Post a Comment On: Internal Monologue

I'm not the only one who thinks it is completely bonkers for The Claremont Institute to give Donald Rumsfeld its Churchill award. Scott Horton in Harper's:
Churchill had a firm grasp of the common cultural values of the Anglo-Saxon peoples—of the role of Rule of Law and the eternal quest for freedom as the inspiration for their evolution. Rumsfeld, on the other hand, unleashed a Hobbesian chaos on Iraq and, when challenged, uttered “stuff happens.” One is perhaps the greatest political orator of the last century, the other a bumbler so comical that his words provide endless material for political satirists. One was a man of a great moral vision, the other a figure so morally compromised that he is likely to pass the balance of his life battling well-grounded charges of war crimes. They come as close to being polar opposites as possible in the English-speaking world.
(via Sullivan, as usual). This whole Iraq fiasco is a stark demonstration of how different groups of people can live in very differnent realities.