MSNBC's Keith Olbermann delivered a particularly impassioned "special commentary" last night in response to this week's speech by Secty. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Here's a partial transcript of Olbermann's response on "Countdown":
[A]bout Mr. Rumsfeld’s other main assertion, that this country
faces a "new type of fascism."
As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew
everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he
said that – though probably not in the way he thought he meant it.
This country faces a new type of fascism – indeed.
Although I presumptuously use his sign-off each night, in feeble
tribute… I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalist
Edward R. Murrow.
But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could
come close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of
us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew
everything, and branded those who disagreed, "confused" or "immoral."
Thus forgive me for reading Murrow in full:
"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty," he said, in 1954.
"We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction
depends upon evidence and due process of law.
We will not walk in fear – one, of another. We will not be
driven by fear into an age of un-reason, if we dig deep in our history
and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men;
Not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to
defend causes that were – for the moment – unpopular."
Link to QT/WMV video and transcript. Text and WMV-only video also here on Olbermann's MSNBC blog. Over at the Guardian UK's blog, Gary Younge has this analysis. (Thanks, Susan, and many others)
