Where FDR Meets CTU
February 6, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Fun item in the Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire blog by Ben Winograd:
Fans of the Fox show “24″ may have noticed a subtle historical reference in Monday’s episode sure to fuel the ongoing debate over the program’s stance toward the real U.S. government’s conduct since 9/11.
For those unfamiliar with this season’s plot, U.S. cities have suffered a series of attacks over the previous three months orchestrated by a character named Abu Fayed. A nuclear bomb went off outside Los Angeles in a prior episode, and Fayed plans to detonate four more.
Hoping to head off the attacks, the president’s chief of staff has pushed for an executive order suspending habeas corpus and expanding a series of detention centers for Muslim residents. The president has resisted issuing such a decree, which he last night referred to as “Executive Order 1066.”
Though not identical, the name might remind some of Executive Order 9066, which President Franklin Roosevelt issued in February 1942. The measure led to the internment of nearly 120,000 residents of Japanese ancestry, mostly U.S. citizens. The Supreme Court blessed the tactic in the early 1940s, but the U.S. government apologized for the practice in the 1980s.
Interesting theory. My two cents: I thought 24’s mention of 1066 was a reference to the Battle of Hastings in 1066, which lead to the end of Anglo-Saxon rule over England, and thus an allegory about weak defense. Even in hindsight, though, it’s tough to tell whether William, Duke of Normandy, can be classified as an evil-doer.
Quin said,
February 6, 2007 @ 2:50 pm
I vote for William as a great man and a doer of good. And besides that, I am told I am descended from his first cousin. All hail the St. Clair (Sinclair) family!!!
Tim said,
April 6, 2008 @ 10:14 am
Not so much a weak defence as basically just a worn-out army. I think anyone would have been after marching 200 miles north, defeating the entire Viking army once and for all and thereby removing the Viking scourge from Europe (which nobody else had been able to do), and then turning around and marching back down south to face a well-rested and equipped army which was composed largely of experienced mercenaries. The fact that despite this the English army, (largely infantry) managed to hold off the Normans (infantry, heavy cavalry, and primitive artillery) for most of the day was quite an accomplishment and is known as one of the longest battles to have taken place in the mediaeval period. The Normans themselves admitted that they came within a hairsbreadth of defeat.
Despite the Vikings fierce reputation many of them said that one English soldier was worth two Viking soldiers.
As regards William…his favoured method of disposing of his enemies was by poison. He had claimed that he would defeat Harold in single-combat but when it came to it he baulked and instead sent several men on horseback to dispatch Harold, who was on foot, and in the twenty years following the invasion William was responsible for the deaths of approximately 300,000 (yes, three hundred thousand) English men, women, and children. Even his own followers, including Bishop Odo, were appalled. After the invasion France offered sanctuary to any Englishman that wanted it, the Danes twice tried to help put the Anglo-Saxons back on the throne, the Scots under King Malcolm twice tried to put the Anglo-Saxons back on the throne and offered sanctuary to any Englishman that wanted it…William a great man? Today he would have been prosecuted as a war criminal