefited, both personally, and politically.
And yet he can stand up, in public, and question the morality and the intellect of those of us who dare ask just for the receipt for the Emporer's New Clothes?
In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised? As a child, of whose heroism did he read? On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one day to fight? With what country has he confused the United States of America?
The confusion we -- as its citizens-- must now address, is stark and forbidding.
But variations of it have faced our forefathers, when men like Nixon and McCarthy and Curtis LeMay have darkened our skies and obscured our flag. Note -- with hope in your heart -- that those earlier Americans always found their way to the light, and we can, too.
The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and this administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City, so valiantly fought.
And about Mr. Rumsfeld's other main assertion, that this country faces a "new type of fascism."
As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he said that -- though probably not in the way he thought he meant it.
This country faces a new type of fascism - indeed.
Although I presumptuously use his sign-off each night, in feeble tribute, I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalist Edward R. Murrow.
But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could I come close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew everything, and branded those who disagreed: "confused" or "immoral."
Thus, forgive me, for reading Murrow, in full:
"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty," he said, in 1954. "We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.
"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular."
And so good night, and good luck.
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