Analogy of the Day

YOU ARE VISITING THE OLD MALKIN(S)WATCH. THAT'S FANTASTIC. PLEASE VISIT THE NEW MALKIN(S)WATCH WHEN YOU GET A CHANCE.

Lex, a commenter on Eric Muller's response to Michelle's McCloy post, says:

Earth to Michelle: You now are officially like the Black Knight in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," all extremities lopped off, writhing on the ground, spurting blood and shouting, "It's only a flesh wound."

To paraphrase a line from my kids' current favorite movie, it'd be nice if some asses just stayed kicked, y'know?

Muller, meanwhile, is right as usual.

So her claim is really this: Out of many thousands of decoded Japanese diplomatic cables, there were several that mentioned the idea of Japanese American espionage. We have no idea whether they were true, or whether anyone actually saw them, or what meaning anyone ascribed to them at the time, or what action anyone thought they required. We can't have any idea about those things, because the cables were too top-secret for anyone to mention in any document or conversation that appears in the historical record. But surely those messages, and not the hysteria, racism, and economic opportunism that scholars have documented, just must have been the justification for the evacuation and internment!

It'd be nice if some asses just stayed kicked.