My last two postings have been on “groupthink,” and the evidence that it is alive and well in the current White House.

Before I leave the subject, at least for now, I’d like to recommend a fable by James Thurber that seems particularly pertinent these days. Thurber (1894-1961) was a writer and cartoonist with a notably mordant sense of humor.

Case in point is his fable entitled, “The Owl Who Was God.” The crux of the story is that when the forest animals discover that the owl can see in the dark, they decide that he is the greatest and wisest of all animals, and they ask him to be their leader. (The few skeptics who want to know if the owl can see in the daytime as well are hooted out of the community for asking such a silly question.)

Thurber’s fable concludes as follows:

When the owl appeared among the animals it was high noon and the sun was shining brightly. He walked very slowly, which gave him an appearance of great dignity, and he peered about him with large, staring eyes, which gave him an air of tremendous importance. “He's God!” screamed a Plymouth Rock hen. And the others took up the cry “He's God!” So they followed him wherever he went and when he began to bump into things they began to bump into things, too. Finally he came to a concrete highway and he started up the middle of it and all the other creatures followed him. Presently a hawk, who was acting as outrider, observed a truck coming toward them at fifty miles an hour, and he reported to the secretary bird and the secretary bird reported to the owl. “There's danger ahead,” said the secretary bird. “To wit?” said the owl. The secretary bird told him. “Aren't you afraid?” he asked. “Who?” said the owl calmly, for he could not see the truck. “He's God!” cried all the creatures again, and they were still crying “He's God!” when the truck hit them and ran them down. Some of the animals were merely injured, but most of them, including the owl, were killed.

Moral: You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.