RUMSFELD UNTER ALLES

I'd guess that a large percentage of non-Bush-apologizing bloggers linked yesterday to Keith Olbermann's shot across the bow of Rumsfeld's hideous & fatuous "speech." And that's a good thing too. The Murrow comparison folks are tossing around is apt -- Olbermann, himself, paved the road for that one. Myself? I'd like to see his oration function as a junior version of "Have You No Sense of Decency?" or even "J'accuse," but perhaps I'm too optimistic. Nonetheless, I loved reading the transcript, and it was one of those rare moments lately that I felt proud to be an American.

Anyhow, I'd like to hand off for a moment to Greg of the Belgravia Dispatch for a lucid & cogent analysis of Rumsfeld's "speech" (Tip o' the hat to the Cunning Realist). At the risk of offended Mssr. Godwin, Greg has a few very choice comparisons to a certain blustering demogogue who rose to power across the pond in the early 30's:

Rumsfeld: "It seems that in some quarters there's more of a focus on dividing our country than acting with unity against the gathering threats."

Unity is an interesting word. It immediately brought to mind Adolf Hitler's February 1933 Berlin Proclamation to the Nation, where he stressed the importance of "unity" no fewer than six times:

1) "With profound distress millions of the best German men and women from all walks of life have seen the unity of the nation vanishing away, dissolving in a confusion of political and personal opinions... (ed. note: "Confusion" is another word both Hitler and Rumsfeld employed liberally, Rumsfeld twice, including this snippet: "And that is important in any long struggle or long war, where any kind of moral or intellectual confusion about who and what is right or wrong, can weaken the ability of free societies to persevere.")

2)" ...Germany has presented a picture of heartbreaking disunity..."

3) "We never received the equality and fraternity we had been promised, and we lost our liberty to boot. For when our nation lost its political place in the world, it soon lost its unity of spirit and will.... "

4) "He called to those of us in nationalist parties and leagues to struggle under him once more, in unity and loyalty, for the salvation of the German nation."

5) "The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and co-operation"

6) "Reichspräsident von Hindenburg has called upon us to bring about the revival of the German nation. Unity is our tool. Therefore we now appeal to the German people to support this reconciliation." [my emphasis throughout]

The point here isn't that Rumsfeld is some Hitler redux, of course. But Rumsfeld's rhetorical tactics of late, it should be noted, are not infrequently rather similar to the Fuhrer's, and this bears noting, I'd think. Especially for someone who tries to wear the mantle of Churchill and who throws the word fascism around so liberally, Rumsfeld might instead take a good, hard look in the mirror, as the relevant historical analogue(s) might not be quite as flattering as he'd wish.

(Emphases in Greg's post). It's fascinating, really, to consider this comparison, especially in concert with Olbermann's beautifully-constructed analogy to the hackneyed pre-WWII appeasement play . . . in which he accuses the Administration of aping Chamberlain, as opposed to Churchill. Greg goes on to say:

[A]s the failure of the Bush Administration's war strategy becomes more and more evident to all but the most hardened denialists, as their desperation and incompetence becomes more evident to the American public, as their Middle East policy increasingly lies in tatters, and as they continue to erroneously attempt to conjoin things like the London terror plot with Iraq, without admitting the need for urgent re-appraisal of our overall strategy in the war on terror (they are incapable and/or too exhausted to make significant course corrections)--the rhetoric is beginning to border on dangerously reckless, and I trust the American people to reject this growing demagogy, and vote the Democrats in in November (at least in the House). I take no particular joy in this, as I think the Democrats have distinguished themselves by what I've called their ferocious lameness too often, but I cannot support a party that continues to allow a man this discredited a platform to propagate such gross dissembling, not to mention continues to allow him to prosecute a war where he has failed so dismally to achieve our nation's most basic strategic objectives . . . Bush has proven an incompetent, and he has two reckless, even dangerous men advising him in Rumsfeld and Cheney who, rather than disappearing into the early retirement both so richly deserve, are instead being given free rein to engage in the quite disgusting revisionism, cheap historical hyperbole, and demagoguery we've witnessed with the American Legion speech. Bush supports them in this, and so is totally complicit. Enough is enough. The only message these arrogant, discredited men will understand is a blistering one of rejection sent through the ballot-box. Let's try to give it to them, big time, as they say.

Amen to that, Brother. Amen.