WP, Robinson: Who Set the Wayback Machine for 1939?

[DeepModem Mom]

Who Set the Wayback Machine for 1939?
By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, September 5, 2006; Page A19

With George W. Bush talking so much about Nazis and fascism, Donald Rumsfeld warning ominously against lily-livered appeasement and Dick Cheney quoting Franklin Roosevelt on the "dirty business" of war, one might worry that this direction-challenged administration has wandered into some sort of time warp. Somebody's going to have to break it to them that Churchill and Stalin are gone and the Dodgers don't play in Brooklyn anymore.

Condi Rice seems to be the only one of the so-called Vulcans who missed the memo that it's 1939. When she made her obligatory pilgrimage to the American Legion convention in Salt Lake City last week, she referred to the enemy in the war on terrorism as "violent extremists," which sounds so 2006.

For some reason, Bush and Rumsfeld also decided to drop in on the Legionnaires' 88th yearly gathering. Cheney, meanwhile, was spending quality time with the Veterans of Foreign Wars at their convention in Reno.

Do we discern a pattern? The lavish attention being paid to veterans' groups isn't about what year it is, it's about what month it is. Unless the Republican base is somehow energized and the rest of us somehow scared stiff by November, the Democrats have a decent chance of taking the House of Representatives and even an outside shot at the Senate....

***

Rumsfeld went furthest of all in claiming that it is, in fact, 1939 -- that the jihadist terror movement presents the same kind of threat to the world that Hitler did when he invaded Poland. He set up a straw man, warning that those who do not see the threat as clearly as he does are as blind as those who tried to appease Hitler. But he doesn't specify who he's talking about. Who wants to appease terrorists? Is it Democrats? Nervous Republicans who've seen the latest polls?...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/04/AR2006090400698.html

[Frances]

1. Good article

thanks for the link

[DeepModem Mom]

2. I like it, too! Very clever. nt

[DeepModem Mom]

3. a.m. kick