Increasingly strange and completely without decency
This post is not about any of our local representatives — there is none that I would describe as “without decency”. Rather, it is about Donald Rumsfeld’s delusional, unAmerican, hateful “speech” from yesterday. This one’s got all the markings of good-old fashioned McCarthyism. Impuging the patriotism of your opponents, check. Comparisons to Hitler, check. Unsubtantiated fear-mongering, check. It’s got it all. And it’s disgusting. And it’s time for people — both Democrats and Republicans — to tell the White House that enough is enough. Rumsfeld needs to resign.
It’s not just Democrats that are saying this, it’s generals too, in case you’ve forgotten. Here’s what retired Major General (and Rochester resident) John Batiste had to say a few weeks ago:
Rumsfeld is responsible for taking us to war with a flawed war plan that ignored the realities of the region and the lessons of history. He had no strategy beyond taking down Saddam Hussein. His flawed thinking caused our great country to violate fundamental principles of war and set the conditions for the national embarrassment of Abu Ghraib. He allowed the insurgency to take root and grow to where it is today. He has driven our Army brigades, both active duty and National Guard, into a state of unprecedented unreadiness.
Well said.
I’m reminded of a principle stated back when the Internet was just email, Usenet and IRC: “In an (online) debate, the first person to compare their opponents to Nazis loses.”
Let Rumsfeld compare the Democrats to Nazis all he wants. For that matter, let Bush yammer about “Islamofascists” all he wans. It just makes their lies all the more transparent and their desperation more obvious.