Category: History

The Vietnam-9/11 connection?

“There was another price to our withdrawal from Vietnam, and we can hear it in the words of the enemy we face in today’s struggle — those who came to our soil and killed thousands of citizens on September the 11th, 2001.” Every time he thinks he’s going to wake up back in the jungle…In a fit of self-serving revisionism, Dubya attempts to reinvent the lessons of Vietnam before the Veterans of Foreign Wars, arguing that our problems really began because we withdrew from Southeast Asia too early. (Also, apparently we lost the war because of Graham Greene’s The Quiet American.

So, on the bright side, it looks like Dubya is progressing along his high-school reading list.) As you might expect, this line of argument is not sitting well with many historians, among them the venerable Robert Dallek: “What is Bush suggesting? That we didn’t fight hard enough, stay long enough? That’s nonsense. It’s a distortion,’ he continued. ‘We’ve been in Iraq longer than we fought in World War II. It’s a disaster, and this is a political attempt to lay the blame for the disaster on his opponents. But the disaster is the consequence of going in, not getting out.‘”

We’ll Go No More A-Roving?

“I’m leaving on my own terms and I’m leaving with a clear-eyed realism that this isn’t going to mean fewer investigations or subpoenas or weird comments by members of the Democratic caucus.” Well, Karl, we’ll always have hip-hop. One of this administration’s biggest rats leaps off the sinking ship as Karl Rove announces his resignation at the end of the month. But, not to worry. Dubya’s infamous consigliere will no doubt be back in the public eye when the investigations clear and the indictments come down. So, see ya soon, Turd Blossom, and sorry your grand visions of a Republican realignment turned to ashes. I’m sure we’ll still fit you in the history books…somewhere.

The Dubya Dialectic?

“For Hegel, Great Men like Napoleon don’t just happen to find themselves as emperor of Europe; they’re driven by an inner spirit that serves the aims of historical destiny. I doubt that many Americans would share the view of Bush as a world-historical figure, possessed by the spirit of history. It does strike me as possible, however, that the president thinks of himself this way.” By way of The Late Adopter, Slate‘s David Greenberg theorizes about Dubya’s potential philosophy of history.

House: Remember the Comfort Women.

“‘Inhumane deeds should be fully acknowledged,’ said Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee…’The world awaits a full reckoning of history from the Japanese government.‘” The House passes a resolution calling for Japan to apologize for its WWII “comfort women” program. [Text.] “Lawmakers want an apology similar to the one the U.S. government gave to Japanese-Americans forced into internment camps during World War II. That apology was approved by Congress and signed into law by President Reagan in 1988.” Well, I’m all for offically recognizing historical sins in the past — *cough* slavery *cough* — but, unfortunately, no mention was made in this bill of our own possible complicity in Imperial Japan’s ugly system of forced prostitution. The resolution might carry more rhetorical force if it did.

A Real “Modern Progressive.”

“The issue: Feingold’s recently signed campaign finance reform bill. Clinton, whose husband’s leasing of the Lincoln Bedroom had helped inspire the new law, was accompanied by an attorney. The attorney’s job: Look for loopholes, loopholes that would allow the Democrats to keep raking in soft money — unregulated, unlimited contributions to the party coffers. When Feingold objected, Clinton scolded him like Empress Livia dressing down a courtier. ‘You’re not living in the real world,’ she shouted. ‘Senator,’ Feingold responded coolly, ‘I do live in the real world, and I’m doing just fine in it.’” Hey, Hillary…want to see what a real “modern progressive” looks like? Writer Edward McClellan reviews Sanford Horwitt’s Feingold, a new biography of the Senator, for Salon, placing him in a long tradition of Wisconsin mavericks dating back to the inimitable Robert La Follette. “As Horwitt puts it, Feingold’s campaign was in the tradition of La Follette’s ‘progressives, who “mostly thought of themselves as perpetual underdogs against the big-money interests.‘”

…or Echoes of Camelot?

“On civil rights, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the race to the moon, and other issues, President Kennedy succeeded by demonstrating the same courage, imagination, compassion, judgment, and ability to lead and unite a troubled country that he had shown during his presidential campaign. I believe Obama will do the same.” Also concerning Sen. Obama and from the pages of this week’s New Republic, Kennedy speechwriter Ted Sorensen compares his old boss to Barack Obama. (If you’re not a TNR subscriber, Sorensen makes a similar case on Youtube here.)

But he breaks like a little girl.

She’s got everything she needs, she’s an artist, she don’t look back. (Although if I had to guess, she’s been watching the heck out of Don’t Look Back lately.) With (a non-levitating) Bruce Greenwood in tow, Cate Blanchett channels Blonde on Blonde-era Dylan and meets never-nude Allen Ginsburg (David Cross) in this brief You-tubed clip from Todd Haynes’ forthcoming I’m Not There. Other Dylans in the production: Christian Bale, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, and Ben Whishaw.

“Hit them.”

Newly released papers from the 1972 election reveal more of the Nixon re-election campaign’s dirty tricks operation at work. “Nixon aides worked assiduously to plant negative stories, including one alleging [Dem VP candidate Sargent] Shriver‘s ancestors were slave-holders. An operative ‘is trying to get the story fed into certain segments of Black media and will give it to Black surrogates,’ an aide told Chuck Colson, Nixon’s chief counsel.” And, also among the new stuff, a detailed account of eventual White House whistleblower Alexander Butterfield‘s exasperation with Nixon’s dog, King Timahoe. ‘I think the miserable sessions I endured in Latin II as a high school sophomore were easier,’ he groused to Haldeman after meeting Nixon’s valet to discuss ‘doggie affairs.’” (Further excerpts.)

Steel yourself, America.

In a document dump of both exhilarating and terrifying proportions, the CIA announced it will release its “family jewels” next week: close to 700 pages of documents chronicling secret Agency activity from the fifties to the seventies. (A preview of what’s to come includes reports of detentions, wiretapping, surveillance, and other sordid current administration favorites.) “CIA Director Michael Hayden on Thursday called the documents being released next week unflattering, but he added that ‘it is CIA’s history.’ ‘The documents provide a glimpse of a very different time and a very different agency,’ Hayden told a conference of historians.” Hmm, we’ll see.