So, did someone sabotage Bush's inauguration speech?

[elfs]

Apparently Bush's speechwriter chose to include the sentence "By our efforts, we have lit a fire as well; a fire in the minds of men," into his speech when Bush was prattling on and on about his idea of liberty.

The sentence comes from a novel by Dostoevsky, The Devils. The speech is given by a member of a titular group of terrorists who, by the end of the book, fail to end the despotic regime under which they live.

Did Ms. Rice just wince?

Comments

[slutdiary.livejournal.com]

You sent me on a bit of a Googling, and found this in a commentary on the author:

Dostoevsky, by the way, held a peculiar view of war. "War is not mankinds scourge", writes he, "but a medicine" (The Diary of a Writer). "The spiritual upsurge of the warring nation does not result in its brutalization but acts to spur it forward" (The Possessed). "Not war but rather prolonged peace lowers a nations spirit and may ultimately bestialize it".

Those quotes would appear to much closer approximate the state of mind of Bush.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

wonderf***ingful.

"But we were always at war with Oceania."

[talisker.livejournal.com]

I love it; that just made my day :)

[hangedwoman.livejournal.com]

You are truly awesome. So linking to this.

Not exact, but close

[pdurrant.livejournal.com]

<http://talk.workunlimited.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1395420,00.html>

Quote:
' "We have lit a fire as well; a fire in the minds of men" - actually has its origins in a novel by the 19th century Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Devils, about a group of terrorists' ineffectual struggle to bring down the tyrannical Tsarist regime.

One of the characters declares that it is pointless to try to put out a fire started by terrorists: "The fire is in the minds of men and not in the roofs of houses," he says.'

And the best line in the article:
'it is not clear whether Bush is identifying here with the terrorists - or the tyrants'