Rumsfeld and Godwin's Law

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From Wikipedia.com:

Godwin's Law states that, as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches. [Furthermore,] There is a tradition that once such a comparison is made, the thread in which the comment was posted is over and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress.

Cunning Realist:

The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld... equated the reluctance of America's allies to get involved with the appeasement of Nazi Germany.

The Guardian, 8/21/02

"Like Hitler in his bunker, this violent extremist [Zarqawi], failing to advance his political objectives, now appears committed to destroying everything and everyone around him," Rumsfeld said.

AP, 5/26/05

"Adolf Hitler wrote things and people didn’t believe it. Here you have a person ... that’s acquiring nuclear weapons, seems to be on a path to do that saying those things."

Donald Rumsfeld on Iran President Ahmadinejad, Fox News, 1/18/06

Rumsfeld...likened al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin while urging Americans not to give in on the battle of wills that could stretch for years.

WaPo, 2/3/06

"I mean, we've got Chavez in Venezuela with a lot of oil money," Rumsfeld added. "He's a person who was elected legally -- just as Adolf Hitler was elected legally ..."

AP, 2/3/06

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is warning that Western countries must increase their defense budgets in order to prevent the rise of a "global extremist Islamic empire" that could be as deadly as Hitler's Third Reich.

Newsmax, 2/6/06

"Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis."

Donald Rumsfeld, WaPo, 3/19/06

Zbigniew Brzezinski was having none of it:

"You know, that is really absolutely crazy to anyone who knows history. When we occupied Germany in '45, there was no alternative to our presence. There was no resistance. The Germans were totally crushed. There was no resistance. And a great many Germans realized that they had to go back to the democracy that they had before Hitler came to power. And many people don't know that Germany was a thriving democracy for decades before Hitler came to power," the man who served as national security adviser under President Carter said of Rumsfeld's rant.

"The situation in Iraq is totally different. And for Secretary Rumsfeld to be talking this way suggests either he doesn't know history or he's simply demagoguing."

Right -- liar or a dope.

And, in one of those instances that has become all too common, someone who should know is speaking truth to power:

Writing in Sunday's New York Times with regard to Rumsfeld, [Paul D. Eaton, the retired Army major general who was in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003 to 2004] argued that, "He has shown himself incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more than anyone else responsible for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq."

Rumsfeld "offered" to "resign" a couple of times during the Abu Ghraib fiasco, but Bush turned him down.

It's only a matter of time before he gets a Medal of Freedom.

P.S. I don't know about you but I feel just absolutely fatigued even thinking about the collossal ineptitude of Bush and his Cabinet. Which is probably what they're counting on.

IJS.