They Were the Best and the Brightest

They went to all the best schools, Eton and Harrow and University at Cambridge. The traveled in the best circles. They did the grand tour with servants and porters. The youngest son went to Sandhurst and did military service. He went to France with the BEF in 1914-17 and taught the Germans a good lesson confronting Spandau machine guns with his chest. They mourned him. Their influence spread through the British political system and when a guttersnipe named Adolph Hitler began to organize a German political party they dismissed him as a fringe player. Sure, he said , “When we are in power we’ll kill all the Jews“. “Ahh” the best and brightest said, “That’s just for local consumption, he doesn’t really mean it.” They all knew the truth because they were smart. Everyone told them so. They went into politics and the professions. God forbid they should build manufacturing businesses. “Those people” did that. We go to Ascot and get married in the right Churches to girls from the right families. And about that fellow Churchill, horrible man, didn’t even study Latin or Greek. American mother of all things. So we all knew he was wrong when he began to warn of German militarism. Hitler had as we all knew every right to re-occupy the Rhineland, After all he was just taking a walk round his own backyard. And everyone knows that increasing defense spending would just compound the problem and might antagonize the Germans who as we all know just want some living space in Europe and look at all those people of German ancestry who are being mistreated in Czechoslovakia and Poland. Everybody who is anybody says so. Except that foolish old failure Churchill. And he’s not one of us is he? So the best and the brightest talked about Czechoslovakia being “A small county far away about which little is known” and abandoned them to their fate, giving up the fourth largest land army in Europe and turning the Skoda arms factory over to the Germans undamaged . When that silly bugger Churchill got up in the House of Commons to talk about an “Unmitigated Defeat” why the best and brightest simply had to shout him down. And they did. Because they were the “Best and the Brightest” and besides killing all the Jews had its advantages didn’t it. Troublesome, argumentative buggers, all of ‘em. Besides didn’t our own Neville Chamberlain get Herr Hitler to sign a paper guaranteeing “Peace in our time” Remember that when some smooth talking pol shows you his CV remind yourself about Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn talking about the Kennedy’s and their retinue. Johnson raved about how smart they were and all the great schools they went to. Rayburn though for a minute and replied “You’re probably right but I just wish one of ‘em has run for County Commissioner back home.”