(clip from The Fog Of War, courtesy David Roth)
Bob McNamara was not a great man. He was a man with great intelligence that didn’t prevent him from executing a plan that led to the unnecessary slaughter — for reasons that remain hard to fully comprehend — of tens of thousands of Americans and many more Vietnamese. He spent next four decades trying to come to terms with the banality of evil, with the horror of what he and those around him had done, but even his unusually candid apologies never seemed to go far enough. – Will Bunch, Philadelphia Daily News
At this hour of Mr. McNamara’s death I direct your attention to an elegy for President Kennedy:
Limousine, Midnight Blue in which the following lines occur:
“Before you tapped him / for Defense, McNamara ran Ford Motor Co., / and if we”re lucky, he”s got more bold new ideas.:”
…as well as these lines:
“Ask not what the tolling bell can do for you, / ask what it matters in eternity. / Consider the dying stars, / how they bring unfinished business to a perfect end.”
For 8 sample poems, each with its own little video, see the site above (http://www.jameyhecht.com/Site/HOME.html). Thank you.