Crazy... and desperate.
And, of course, it wasn't a right-winger who shot JFK.
Why did Lee Harvey Oswald kill Kennedy? Here are the Warren Commission's meanderings on the motive for assassination:
It is apparent, however, that Oswald was moved by an overriding hostility to his environment. He does not appear to have been able to establish meaningful relationships with other people."Meaningful relationships" — now there is a 60s catchphrase. I'm glad — but I wonder why — no one uses it anymore.
He was perpetually discontented with the world around him. Long before the assassination he expressed his hatred for American society and acted in protest against it. Oswald's search for what he conceived to be the perfect society was doomed from the start. He sought for himself a place in history — a role as the "great man" who would be recognized as having been in advance of his times. His commitment to Marxism and communism appears to have been another important factor in his motivation. He also had demonstrated a capacity to act decisively and without regard to the consequences when such action would further his aims of the moment. Out of these and the many other factors which may have molded the character of Lee Harvey Oswald there emerged a man capable of assassinating President Kennedy.So it was lefty idealism and disconnection from the practical limits of the real world?
Hmmmm....
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66 comments:
i always felt he was a tool of Castro. It would explain the vehemence of our embargo.
Well there you have another example of lefty projection. Big surprise huh?
But it makes you wonder just how far the "ends justify the means" crowd is willing to go? You keep hearing about the inevitability of "right wing" violence and we already know that these folks use Mobies and plants to try and smear the right.
I would put nothing past them as they become increasingly desperate and unhinged.
It almost seems that they are anxious for somebody, anybody to try again, so that they can blame the John Birchers.
I hope we're smart enough to realize that, should any violence occur, it's not a good reason to accept stupid plans. (See "The Great Society")
My hunch is that Oswald, if alive today, would be condemning the "rightwing" for their racist and fascist behavior. Probably be a big fan of Olbermann's too.
See? Everybody can play the game of "Pin the assassin on your opponent."
Remember kids, adults only.
Batteries not included.
(Link fixed. Thanks for the heads up.)
The inability to see who made this insanely stupid comment who is obviously either too young or too stupid to have seen what they're claiming we've seen, has compelled me to prepare a salad with the best raspberry vinaigrette on Earth.
OK, now I'm satisfied. Thank you.
I've never been big on Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories, but it always seemed plausible to me that Oswald was with the CIA. The whole Marxist-going-to-Russia bit could have been a cover for a U.S. spy in the Soviet Union.
In which case, Kennedy could very well have been the victim of a right-wing plot.
Not that I'm any kind of obsessive expert on the matter.
Even if Oswald was a lefty, he was obviously motivated by right wing hate.
And you, a law professor!
I always thought Oswald was working for big pharma.
So it was lefty idealism and disconnection from the practical limits of the real world?
By the time Oswald shot Kennedy he had become deeply embittered and increasingly desperate. His marriage was falling apart and everything he tried to do was turning into bitter ashes.
The Soviet Union turned out to be a "God that failed" and his efforts to go to Cuba were turned down.
If the CIA (or larger forces) were involved in the assassination, he never would have been captured by Dallas police and held for two full days before getting killed himself.
He would have vanished, erased from the world.
He was a desperate man who got, well, "lucky" that day, making a mark on history as he said he wanted to do.
Even if Oswald was a lefty, he was obviously motivated by right wing hate.
Good point, Snell! All hate is ultimately right-wing, ergo even lefties who do violent things are simply responding to right-wing impurities in their ids.
JFK was assassinated by a Marxist who had spent time in the Soviet Union. RFK was assassinated by a Palestinian immigrant who hated Israel.
Neither could be even fleetingly described as a "right winger".
Eric Boehlert is full of shit.
Boehlert and other leftist loons seem to get a hard on just thinking about the prospect of Obama being elevated to martyred hero status. Disgusting.
The site wisely blocks your view of the article with a popup begging for money before you've had a chance to read it.
"Boehlert and other leftist loons seem to get a hard on just thinking about the prospect of Obama being elevated to martyred hero status. Disgusting."
Agreed. Does Nancy Pelosi and her crowd ever worry how these lefty assassination fantasies could affect the mentally unhinged on both ends of the political spectrum?
Neither could be even fleetingly described as a "right winger".
Ah, but the "right wing" environment that they lived in forced them to take desperate measures.
They simply lashed out in anger.
Just as the rightwing excesses of Bushco and the neocons drove the left to their extremes during his presidency.
See? It's really quite easy.
I think he had a crush on the USSR and communism and wanted to impress someone... to be important...
Pretty much the exact same motivation as Hinkley.
The only thing that really smells fishy to me about that incident is Dr. Jolly West (who, topically, killed an elephant with LSD) visiting Jack Ruby in his cell, then Ruby being dead a few hours later.
You don't understand. Compared to these people, Sirhan Sirhan and Lee Harvey Oswald were right wingers.
I think he had a crush on the USSR and communism and wanted to impress someone... to be important...
Well, he shoots the President and then leaves the building with about $12 in his pocket. He left all of his money and wedding ring for his wife and children who were living separated from him because he couldn't afford living quarters for all of them.
He catches a cab, then a bus, returns to his flop house, gets his gun, shoots a police officer, runs into a theater and is captured.
He had no plan. He just acted impetuously.
Sidebar:
In an interview with Associate Press reporter Daniel Harker on September 7, 1963, Castro said, "United States leaders should think that if they are aiding terrorist plans to eliminate Cuban leaders, they themselves will not be safe."
"The last time the right was wild with hatred of the Left, a Leftist assassinated the President!"
Oh wait.
Nevermind.
Moving on now.
In which case, Kennedy could very well have been the victim of a right-wing plot.
The CIA then and now was populated by Ivy League folks that were "sophisticated" and Elitist than your average redneck wingnut.
Because the Statute of Limitations has passed, it's now safe for me to acknowledge that I had no idea why either JFK or RFK was killed and it seemed like a terrible idea for either of them to have been killed. Of course, I was a Blue Dog Dem at the time so maybe my responsibility back then was negligible.
wv: catopers are sneaky!
I want to be Jackie Onassis, oh yeah!
I want to be Jackie Onassis
I want to wear a pair of dark sunglasses
I want to be Jackie Onassis, oh yeah
I want bodyguards all around
I'm anxious to avoid an autograph hound
Just let me be Jackie Onassis, oh yeah
I'm ready for the world to take a good look at me
Photographers can snap my picture, I'll pose for free
Tabloids can make my name a household word
I'll belong to millions but be free as a bird
I want my portrait done by Andy Warhol
I'll let them market a Jackie O doll
Just let me be Jackie Onassis, oh yeah...
First the world will call me Bouvier, hey
Then I'll change to Jackie K.
After my date with tragedy
I'll let Aristotle take care of me
I want to be Jackie Onassis, oh yeah
I said, I'd be happy to be Jackie
Oh yeah, oh yeah...
I'd be so happy, then I'd be pleased!
I'd make Ari go down on his knees!
The Warren's description of LHO sounds like a description of BHO - only the victim this time is the U.S.A.
Placing the conservatives at the bottom of the Kennedy assassination was the only way they could blame 'Nam on the right and still hang onto Jack as one of theirs. He was a reckless adventurist (JFK) and incompetent in many ways, but, anyone with his attitudes on defense today, would be reviled by the Kos Kids and the Puffington crowd.
I recommend Norman Mailer's book "Oswald's Tale" to those who want to see a riveting portrait of Oswald. It's one of Mailer's best books, and the very best of his later career. Mailer concluded that Oswald acted alone, and was neither a Russian or Cuban agent, not a right wing pawn. He does express some gnawing doubt about the Cuban connection though.
I was 20 years old when Kennedy was killed. No question Dallas had a big concentration of right wing crazies, but Kennedy's killer Oswald was not someone with Dallas roots, and he was a communist. I remember being a bit surprised that the shooter was left wing rather than right.
I want to be Jackie Onassis
I want to wear a pair of dark sunglasses
I want to be Jackie Onassis, oh yeah
If I read the meter right, she also wanted to be an Airborne Ranger, EDH
Desperate?
I think Althouse has it right. The lefties are absolutely stunned that the right and the middle are fighting back effectively against Obama's attempt at a huge boost in government power and involvement, especially in health care. They are having a gigantic collective hissy fit.
Some people make a hobby of this and I just happened to accidentally watch a single television special, but it seemed that Oswald had tried to "defect" either to the USSR or Cuba, both or either, and had been turned away. In that context shooting the President to make himself attractive to them might not have been entirely sane, but makes sense when looked at from a particular point of view.
(The show I was watching was definitely on the side of "he acted alone." Sort of a conspiracy debunker.)
Synova--Oswald did defect to Russia. Lived there for an extended period of time. Had a job in a factory. Became proficient in the Russian language. That's where he met and married Marina. He did not fit in there, just as he had never fit in here.
Book by Eric Boehlert.
Think he is writing another critique?
Think he is writing another critique?
I doubt they'll be a Volume II on the Obama Administration if that's what you're asking.
George Soros must asking himself, "This is what I get for all of that money? This??"
It's clear, then, that Oswald was a Racist. QED
David, You have failed to comprehend the difference between "winning" on Fox News and winning in Congress. The health reform bill has one more committee to clear and it will become law in the coming months. The failure is purely of the chicken littles--all two million of you!!
Shorter Boehlert:
Shut up. We won.
WV: StSiti, patron saint of couch potatoes
I do find it amazing, the attempt to so massively and blatantly rewrite history.
No, Oswald and Sirhan were not conservative, as noted above. And JFK was a fairly moderate Democrat, fairly strong on national defense.
And Hitler and Mussolini weren't conservatives either. They were both socialists. I have always found it humorous that leftists could portray Bush as Hitler with impunity, but get exceedingly irate if anyone points out that Obama is far closer to both of them - IMHO I think closest to Mussolini and Fascism, versus Hitler and his Nazism.
And, I would not be surprised if at least some, likely with Speaker Pelosi in the front, tried to use the levers of government to shut down dissent, in a way very similar to what both those men did, for arguably very similar reasons.
Let's see: the guy who shot Reagan?
The guy who shot JFK?
McKinley's assassin was an anarchist (left).
Garfield's assassin: at least he wasn't a rightie.
The tea party in DC didn't even have a single arrest. It was all peace, love, and understanding.
Pelosi is the wicked witch of the west, and is all wet, and her base is shrinking.
As for the article -- the guy cites Sam Kashner -- who would have been about eight when JFK was shot. But the writer makes it sound as if Kashner was there.
Kashner was sent home from first or second grade that day when the schools were closed.
Everything about the article was wildly wrong.
I suppose being incapable of seeing the need to discern between meaningful relationships and meaningless relationships depends upon the degree to which one is willing to condone the manipulation of others. Which would explain a lot of the paranoia that permeates this discussion board.
No one believes that Jeffrey Dahmer's relationships or Charles Manson's relationships were meaningful.
The clarification isn't as necessary anymore because a lot of people know more about psychopathy now than they did in the early 1960s. But don't let that stop you.
The absence of paranoia, you mean?
Wait. So a right-winger is one who only acts in defense of his country if his country is America, but if his country is Jordan, and he acts in the supposed defense of that country's honor, then he is not of the right? Are you saying that you can only be a right-wing patriot if you are an American?
Are you saying that Sirhan Sirhan didn't want to roll back the status quo to one that existed 20 years previously? Because if he did, I hardly see how that makes him progressive, liberal.
Nice theory on the anti-conservative nature of Palestinian nationalism you guys have going for you, there. And by nice, I mean ridiculous.
Their projection knows no bounds
First we're treated to Nancy Pelosi reminding us that a Democrat politician murdered the mayor of San Francisco and its first openly gay Supervisor.
And now lefty organization Media Matters reminds us that a Democrat invaded Camelot and killed King Arthur.
But they may have a point.
After all, it is Barack Obama who is committing war crimes in Pakistan - murdering men, women and children without Congressional authorization.
After all, it is Barack Obama who is now ordering CIA renditions - kidnapping citizens outside the borders of the United States.
It is, after all, Barack Obama who is the landlord of Guantanamo Bay.
It is Barack Obama reauthorizing Patriot Act provisions; filing suit against gay couples to stop them getting benefits; signing Presidential statements asserting the unitary executive; maintaining secret prisons in foreign countries; suspending Habeaus Corpus for 3,000 prisoners at Baghram.
Barack Obama is committing crimes against liberals.
I'm sure they're worried one of their pissed off own will take him out.
Just like Jack Kennedy.
The absence of paranoia, you mean?
Delusional, paranoid... two different sides of the same coin.
So you're making a cosmopolitan argument, MUL?
Patriotism leads to violence? Nationalism leads to violence? So what we should aim for is not loving our country first? We ought to, as peace loving peace-niks love in a more encompassing, whole of humanity, way?
And at what point can we point out that, indeed, the left (if this is an argument you think represents the left or liberals) are unpatriotic because, as you've explained so very well, Patriotism leads to violence?
I think the standard, no lose position of Democrats on various assassinations has been that it shows the need for gun control. If some nut, inflamed by Nancy Pelosi's hateful rhetoric, shot Joe Wilson, then Nancy would say that it shows the need for stricter gun control measures.
I think that most liberals would insist that they are SO Patriotic, that they love their country first.
So how do you argue that the actual political orientation of someone is overborne by their nationalistic feeling and thus makes them right wing?
I think that all of those on the left will be surprised to note that you've declared them politically right wing because they love their country.
I think that all of those on the left will be surprised to note that you've declared them politically right wing because they love their country.
I think people on the left will be happy to know I agree that, as much as they love their country, they love their hold on sanity even moreso.
Unlike Sirhan Sirhan. And unlike more than a few of the leading lights among the American right.
Patriotism leads to violence? Nationalism leads to violence? So what we should aim for is not loving our country first? We ought to, as peace loving peace-niks love in a more encompassing, whole of humanity, way?
There's nothing wrong with people fighting for what they love. Assuming they can adequately perceive a mortal threat to what they love.
On this I agree with Speaker Pelosi. If anything should happen to the various Democrats currently in power, it's much more likely to be a Dan White, or a Charles Guiteau committing violence. It's the insanity of a compatriot that feels slighted, and possibly under the bus thrown, that should worry the President, and the Speaker.
(I know that's not what she meant, but my knowledge about what happened to Moscone and Milk is less faulty than her memory, strangely)
Lefty idealism divorced from the practical limits of the real world?
You know, one could say teabaggers suffer from impractical idealism. The government services they call to repeal are the very services they seek to sustain and expand.
One could also say that practical limits are different from intransigence. It is one thing for a task to be impossible because another person is obstructing you and something else for it to be impossible because it cannot be done. If you are walking for the exit and someone tackles you, that is quite a different affair than if the door is false and opens to a brick wall.
You know, one could say teabaggers suffer from impractical idealism. The government services they call to repeal are the very services they seek to sustain and expand.
One could, if one had a less than passing familiarity with rational thought.
Is the left getting less comprehensible here? Oswald was a right-winger because he was a patriotic Communist? Protesters are trying to expand what they're trying to eliminate?
WTF?
So, by that description of Oswald, I think we should be keeping a close eye on Van Jones.
Nancy Pelosi fixes her face after the crying
The government services they call to repeal are the very services they seek to sustain and expand.
I'm not aware of the services they are calling to repeal.
I am aware of the services they do not wish to expand.
And I am aware of the services they (or many of them) do not want reduced (Medicare, for example).
SM Galbraith - love your grasp of the facts.
Bugliosi (no right-winger he) did the most definitive book on the assassination outside of the Warren Report. Anyone who claims that there was anyone but LHO involved must read and refute the 2000+ pages of material VB compiled over the course of 30 years.
Btw, I've told this story before on Althouse. I had dinner once with friends who raised the issue of the Kennedy assassination. Not one could believe I thought LHO was responsible. Each one had their own "theory" on what happened but none could detail any facts on which their theory was based. Then none of knew who Sirhan Sirhan was.
Joseph N. Welch said...
"David, You have failed to comprehend the difference between "winning" on Fox News and winning in Congress. The health reform bill has one more committee to clear and it will become law in the coming months."
Yeah, I agree that some bill is likely to become law. (Of course it will not go into effect until 2013, so that its defects will not cost Obama votes.) Exactly what will be in that bill is far from clear. One of my hopes is that Congress (and the President) will actually understand what they are doing before they vote. I would not bet money on this though.
The real Joseph N. Welch is a hero of mine. Believe me, commenter, you are no Joseph N. Welch.
Anyone who claims that there was anyone but LHO involved must read and refute the 2000+ pages of material VB compiled over the course of 30 years.
The Warren Commission Report has received unfair criticism, most of it, to be blunt, by either frauds or people who never read it.
It's here: Warren Commission.
It's a terrific piece of work.
For example, the so-called "magic bullet" theory is easily explained (by Arlen Spector, chief investigator). If the bullet did not exit the President's throat and hit Connally, then where did it go? It must have gone somewhere.
But there is no evidence within the president's limousine that it hit anywhere other than Connally.
I'll stop here; I'm pretty sure we don't want to have a discussion on the JFK assassination here. What a mess those are.
Thanks.
Once again liberal dogma changes the truth into a lie.
Nancy Pelosi is out of her fraekin' mind - literally - she has some mild form of delusion, of mental illness.
Harvey Milk wasn't killed by a right winger mad at his political views. He was killed by someone upset at the way he was treated. It wasn't political.
Lee Harvey Oswald was a LEFT-WINGER.
These people - the writer of this article - are the ones who are actually dangerous, the ones who create the atmosphere of hatred that they decry.
Left wing/liberal Mental Illness.
Seriously.
The allegation that violent right wingers are hating Obama is made up from whole cloth. The reason for this may be to set up Republicans for taking the fall, if there is an attack made upon President Obama. The wounded President, courageously recovering and fighting harder for Health Care for all, sounds like a plan the today's Dems are fully capable of doing to him. The capture of the American economy and government and military is not something they will assent to losing by a fair election.
"...the last time right-wing hatred ran wild like this."
"Hatred"? "Ran wild?"
The people who write that kind of stuff seem to have no perspective. Some very nice average Americans go to their local town hall meetings on health care and boo and shout with anger when their officials try to speak nonsense...then some other nice, average Americans go to Washington and march with homemade signs to protest the Democratic plan. And this is characterized as "right-wing hatred running wild"?
Do they have any idea what actual hatred looks like? What real hatred running wild looks like? I think you have to look at something like what happened in Rwanda or at least in Los Angeles in the 1991 riots to see "hatred running wild". When was the last time anyone can point to a mob of Republican voters running wild, beating, clubbing, and machete-ing people to death? THAT would be "hatred running wild", not the mild-mannered political protesting we've been seen. I mean, Christ, have we even seen one frickin' broken window? Has anyone even LITTERED at these protests, for chrissake?
The government services they call to repeal are the very services they seek to sustain and expand.
Anyone decoded this statement yet?
The health reform bill has one more committee to clear and it will become law in the coming months. The failure is purely of the chicken littles--all two million of you!!
If I were you, I'd worry about the six million. That is, the difference between the 132 million Americans who oppose the bill and the 126 who support it. But by all means, if you want to pass an unpopular, budget-busting bill without ANY Republican cover, you go right ahead and do so.
2010 should be interesting.
The author grasps at straws to reach the conclusion that the extremists are "right wing" haters.
As usual.
So in not so many words the commission proclaimed that Oswald was an extreme left-wing, Marxist, Communist, sociopath who projected his will for dissatisfaction at American Society by killing its figurehead as a means to an end. Well, it looks like he should be commended for a job well done. Afterall, we are still dealing with the reverberations of Kennedy's assassination to this day. From political ideology, so societal upheaval to still being stuck with left-wing craziness ad infinitum.
Not only did his political assassination kill a president, it killed a country. With Leftism.
Sam Kashner co-wrote "Hollywood Kryptonite" on the death of George Reeves. Jack (Jimmy Olsen) Larson called it "Hollywood Kraptonite." More crap from Kashner!
http://armandsrancho.blogspot.com/2009/09/looney-left-report-right-wing-hatred.html
Note that dissembling and hair splitting in his work. It's not so much that it's a right-winger who killed JFK, it's that the air was rife with right-wing hatred. It's a correlation that there is such a correlation is evidence of his own cahrayzeeeness!!!
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