I hear: Ask not whether there was — technically, legalistically — a crime. Ask whether it feels like Nixon.
April 19, 2019
Nixonian!
I keep hearing that word...
I hear: Ask not whether there was — technically, legalistically — a crime. Ask whether it feels like Nixon.
I hear: Ask not whether there was — technically, legalistically — a crime. Ask whether it feels like Nixon.
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295 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 295 of 295In this [2 minute,33 seconds] clip, the candidates respond to a question about former President Harry S. Truman saying that Nixon and the Republican Party should "go to hell."
Thanks for posting this. Hilarious in this age of Trump, Clinton, and the Mueller Report quoting Trump as saying "Fuck". Little did Richard Nixon realize those Boomer Babies and Kids weren't shocked by the profanity. They LOVED the profanity. The Boomers never wanted to uphold a single moral standard - in public or private. that's why the public discourse today is a sewer and the Universities are clown colleges.
Fen: "I checked them out last night. Their main article on the Meuller report had NINE comments."
This is typical. So is zero comments.
I suspect that Althouse (who is a moderately sane liberal) has a larger conservative commentariat than National Review. I suspect her posts are read by more conservatives than posts at NR as well.
It's an odd development.
Not to mention that despite Blogger's many sins, it loads pages much quicker than NR, where the full load of a page (until your browser actually stops fetching things) may take more than 90 seconds.
Well said hombre, thx.
Nixon was a "Do this!" guy. Trump is a "Can I do this?" guy, a "Can you figure out a way to do this for me?" guy. The media is shocked! shocked! at the things that he says, but if he's not doing things that he shouldn't do, and not giving orders to do things that shouldn't be done, is there a problem?
I suspect her posts are read by more conservatives than posts at NR as well.
When I heard Sarah Sanders tell the media The White House thought Democrats wouldn’t understand Trump’s tax returns I became suspicious they are looking in at my comments here!
across the pond, they got it all straightened out,
https://dailycaller.com/2019/04/19/uk-labour-party-passover-loaf-leavened-bread/
Blogger Tank said...
After Tank's physical, and just as he was about to be drafted, Nixon "won" the war and ended the draft.
Nixon is Tank's hero.“
Mine too for similar reasons. Lost my 2-S deferment after 4 years of college and went 1-A in June of that year. Never got near my draft number, and they quit drafting in maybe September. Anticlimactic, in a good way, after four years of constant worrying about punji sticks and dying in a race paddy. The expectation of being drafted upon graduation from college was a big part of why graduate school was delayed for some of us.
The absurdity is that our understanding of what was going on in Vietnam was essentially a result of the gross mismanagement of the war by LBJ, with the MSM of those times attributing that mismanagement to Nixon who fought to win and did, thereby minimizing American service deaths. The two top years for casualties were 1967 and 1968, with a steep decline throughout Nixon’s first term, until the draft was suspended as unnecessary, a couple months before the 1972 election that he won so decisively. But those of us of draft age, and our families seem not to have been made aware of the steep decline in casualties. One of my brothers and my partner’s older brother were both apparently ready to flee to Canada, to avoid being drafted, despite not becoming eligible for the draft until after Nixon’s re-election. They, like most everyone else, were still believing that the Tet Offensive was indicative of how the war was going. It hadn’t been for better than four years in 1972 when they were getting ready to pack their bags for Canada the next year (that brother turned 18 in 1973, almost a year after the draft had been suspended).
I was serving in the Atlantic Fleet when Nixon became President, and right away the shipboard food got better. Then in 1970 Nixon appointed Elmo Zumwalt as CNO, who then tried to eliminate some of the chickenshit which was inflicted on enlisted personnel in those days. It was not enough to make me ship over, however.
The correct term is "Clintonian", after a previous president who won an election with the extensive assistance of a foreign authoritarian government, and who had his AG successfully quash any independent investigation as to whether he acted criminally despite career civil servants calling for one.
Nixon was a Socialist and I was happy when he resigned. The watergate hearings were strictly theatre. And it was the beginning of the criminal career of Hillary. What goes around comes around.
Nixon was a big government Republican. He was a terrible president who grew the size and scope of the federal government. His paranoia was the least of my concerns for his administration. His domestic policies were asinine.
Nixon was right to stop the draft. Nixon was right to draw down the Viet Nam War. Nixon was right to fight the commies.
yes the epa, and other agencies he put into place, as well wage and price controls were costly mistakes, but ford didn't have much better a clue, those disappointed with him, got carter, hold my mint julep,
Richard Milhouse Nixon was a good candidate in 1960. And he had won until the Joe's Mafia buddies did a midnight recount in Illinois. But he has never been forgiven for being a serious anti-Communist.
Interesting trivia about America in the 20th century. From the election of Eisenhower in 1952, and his inauguration in 1953, until the inauguration of Clinton in 1993, every single President was an officer or an officer cadet who was in the military in 1945.
Here are their commanding officers (not their immediate commanding officers in every case, but their highest ranking commanding officers)-
Eisenhower - General Marshall.
Kennedy - Admiral Halsey.
Johnson - Admiral Nimitz.
Nixon - Admiral Nimitz.
Ford - Admiral Halsey.
Carter - The Commandant of the Naval Academy.
Reagan - General MacArthur.
Bush - Admiral Halsey.
I may have gotten one or two wrong.
But not by much.
By the way, imho, the only one who did not cheat on his wife when he could have cheated on his wife with a really hot woman was Nixon.
The other guys who did not cheat really had no access to really hot women. I mean, can you imagine the sort of woman who would commit adultery with Jimmy Carter (who for all his faults never seemed to be an adulterer)? Sin is ugly, and there are no real gradations of ugliness to sin ---- but , nevertheless, we need to understand that sin is ugly.
I don't like politicians, but I respect Nixon, and I generally do not respect the people who mock him, as if they were superior to him.
Almost none of them are.
Looking at you , Mitt.
Nixon was not anti- communist. He was anti-Russia. His abandonment of Breton Woods, wage and price controls and expansion of government shows him to love big government. And opening China was an anti-Russia move which blew up in our face: we got North Korea and a Chinese expansion which threatens us today. Smarter than Bush or Obama? Nope.
Johnson won a Silver Star but his leadership when he was Commander in Chief, as previous posters have pointed out, was despicable and incompetent.
Smarter than Obama ?
Seriously, nobody thinks of Obama as anything but a clueless puppet.
And history will forget him, as history forgets all of us who have no greater ambition in life than to promote the servile state.
Nixon would've made a great Secretary of State. Conservatives loved him because he was anti-Communist (before he fell in love with Mao) and was hated by the Liberals. My how the Liberal/Left hated Nixon. It all went back to the Hiss Case. And that despite the fact that Nixon, on Domestic policy was almost one of them.
Despite his racism, Wallace was the best choice in 1968. Nixon should have been elected in 1960. With Ike advising him, he would've been an OK President.
His time at mudge rose gave him some h
Bad habits, he was much squishier than trump. But who were the alternatives Rockefeller Romney and scranton.
Johnson won a Silver Star but his leadership when he was Commander in Chief, as previous posters have pointed out, was despicable and incompetent.
@stephen cooper, may I please put "won" in scare quotes?
Here's the citation: “While on a mission of obtaining information in the Southwest Pacific area, Lieutenant Commander Johnson, in order to obtain personal knowledge of combat conditions, volunteered as an observer on a hazardous aerial combat mission over hostile positions in New Guinea. As our planes neared the target area they were intercepted by eight hostile fighters… The plane in which Lieutenant Commander Johnson was an observer developed mechanical trouble and was forced to turn back alone, presenting a favourable target to the enemy fighters, [and] he evidenced marked coolness in spite of the hazards involved.”
Here is a more complete account of how Johnson, in the Naval Reserve but still a congressman, acquired his Silver Star. Note that (1) he took no active part in the defense of the aircraft, and (2) the pilot, co-pilot, and other aircrew on the flight never received any recognition of any kind for the mission.
If God loved America ---- these would have been our presidents ....
1960 and 1964 - young Reagan
1968 and 1972 - Daniel Moynihan before he went crazy
1976 and 1980 - Stockdale
1984 and 1988 - Henry Hyde
1992 and 1996 - Antonin Scalia, our first Italian-American president
2000 and 2004 - ???
2008 and 2012 - Samuel Alito, our second Italian-American president
2016 - Trump
One out of 15 isn't bad.
Big Mike ----
I know what you are saying, but he could have said he did not want to go on that flight. And he would have been listened to, because he was a "Congressman"..
And he went on the flight.
Good for him, like I said, I know what you were saying, but he really could have been killed.
Look I have no idea if he took a one in a thousand chance or a one in ten thousand chance. There is a movie, South Pacific, and the first few minutes involve an aircraft flying over Japanese-held islands, and they play it for laughs ---- the pilot flies low to look at the pretty trees and gets shot at, the passenger says: hey you could have gotten us killed! ---- the pilot says, well but wasn't that kind of fun?
well Johnson was in that boat. And for the record, he deployed for weeks at a time to an area where there were no women and little booze, when he could have stayed in places where there were lots of women and lots of booze - so I give him props for that!
Thanks for reading, you may know lots more about this than I do.
And of course it was administrative incompetence on Johnson's part not to get Silver Stars for everyone else on that plane.
It is not often that anyone argues that Johnson was competent, and I for one am not going to argue that he was competent.
And yes I have about a dozen medals dating from the 90s and the 2000s and yes I would have absolutely "dodged the draft" in the 1960s when Johnson was commander in chief, you aren't ever going to hear me criticize anyone who did not want to be a ground pounder with Johnson in charge.
That being said, that day in the Pacific, in 1942 or 1943, he did show some bravery by getting on that plane,
He could have been getting on a plane that was doomed to be shot down,
it happened thousands of times.
It's an interesting scenario Steven cooper,
Reagan was just beginning his political education through the speaking tour's sponsored by ge.
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2019/04/19/levin-delivers-rant-for-the-ages-slices-and-dices-mueller-report-so-even-scarborough-tapper-can-understand-746804
A few years ago, National Review went from it's own comments section to something "powered by" (or some such) Facebook. It was immediately overrun by trolls. The old guard went off to some other website to discuss NR articles. I don't know if that still happens.
In 1960 Reagan was pretty much where Obama was in 2008, with respect to intellectual development along party lines.
sadly, both of them were astoundingly foolish in their youth. and that was harder on Obama, who decided to be servile to the Democratic party, than it was on Reagan, who was a Republican fairly young, after his years in the unions.
Well, in a 100 years, the presidents of our day will be as forgotten as the governors of the pre-Revolution colonies now are.
I mean, who besides a university professor could name a single governor of a single state pre-1776? I mean, I could, but still ....
By the way, a "Harvard Law School" education was virtually useless by the time poor little Barack got there, at least Reagan had the advantage of a few years in uniform:
Not saying that he actually had a good drill instructor (like me, back in the day, believe it or not) or that he had the advantage of being trained to lead men in battle ----- but at least he showed up for work for a few years, learned how to wear the uniform of a quality military, and was never, as far as I know, arrested by the MPs. 36 months at "Harvard Law" was, in comparison, useless.
He may have been the nearly the same age, Nixon. Actually was but he was acquiring real depth his big debut was the speech for goldwater as with ecclesiastes for everything there is a season.
Yes he was in the armys film making unit which was about morale and propaganda. Something we are in dire need of today. The former we are inundated by the latter.
A hundred years, gosh I look at the difference from 25 years ago and this country is barely recognizable
the funny thing Narciso is this.
I don't care who was President, they are all, or were, just humans. You and me are humans and we are not required to respect people just because they were politically fortunate. It means nothing to win political favor when one is young and rich, as all of them once were, except Truman, who was not rich until he was middle aged.
Most of them, like Obama, were puppets - Nixon and Trump not included. And I am not all that sure about Nixon.
I look at that sorry crew of about 40 people or so and I ask myself - which of them would have been good enough to marry a daughter of mine? Not a single one, I am a patriarch, and ....
So of course people say Johnson was this or that and what I am thinking is this, if the little bastard tried to marry a daughter of mine, he would have immediately experienced an absolute rejection.
Ditto for almost all of them.
Let us not think of "becoming president" as an important thing in this world.
Thanks for reading, and God bless everyone who decided it was not a good idea to fight in a war that Johnson was in charge of.
narciso I know what sort of person will be in charge in 25 years,
let not your heart be troubled
About 15 of the first 20 were great men.
Since then, about 5 of 25.
Rounding errors notwithstanding.
Birkel -
agreed.
I think that list is a little short obviously Lincoln grant roosevelt Coolidge
https://pjmedia.com/spengler/reservoir-democrats-prepare-a-trump-2020-landslide/
Well, at least readering showed up to continue to make a fool of itself.
Which places readering below the intelligence level of Inga. I pity the fool that's dumber than Inga!
narciso:
Which Roosevelt?
FDR was consequential but hardly great; he was horrible.
Teddy? We can discuss but I am a difficult audience.
You prefer McKinley he was tempered by his antietam experience a believer in the tariff.
Was roosevelt too confident too ambitious from his sampling of mahan.
Despite that he still drifted into a war with the dwindling power that was Spain, a splendid little war in cuba a more protracted one in the phillipines
LLR Mitt Romney has weighed in about how he is "sickened" by the administration behavior noted in the report.
I'm sickened by sycophants of the Deep State uniparty like Romney. What a smarmy piece of work. He would have been a better president than Obama, but that's a very, very, VERY low bar.
Big Mike,
I was going to point that out about LBJs medal but you beat me to it.
I would add that the reason nobody else on the mission received a medal was because they did nothing in particular to deserve one. That is not a criticism in any way. Just pointing out that it was a routine combat mission.
Johnson was given (not awarded) the medal Because MacArthur figured it stools get him some clout in DC. Nothing eles.
LBJ spent the rest of his life claiming he didn't deserve it. But every picture you can find of him up to his death shows him wearing it on his lapel. (if he has a suitcoat on)
Caro, and others, tell how LBJ would grab his lapels and shove the medal in the face of whoever he happened to be talking.
Caro qoutes someone as calling it "the least deserved and most displayed medal in history."
LBJ spent about 8 Weekes on one duty. Most of it "inspecting" skirts in Hollywood.
John Henry
On LBJ's Silver Star: it was on order of MacArthur, I believe--no fool Mac.
Another of Vietnam's ironies is that for all the blather about Nixon, as others have pointed out, US casualties went down just as intended by "Vietnamization." LBJ sent the army that JFK insisted on building after old-fogey Ike had let the ground forces slide . . . JFK and the Knights of Shamalot were going to show the world--Helicopters! Green Berets!
Victory!
I think it's still considered bad form to mention that JFK and his coterie wouldn't have given a flying fook about Vietnam if the ee-leets of that beautiful land hadn't been co-religionists. Probably better for the world in the long run if they'd been ignorable.
Narr
Proud Draft #308
In fairness to Lbj, all reports are that he was personally brave during his few minutes under fire. He didn't lay whimpering in a corner.
John Henry
As a brief aside:
Robert McNamara was the worst human being of his generation.
Yes and it was miss van den heuevels pop among other who found diem in a Mary knoll seminary and put him on the hot seat and lansdale helped him defeat the bay view the river pirates.
Stephenson who has a little fun at Reagan's expense in cryptonomicon, is rather less kind at his McNamara manque called Comstock,
Stephen Cooper,
Lbj was deployed to the Pacific for days at a time (once) not weeks.
And he was in the rear with the gear being treated exactly as one would expect a congressman with fdr's ear to be treated. Lavishly.
There is also some question about whether the plane came under fire at all.
But who was going to question the word of someone with the president's ear?
John Henry
Imagine a first quarter GDP growth number estimated at 2.8%
https://www.frbatlanta.org/cqer/research/gdpnow.aspx
Positively Nixonian!!
Don't quote me, but one account of the Silver Star mission has the plane IN RANGE of enemy fire for about 16 seconds . . .
Lyin' Bird Johnson (so I've thought of him since about 1963) knew that Siver Star was political gold, and he displayed it humbly whenever possible. (I've read that "there ought to be another word" hero Audie Murphy used to wear his medals on his suitcoat.)
Narr
WWII Brat
LBJ was the biggest "warhawk" in the USA in 1940, and promised everyone that he would be in the "front-lines" once war started. So, after Pearl Harbor he put on his Naval Commander Suit and headed for California, to "Inspect" things. Eventually, by March-April 1942, he went to Hawaii, then America Samoa,Fiji, Australia and finally he popped over to Port Moresby N.G.for one day and decided to go on ONE bombing run, so he could fulfill his pre-war promise of serving in combat.
And so, he went on the bombing raid, as an observer. IRC, the plane mysteriously developed "Engine trouble" and had to go back before bombing the target. Some say it was attacked by Zeroes, others say it wasn't.
Anyhoo, the plane returned safely, LBJ got his Silver Star and went home, and spent the rest of the war in DC, fucking his wife and mistress and living the good life. And talking about how we had to "pay any price" etc. Meanwhile, The bomber crew got no medals. For them it was just dangerous mission number 14. And they kept on till they'd served their tour of 25-35 bombing raids.
Compare that to JFK. That guy was really 4-F with his back problems. But he served in the South Pacific and won the medal of honor for his courage - if not his competence.
Narr,
A lot of ww2 vets and even some more modern ones wear civilian versions of their Silver Star or Moh on suitcoats.
It is basically a medal version of the normal ribbon. About half normal size.
It is specifically authorized by DOD. I suspect it used to be encouraged by DOD
not sure if any other medals are.
John Henry
Considering more than half of the nation wanted to end the Muller report- we ALL must be impeached.
Impeach the deplorables!
rcocean - agreed.
But that being said, I am a fan of beautiful women, and seriously, if I were the sort of person who likes to frequently indulge in the sin of fornication (I am not, for the record) I would not ever want to engage in fornication with the sort of woman who wanted to fornicate with LBJ. For obvious reasons.
Some of Kennedy's carnal partners were cute, but still - probably all of them were, to put it nicely, not completely free from germs and crab-lice and STDs. That was just how it was back in the day.
We need to keep these things in perspective.
JFK won his medal because of his family. He was certainly incompetent.
I didnt make any reference to lbjs silver star, to a degree as I tried to explain to my philly cop friend, LBJ had been trying to avoid Vietnam intervention since dien bien phu, it wasnt really in his plans, it just get popping up. He had Kennedys advisors who I dont think much of, but not his ambition about counterinsurgency conveyed in Moore's grade berts
Nixon and the EPA or Johnson and the Civil Rights Act. Hard to decide which is worse.
Oh, steve uhr, you are see through and stupid.
A more robust central government is always a net negative.
(The Laffer curve for centralized government maximizes at a very low percentage.)
Take, for example, Obama's 2% GDP growth when every other president since WWII managed better.
Just getting out of the way is worth 3%.
I think the issue is a Republican should know better than a Democrat about pie in the sky legislation or programs, that's clearly not true.
@stephen cooper, well, if you follow my hot link you will see that the missions certainly were dangerous and LBJ certainly could have been killed. There were two planes scheduled to carry observers, LBJ got on one, got off to relieve his bladder, and when he got back on his seat had been taken. Both planes came under fire, and the first one he had been on was shot down over the ocean with the loss of all aboard. So I'm not saying that he couldn't have been killed -- stay on the first plane and he does get killed. But my point is that he got our third highest medal for, basically, being a passenger on a routine mission.
As President of the United States LBJ used to boast that the Air Force couldn't so much as bomb an Vietnamese outhouse without his personal say-so. He also complained that the troops were making little progress in winning the war. The possibility of some correlation between the two statements didn't appear to have received any consideration on his part.
Big Mike,
Imagine that Robert McNamara actually believed he *should* make every detailed decision!!!!
Fucking Harvard strikes again.
Bunch of fucking over-credentialed shit heads!!!
I would not ever want to engage in fornication with the sort of woman who wanted to fornicate with LBJ. For obvious reasons.
I dunno. Helen Gahagan Douglas was his mistress in DC when he was in Congress. Nixon got into a lot of trouble beating her for the Senate in 1948.
She was pretty good looking.
At least when she was young.
Helen Gahagan Douglas was a commie shithead. The "Pink lady". That she would screw a hound-dog like LBJ because he had some power, isn't surprising. No doubt Hollywood execs like Louie B. Mayer had already had their turn with her.
JackWayne said...JFK won his medal because of his family. He was certainly incompetent.
JFK may have banged WH interns like caramel corn snacks, but there's no reason to rewrite history.
Well there were a lot of left leading women in Hollywood in the 30s, I imagine more like lois chiles than Barbara Streisand from that interminable film where the first had her debut.
I'll grant that the award was worthy I had a model of PT 109 when I was a kid. Although having James forrestal as a friend probably sped things along.
It takes a special kind of hero to have your small boat rammed by a destroyer at night.
Yes but saving your crew counts for something, let's be fair even sid vicious wasnt with Bush sr.
RC Ocean,
Should we really be discussing St Jack here? In any event, a couple clarifications
JFK did not receive the Medal of Honor. He reeived the Navy and Marine Corps Medal. It is about #6 in line and is for "non-combat heroism". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awards_and_decorations_of_the_United_States_Armed_Forces
JFK's back problems were the least of his health problems. Addison's Disease was probably the main one but there were several others. He was extremely ill all his life. He had no business being anywhere near the military. He was only in because, as a personal favor to his biggest financial supporter, FDR ordered the Navy to let him in on the condition that he have a desk job in DC.
While in DC, St Jack was engaged in an affair with Inga Arvad. She was married and adultery was a serious courtmartial offense in the Navy. Still is in theory, though perhaps not as much in practice these days.
Here husband was suspected of being a National Socialist agent. (He may not have been after all but he was thought to be at the time).
JFK was warned off of her by the FBI and threats of courtmartial but you don't really think anything would have happened to Joe Kennedy's boy, do you? So they sent him to Miami to get him away from her. He kept going back to DC and her. And one thing and another and presto, he was sent to the Pacific. It was the only way to keep them apart. How do you think it would have looked if the press had gotten wind of FDRs biggest backer's son with the wife of a NS agent? Now THAT would have been a story!
He did a reasonably good job skippering a PT boat until, somehow, he managed to get T-boned by a Jap destroyer. That's the story, anyway, and everyone stuck to it. (Papa Joe's money probably helped)
St Jack's war service was a bit more honorable than LBJ's but probably not by all that much.
John Henry
Blogger chickelit said...
JFK may have banged WH interns like caramel corn snacks, but there's no reason to rewrite history.
So you are saying that JFK was a competent Naval officer? Perhaps but just barely.
Getting T-Boned like they did was certainly not competent. If that is even what really happened.
Your mileage may vary. Where are you getting your info about his competence?
As for his political career, he was clearly incompetent. Though, since he did less as a Senator than even Senator Obama, it may be hard to classify his time as a Senator as either. He was just present.
John Henry
Admittedly this was more embarrassing than the judith Campbell affair later:
https://allthatsinteresting.com/inga-arvad
Next someone will be telling us how Joe Kennedy Jr was shot down while flying bomber missions over Germany. (He didn't. He never heard a shot fired in anger. Nor fired one)
Even today the Kennedy fog machine is all powerful.
That is what being the richest man in the world (possibly) gets you even almost 60 years after his death. (Papa Joe)
John Henry
Somebody clue me in on what Robert Tracinski is doing on Bulwark?
Is he still on Federalist?
I think hes on the roster of links they have to pretend sanity, it's a poor pretense.
I could be mistaken as hes linking Jonathan last and Oliver Darcy unironically.
Next someone will be telling us how Joe Kennedy Jr was shot down while flying bomber missions over Germany. (He didn't. He never heard a shot fired in anger. Nor fired one)
No, but he did die while piloting a plane converted into a drone and loaded with explosives over the English Channel where it blew up before he jumped out.
JFK and WWII heroism. Bad luck or carelessness to get sunk; real heroism to rescue those he could, and he does get credit from me for being in an active area when he could have stayed nearer home--hell they had PT boats in the Med. Much more suitable for a man of his tastes. Or any other man.
I know about the legit mini-medals and ribbons, my memory wants to say Murphy wore all his original ribbons. Wouldn't the etiquette be to wear the MoH bar, or at most the highest distinction and/or PH?
Narr
Sometimes there's a fine line between hero and scapegoat
Blogger Gahrie said...
No, but he did die while piloting a plane converted into a drone and loaded with explosives over the English Channel where it blew up before he jumped out.
Not questioning his bravery, Gahrie. It took balls to fly that plane off the ground.
Or desperation. Joe Kennedy as the oldest son was destined for the presidency and a record of flying boring (and safe) anti-submarine patrols would not be the stuff of derring-do that was needed. I seem to recall from one of the Kennedy family bios that there was a letter to St Jack explaining why he had volunteered for what he considered a hare-brained mission. Been a while so it might have been to someone else.
Joe Senior blamed FDR personally for killing Joe Jr. Joe Sr felt Joe Jr never should have been allowed to volunteer.
And, Narr, if the rescue story is true, St Jack did engage in some fine heroism in rescuing his men.
The problem is that the Kennedy fog machine and time has made it impossible to know what the real story is.
We are left with the old Ranse Stoddard quote: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
John Henry
You bore me, John Henry.
hell they had PT boats in the Med. Much more suitable for a man of his tastes.
But also easier for him to see Inga Arvad. Kennedy didn't volunteer for the Pacific. He was SENT to the Pacific.
Though he might have been told "Volunteer for the Pacific or be court martialed."
In case anyone has not noticed, I am not a big fan of either JFK or LBJ. Lost of different reasons, the Vietnam fiasco is number 1 on the list.
If anyone wants a good book on the political side of the fiasco, General McMaster's "Dereliction of Duty" is really hard to beat. (Portal)
John Henry
John Henry
Well what was lbjs strategy he thought he cuff negotiate with ho, that not the way it works
In the aftermath of PT-109 getting cut in half, Kennedy did show a great deal of bravery. A PT boat could not possibly be rammed by a destroyer if the crew was awake and alert. They were faster and more maneuverable.
The unofficial story I heard is that discipline on some of the PT boats was somewhat lax. And on the night patrols, especially the routine ones where nothing had happened except mindless patrolling in the dark looking for non-existent action, some crews would take time off to catch up on sleep- sometimes without a lookout and without engines running. Especially if no enemy contact was expected.
Whenever a small tightknit crew screws up that royally, and has a chance to get their stories together before being questioned, you can bet the story the investigators get is not going to have any of the part where they screwed up. They were all awake and alert and that big ass destroyer snuck up on them out of nowhere, completely silently, and cut them in half. That was their story and they stuck to it.
There wasn't any way the Navy was going to push hard to get at the real story. The hero story was even good for public affairs purposes, so it stayed and was blown up. There were lots of heroic stories in the PT boat squadrons, but the only one that everyone knows is Jack Kennedy and the PT-109. Anything else most people know about PT Boat operations comes from McHale's Navy.
I don't know what other PT boat commanders thought of Kennedy. That's never come out. The modern parallel is John Kerry's Swift boat compatriots, who to a man, didn't support him. Only the enlisted members of his own crew showed any support for him. His fellow officers held him in contempt.
hombre said...
Howard wrote: “If you people won, why do you bleat so loudly in pain and agony? If you can't stand the heat, get out of the frying pan.”
Well Howard, it’s not bleating, it’s more akin to sighing from sadness that Resisters like you and NeverTrumpers like Chuck, rather than being relieved and glad that Mueller and his Democrat button men found neither evidence nor excuse to prosecute the President of the United States for conspiring with Russia to pollute an election or obstructing justice, prefer to wallow in your delusions and smallness to the detriment of your country.
Evidence? Meh? Trump Derangement Syndrome abides.
Fuck off. I mean it; fuck you and ever other commenter here who has tried the same thing with me. Fuck all of you, because I am really tired of having to remind you that I was never enamored of any "collusion" theory and I wrote exactly that a year ago.
I always thought that the Trump Campaign was just too damned incompetent and clumsy, to pull off a high-level conspiracy with Russian intelligence. I have never once suggested that Russians messed with election results or voting tabulation or anything like that. Trump's narrow, unlikely, inside-straight electoral win was just that. An electoral win.
I do hope for some criminal charges against Trump. But my expectation is that they will stem from Trump's involvement in things like his "Individual 1" role in the Michael Cohen case. Not any Russian collusion. Unless it is merely Russian money-laundering by the Trump Organization for years.
When will Smear Merchant Chuck, fopdoodle extraordinaire, address the rumors of pedophilia?
Just raising questions.
Birkel said...
When will Smear Merchant Chuck, fopdoodle extraordinaire, address the rumors of pedophilia?
Just raising questions.
What are you suggesting? Be clear. Be specific. Not for my sake because I don't care about your bullshit.
I want you to be clear for Althouse's and Meade's moderation efforts. Is this the world of "new" Althouse moderation? Sarcastic claims of pedophilia just for the sake of personal insult? Utterly unrelated to any blog-post and also unrelated to any previous comment?
I've been reading a lot about how Trump is too stupid to commit crimes. Yahoo!, USA Today, Mediaite. And now Chuck brings it to the pages of Althouse.
Trump shatters yet another stereotype. Stupid criminals. Turns out criminals fail at their endeavors without a level of sophistication.
Who knew?
So the rumors go unanswered.
"NeverTrumpers like Chuck, rather than being relieved and glad that Mueller and his Democrat button men found neither evidence nor excuse to prosecute the President of the United States for conspiring with Russia to pollute an election or obstructing justice, prefer to wallow in your delusions and smallness to the detriment of your country."
Chuck:
Fuck off. I mean it; fuck you and ever other commenter here who has tried the same thing with me. Fuck all of you, because I am really tired of having to remind you that I was never enamored of any "collusion" theory and I wrote exactly that a year ago....I do hope for some criminal charges against Trump.
Chuck: I want you to be clear for Althouse's and Meade's moderation efforts. Is this the world of "new" Althouse moderation? Sarcastic claims of pedophilia just for the sake of personal insult? Utterly unrelated to any blog-post and also unrelated to any previous comment?
Gee, Chuck, wasn't it established that you are pro-Latam immigration because you like to punk ten-year-old cabana boys at your country club? I thought that was clearly understood.
Or maybe I have it wrong, and you like to get punked. Sorry about the confusion. Which is it? Are you the pitcher or the catcher? Or a switch?
Isn't that the kind of innuendo and calumny you like to apply to others? You legitimize your so doing because you say that President Trump has employed (much milder forms of) it. So in turn it's all good when applied to you.
Right? I mean, you are nothing if not a foolish hobgoblin of consistency. Other than defending leftists, which could be out of a personal interest, such as you all being pedophiles together.
Feel free to curse me and offer a physical challenge. I don't mind a late birthday present.
Darkisland, Gospace: affirmative on the silk purse from sow's ear spin of JFK's war record.
N.B. I think his rescue of his men was HEROIC. Just to be clear. Otherwise I'm far
from admiration for the Shamalot set. And their epigones.
Narr
Masters of P.R. it goes without saying
I don't believe that JFK got his medal for getting his boat ripped in two. No one in all these years has come forward to deny his subsequent heroism. And JFK was, apparently, a much better swimmer than his youngest brother.
Chuck said...
What are you suggesting? Be clear. Be specific. Not for my sake because I don't care about your bullshit.
Just being clear.
He is suggesting you are a Stalinist piece of shit.
I think you'll be disbarred first, Chuck. Providing youactually are an lawyer.
"What are you suggesting? Be clear. Be specific."
The topic is clearly pedophilia collusion.
Obviously.
You are familiar with that as you uncritically accepted it for 3 years.
Now hustle back to whatever lefty talking point mill funded by lefty activist billionaires you like to frequent for your next cookie and approved lefty talking points.
Try not to attack any conservatives children along the way. Try and stay focused.
Big Mike - I agree with every word you said.
Michael K - in the picture on wikipedia, which was taken when she was in her 20s, she looks like Hubert Humphrey with a wig. And I say that as a man who thinks the overwhelming majority of women are beautiful when in their 20s. But even I draw the line at women who look like Hubert Humphrey with a wig. Well, at least when I am mostly sober. And actually, even if I were not sober, I would not have wanted so much as to kiss her. Maybe if she had a few good jokes to tell, I would listen -----
....You see, I understand people like JFK.
There is a scene in a movie where Clint Eastwood and his pals try to escape Alcatraz, there is this old guy who they think may be cool enough to escape with them. But there is this scene where the once a month 'pasta day' in the jail cafeteria happens. The old guy, who is played by a Jewish actor but who is supposed to be Italian, looks at the dish of pasta the way that Dante looked at Laura (hence my Italian reference) or the way King David looked at Bathsheba (hence my Jewish reference). Sad thing, it was not good pasta, and the tomato sauce was lousy. But this loser acted like an old lady who smells some perfume that reminds her of her youth and he gushed over the crappy pasta. Thus demonstrating his unfitness for the brave escape.
They knew he was not the kind of guy who you can rely on.
JFK was a pervert, sorry to say that, and everyone who knew him well knew that. Historians are generally eunuchs when it comes to that sort of thing, but I am not.
He, the little pervert, liked to fuck as many different women as he could, because, like certain animals (tigers and cougars, for example, the poor cats), he was impotent the second time he approached the same female. He was the old pasta day guy in Alcatraz, and men do not trust men who are pasta day guys.
That being said, good for him that the enlisted guys stood up for him. That is something that every officer should be proud of.
And good for his fellow officers for understanding that the was a worthless officer. I was an officer once, too, and I know how important it is to not stand up for the louts in the officer corps.
Life is complicated. I sometimes wish I did not understand as well as I do the difference between people who deserve our admiration and those who do not, but it is what is, and I do.
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