Evil of banality

A friend forwarded this column by Jimmy Breslin, where he quotes Adolf Hitler's 1939 speech explaining why Germany was obliged to go to war on Poland. Breslin compares the banality of Hitler's phrasing (a very dull speech masking a very dramatic aggression) to the similar banality of GWB's explanation of why we have to bomb Iraq.

Therein lies the evil of banality. Combined with the banality of evil -- the readiness of the unthinking to do what they are told by those who lull them from thinking -- and you have a doubly potent weapon.