If you're not with us (yawn) ...you're (yawn) etc...

This is getting a little old.

When you're getting your annual physical from the Doctor and he takes that funky little hammer with the rummer end shaped like a tomahawk and taps your knee with it, your leg automatically kicks out. If you're blessed not to be physically or neuorologcially damaged, it's a natural response.... a reflex action. Well, our good friends in the Republican Party have developed a couple of verbal reflex actions that we can count upon with the same reliability as the doctor hitting us with that funky little hammer. Truth be told, they're getting a little tiresome and it looks like Glenn Reynolds at Unclaimed Territory is equally tired of hearing at least one of them and does a masterful job of shooting down the talking point du jour of the Republican talking heads.

I think Glenn is particularly miffed that Republicans have been painting themselves as "Churchillian" in this "epic struggle" and Karen Hughes has outright characterized her George W. Bush as such a few times in the post-9/11 world. Glenn does a far better job of documenting it than I and proceeds to tear down the RW talking point with quotes from Churchill AND Abraham Lincoln, actually from CONGRESSMAN Abraham Lincoln.

Churchill and Lincoln share a spot in the American heart for the courage they exhibited during times of great peril to their respective nations. What Greenwald points out so successfully is that they did so not by cutting off debate or (although Lincoln suspended the Chicago Newspaper obstenbibly for publishing military secrets) demanding blind, unquestioning allegiance, but by demanding that debate take place.

Churchill, for example did the most risky thing imaginable in a Parliamentary form of Government: He demanded a debate AND a vote of confidence. As we all know, a vote of "No Confidence" in such a system triggers resignations and new elections. But Churchill demanded it. And even better, in his address demanding that the debate (and subsequent vote) take place, he said this:

Therefore, I feel entitled to come to the House of Commons, whose servant I am . . . I have never ventured to predict the future. I stand by my original programme, blood, toil, tears and sweat, which is all I have ever offered, to which I added, five months later, "many shortcomings, mistakes and disappointments." But it is because I see the light gleaming behind the clouds and broadening on our path, that I make so bold now as to demand a declaration of confidence of the House of Commons as an additional weapon in the armoury of the united nations"

let me repeat myself:

"to which I added, five months later, "many shortcomings, mistakes and disappointments"..."

Churchill dealt with Parliament (House of Commons) in the most honest, straightforward manner he could muster and he won the debate AND the vote.

There is also an interesting quote from Lincoln in there where he criticizes President Polk for taking war powers upon himself. Lincoln refreshes to the logic of the framers of the Constitution in making Congress and not the President responsible for declarations of War. Alberto Gonzales should read it sometime because it makes the argument of the "unitary executive" seem small and weak by comparisom.

Greenwald's summary is priceless...and damning

snip:

The view of America as advocated by George Bush and his followers is as antithetical as can be even to the views of the individuals to whom they claim allegiance. They exploit historical events and iconic individuals as tawdry props, and they neither understand them nor actually care about their meaning. They turn them into cheap cartoons -- Churchill! Lincoln! America! -- drained of their actual substance and converted into impoverished, degraded symbols used to promote ideas that are the exact opposite of what they actually embody.

Churchill accomplished exactly that which Bush cannot manage -- namely, he convinced his country that the war he was leading was legitimate and necessary and that confidence in his war leadership was warranted. It's precisely because Bush is incapable of achieving that that he and his followers are now insisting that democratic debate itself over the Leader and the war is illegitimate and unpatriotic. One can call that many things. "Churchillian" isn't one of them. Nor, for that matter, is "American."

Over on Crooks and Liars there is another message. This one to Sean Hannity from Teddy Roosevelt. It seems Mr Hannity had his "enemy of the State" segment changed to" enemy of the week". It seems that in order to qualify to become an "enemy" of the state/week all you have to do is criticize the President or the Administration. (Are we sensing a theme here?) Here's what that President Teddy Roosevelt had to say:

Teddy Roosevelt in his own words
"[The President] should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole.
Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.
To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. "

hehehehe......'nuff said.

And finally, we might ask ourselves "what is the danger in "rallying behind" the President in times of great striff or great danger? What, indeed is the danger in presenting a "unified front" to the enemy?"

What indeed?

Click on this link and let the great actor Spencer Tracey tell you.