The Black Republican

Here at TBR, we recently had a discussion with a reader who insisted that our military has created a prison system for captive enemies that is comparable to the old Soviet Gulags. I believe that we won the argument, and that the claim made by upyernoz was ridiculous. The hyperbole in his charge is similar to that which we hear often lately, wherein the word worst is tossed about with ease, and the names of the most infamous people, places and actions of the twentieth century are conjured up to defame contemporary people, places and actions.

Bret Stephens' Just Like Stalingrad explains why using Hitler, Gulags, Holocaust, worst economy, international failure, worst President, etcetera to describe today's people and events is not only incorrect, but also damages the language.

So here is one aspect of this insanity: no sense of proportion. For Mr. Blumenthal, Fallujah isn't merely like Stalingrad. It may as well be Stalingrad, just as Guantanamo may as well be Lefertovo and Abu Ghraib may as well be Buchenwald, and Mr. Bush may as well be Hitler and Hoover combined, and Iraq may as well be Vietnam and Bill Clinton may as well be Franklin Roosevelt.

The absence of proportion stems, in turn, from a problem of perspective. If you have no idea where you stand in relation to certain objects, then an elephant may seem as small as a fly and a fly may seem as large as an elephant. Similarly, Mr. Blumenthal can compare the American detention infrastructure to the Gulag archipelago only if he has no concept of the actual size of things. And he can have no concept of the size of things because he neither knows enough about them nor where he stands in relation to them. What is the vantage point from which Mr. Blumenthal observes the world? It is one where Fallujah is "Stalingrad-like." How does one manage to see the world this way? By standing too close to Fallujah and too far from Stalingrad. By being consumed by the present. By losing not just the sense, but the possibility, of judgment.

So, the next time a blame America first liberal speaks out, repress the desire to castigate him for telling the biggest lies since back when Clinton disgraced the Presidency. For, that would certainly be disproportionate, the lies then were too many, too bald; and they haven't stopped coming yet.