"The Owl Who Was God"

[ndrosen]

There's a fable by James Thurber, "The Owl Who Was God." Other animals notice that the owl can see in the dark, and mistake his few syllables (like "to wit" and "to who") for great wisdom. When someone asks whether the owl can see in the daytime, too, the other animals are offended, and drive away the impertinent questioner. The owl's day-blind leadership finally gets most of the animals killed, with the others only injured. Thurber's moral is "You can fool too many of the people too much of the time."

I hope that this does not become the epitaph for America's experiment with constitutional democracy.