Doug wrote:.... "[This was pointed out by BuzzFlash.com, which mainly seems like a laundered PR arm of the Dems, but this is a gem. Rumsfeld, last night, to Jim Lehrer on the NewsHour.]
DONALD RUMSFELD: Well, I think when you say "that different," it's important to understand that you can - when the Germans transformed their armed forces into the Blitzkrieg, they transformed only about 5 or 10 percent of their force. Everything else was the same, but they transformed the way they used it, the connectivity between aircraft and forces on the ground, the concentration of it in a specific portion of the line, and it - one would not want to transform 100 percent of your forces. You only need to transform a portion."
Any of you guys remember "Gravity's Rainbow"? I never cared that much for Pynchon -- pretty sophomoric all in all -- BUT I was impressed with what I took to be the main thesis of Rainbow, which was that WWII is not over yet, it just went underground for a couple of generations.
This thesis ran counter to what my father (a jew) would say in his more tender moments: "The one thing our generation accomplished was the defeat of the Nazis." Nevertheless, I think I agree with Pynchon.
Joanna B.