The Allen Almanac

Does Godwin’s Law apply to politics? Apparently, Harper’s was wondering the same thing:

It’s commonly understood that once Godwin’s Law is invoked, a conversation is dead—and that any person who invokes Nazis almost definitely has failed to make his point. It’s what philosopher Leo Strauss, the great inspiration to neoconservatives like Rumsfeld, called Reductio ad Hitlerum—the absurd smearing of any opposing line of thought as “Hitleresque.” He may not have been contributing to an online bulletin board, but Rumsfeld’s invocation of Nazis and the G.O.P.’s sudden interest in fascism seem to be a perfect illustration of how deep this war’s supporters must dig in order to justify a deadly folly.

Nazis, Slave holders, Communists, Appeasers, Flip-floppers the Republican party is just throwing out every dirty name they can think of in a desperate attempt to hold onto power in the face of overwhelming voter disapproval of the President (and a Congress unwilling to stand up for us). There is no substance here. It is the same marketing drivel spewed between acts of American Idol. At some point there has to be an explanation for the actions of this Administration beyond “trust us”, because that only works if the American people do. And thankfully, many Americans are realizing that they don’t.

BTW - check out this article on Donklephant.

Al Qaeda and the Taliban have traded Afghanistan for Waziristan, and gained this huge advantage: we dare not attack them there for fear of bringing Musharraf down.

Why are so we worried about General Musharraf? Because the Pakistanis have at least 15, and perhaps as many as 100, nuclear warheads. These aren’t maybe-in-five-years nukes, these are right now, tested, mounted-on-functional-missiles nukes. That single fact alone (and other factors as well) means we have to tread carefully in Pakistan because we cannot be sure that Musharraf’s replacement would be an improvment, and it’s quite likely we’d get something worse. Maybe a lot worse. Maybe about as bad as you can get.

Our goal was to deny Al Qaeda a safe haven in the near east. If this deal is what it looks like, we appear to have failed.

If this deal is what it looks like, we aren’t even back at square one: we’re wishing we could get back to square one.

In fact, if this deal is what it looks like, we just lost a war.

“Trust Us”