Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Hitler and hermit crabs

D.J. Tice, the regrettable hermit-crab proprietor of The Big Question, had a case of the vapors over Keith Ellison's use of the Reichstag fire as an analogy to the political aftermath of 9/11. Not much of a surprise here: so did Katie and Big Trunk. Let Spot reiterate what he said in the link to Katie:

What Katie is trying to do, of course, is intimate that Ellison believes that the Bush administration was the perpetrator of the September 11th attacks [although she does quote Ellison as telling her later that he didn't], and that he is equating Bush to Hitler. And, of course, he did neither. But the historical analogy is a good one, really, when you consider Ari Fleischer telling people to be careful about what they say in response to remarks by Bill Maher, the institution of a regime of torture in several places by the CIA and perhaps the military, the confusion of military and civilian justice, the indeterminate detention of residents of the United States without trial, the curtailment of habeas corpus, and the continuing foment of fear and hysteria in the American people.

Actually, Spot was wrong: it's not a good analogy; it's a damn good analogy. What is too bad is that a newspaperman, a presumed champion of civil liberties, including the First Amendment, could be such a low, mean, and odious scrub as to shriek in pretended offense when a remark hit home. And that's what Tice is doing, of course. Tice and his buddies do not focus on the logic of the analogy; they'd rather rant and pout about how unfair Ellison is being. Why is pretty obvious.

The day will come when historians will make a list of the cranks, frauds, and the sycophants who lined up with the Bush administration. We already know that Katie, Big Trunk, and D.J. Tice will be on it.

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