CLOSED!!Political Discussion - A Place to &quot;duke it out&quot; (7400+)

Top 984. Aug 7, 2003 7:38 AM

» Fred2000 - Re: Re: Re: The clowns

In response to message posted by Lawhawk:

"Fred, how is a recall a mockery of the democratic process?"

Lawhawk... The point is that Davis was just elected. The voters did speak. Doesn't that mean anything?

Now the recall will permit someone to amble into office. It seems that conservative republicans support the accidental president and now the accidental governor in California.

Only 1.2 Million signatures are required for recall. With a population in the neighborhood of 35 Million, it won't be difficult to recall anyone and everyone. Conservatives are trashers. Can't stand the light of day on the methods they employ.

-- posted by Fred2000

Top 985. Aug 7, 2003 7:45 AM

» DellaO - Re: Re: The clowns

In response to message posted by Fred2000:

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Fred said: "Della... I don't see your name on the slate. All it takes is $3500 and you could run for governor. Why not start a pledge campaign to help fund your run. I'm sure you'll have the support of the conservative posters on this board. They have confidence that you could do the job. Do you have the confidence in yourself?"
Fred,

For the umpteenth time, you and I are not friends, and I have asked you many times to LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE!

-- posted by DellaO

Top 986. Aug 7, 2003 7:53 AM

» DellaO - History Unrevised

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Ann Coulter.org

When Good Historians Go Bad
August 8, 2003

Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War

ARNOLD BEICHMAN recently wrote a column attacking my latest book, "Treason" – which he at least admits he didn't read – claiming he has the "names of 'innocent lives' Mr. McCarthy ruined." I was excited to see it. I've been asking for just one innocent person ruined by Joe McCarthy for six weeks, but until now all I had gotten was wild speculation about my personal life.

But strangely, while Beichman claims to have the names of McCarthy's innocent victims, he declines to mention them. (It's been almost 50 years and these people still won't name names.) Instead he offers to send me "one of the most important testimonies about McCarthyism" by "one of our leading Sinologists" – if I provide my address. Since Beichman ain't getting my address, I've looked up the article on my own. It contains the names of precisely two people allegedly destroyed by McCarthy.

The author of this "illuminating article on Joe McCarthy" is one Richard Walker. He didn't allot much space for the discussion of McCarthy's victims, inasmuch as the article consisted primarily of Walker's reminiscences about himself. I quote:

"In 1953 I published my book 'The Multi-State System of Ancient China.' The reaction from the scholarly world was very good."

"One distinguished scholar – who shall remain nameless but who will appear in this narrative again in the context of events that happened a few years later – wrote to me, 'I wish to send my congratulations. I find it excellent and marvel at the mass of literature you went through to reach your conclusions ...'"

"Other reviewers praised the volume."

"Two of my graduate students, who subsequently received their doctorates from Yale, attended the meeting and told me what transpired. Following a few toasts and rounds of drinks, professor Derk Bodde (who was one of the first to apply for the post I was vacating at Yale) rose and announced, 'I propose a toast! We finally got Dick Walker!'"
Beichman wearily explained he refused to read my book because "life is too short." But life is not so short that it cannot be filled with days reading Dick Walker quoting people lauding Dick Walker. (How can I add my name to the list of people whose lives were ruined by Dick Walker?)

But the point is, anyone who advertises his own pathological need for establishmentarian approval is not likely to be found praising Joe McCarthy. Still – though Beichman finds it absolutely urgent that I read Walker's piece – the only specific charge against McCarthy in the entire groaning article is this: "McCarthyism destroyed the careers of a number of fine China specialists in the Foreign Service. What happened to Oliver Edmund Clubb and John Paton Davies was a discreditable chapter in the defense of State Department professionals who were rendering honest service to their country."

Davies and Clubb were among the WASP three-names who helped relinquish China to communist mass murderers – John Carter Vincent, John Stewart Service, John Paton Davies and Oliver Edmund Clubb.

Leaving aside the intriguing facts about Oliver Edmund Clubb, this was not a case instigated by McCarthy, but rather by one of Beichman's heroes, Whittaker Chambers. Indeed, Chambers says as much in his book "Witness" – a book Beichman has praised, saying "few autobiographies are as moving and as instructive about the meaning of communism." I've read the article by Richard Walker. Now Beichman ought to actually read "Witness."

As for John Paton Davies, as a Foreign Service officer, he issued flagrantly pro-communist propaganda in his reports from China, insisting that the United States abandon our ally Chiang Kai-shek and work with the communists. The future of China, Davies said, is not Chiang's, but theirs. Or, as the Washington Post put it in Davies' obituary, Davies' reports "advised a more nuanced approach to communism in China than was politically palatable." (In the sense that Benedict Arnold took a more "nuanced" approach toward the American Revolution than was politically palatable.)

In addition, a Senate committee recommended that Davies be tried for perjury for denying that he had recommended various communists and communist sympathizers to the CIA. He was investigated more than half a dozen times by the State Department. Eventually, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles – no fan of McCarthy's – asked Davies to resign.

Evidence that Davies' career was "destroyed" by McCarthy consists of rafts of platitudinous, worshipful mentions of his name, hagiographic obituaries, the "John Paton Davies Lecture Series" at Deerfield Academy – and even his return to the State Department in 1969 to work on disarmament issues.

Most important, there is an iron-clad taboo against blaming communist-sympathizing Foreign Service officers like Davies for the loss of China. You can say the neoconservatives single-handedly took the nation to war with Iraq, but you cannot say that a band of pro-Mao Foreign Service agents in China had any effect on Mao's triumph in China.

Democrats lose entire continents to totalitarian monsters, lose wars to bloody tyrants, lose countries to Islamic fascists, and then insist that everyone recite the liberal catechism: "No one lost China," "Vietnam was an unwinnable war," "Khomeini's rise to power was inevitable." (Conversely, Ronald Reagan didn't "win" the Cold War; it just ended.)

At the time, the State Department even issued an 800-page "White Paper" purporting to prove the communist takeover of China was inevitable. Despite these heroic efforts, a Gallup poll found that a majority of Americans did not buy the "inevitability" excuse. If Foreign Service officers like Davies can't be blamed for the loss of China, why is Joe McCarthy blamed for the loss of Davies' job? Maybe that was "inevitable," too.

It is not clear how one goes about delineating with absolute certainty where "inevitability" ends and "traitorous incompetence" begins. I will leave that to metaphysicians like Arnold Beichman. Still, what kind of argument is that?

The claim that nobody could have saved China is the most amazing Democratic dodge ever. Perhaps in the chaos of Weimar Republic, Hitler's rise to power was also inevitable. But it is unlikely that we would feel much warmth toward Nazi stooges feverishly working in the State Department to reach out to Hitler on the grounds that his rise was "inevitable." Would our anger be assuaged if we were informed their hard work didn't really help? They tried to help Hitler, but their assistance was superfluous. Let's move on.

Whether or not China could have been saved from communism, it is a fact that the WASP three-names like John Paton Davies weren't trying to save it.

-- posted by DellaO

Top 987. Aug 7, 2003 7:55 AM

» Lawhawk - Re: Re: Re: Re: The clowns

In response to message posted by Fred2000:

The voters will speak again in the recall. How is that undemocratic. If the voters decide not to recall, Davis continues.

On the smog issue, http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/US/WN...

there aren't any easy fixes, and there isn't any single thing to point to. Sure, blame Bush for it, if that makes you feel better. However, it wont solve the problem. Not when there are local sources and local enforcement problems that can't be dealt with at the federal level.

I've yet to see a single bit of evidence that conclusively states that Bush's policy is to blame posted by yourself. How is that the case if it is true?

-- posted by Lawhawk

Top 988. Aug 7, 2003 7:58 AM

» Fred2000 - Bias in media? ....Yes

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Al Sharpton Criticizes White Media

By MIKE GLOVER
The Associated Press
Wednesday, August 6, 2003; 8:48 PM

SIOUX CITY, Iowa - Veteran black activist Al Sharpton contended Wednesday that the news media are dismissive of his presidential campaign because newsrooms are overwhelmingly white.

"I think when you look at the lack of diversity in the newsrooms, when you look at the lack of diversity from the editors and those in power, then you see them as automatically dismissive of anything that is not like them, which is white males," said Sharpton.

"I think we've seen some very blatant racial insensitivity in the coverage of this race so far," said Sharpton, in an interview with The Associated Press.

-- posted by Fred2000

Top 989. Aug 7, 2003 8:05 AM

» Fred2000 - Re: The clowns

In response to message posted by Lawhawk:

"The voters will speak again in the recall. How is that undemocratic?"

Redundant. Political tricks. Disruption. Not in the spirit of democracy.

"there aren't any easy fixes, and there isn't any single thing to point to."

A good excuse to do nothing. Even to subvert any attempts to lessen the problem. Ask Cheney if you don't believe me.

eg. Conservatives complain of liberal bias in media. Sharpton complains of white bias in media. Two cats in the same bag with lame excuses.

-- posted by Fred2000

Top 990. Aug 7, 2003 8:16 AM

» Lawhawk - Re: Bias in media? ....Yes

In response to message posted by Fred2000:

Funny, but I recall that Howell Raines was booted from the Times precisely because he overlooked Blair's problems. He overlooked all the gaffes because he was promoting Blair as part of an overall approach to affirmative action in the Times newsroom.

News should be color blind. It shouldn't matter whether the news rooms are black or white, but Sharpton's complaints probably arise from the fact that the media considers him (and Mosley-Braun) a fringe candidate, based on polling data. Sharpton would turn that around and say that the reason for his poor polling is because of the bias.

-- posted by Lawhawk

Top 991. Aug 7, 2003 8:17 AM

» Fred2000 - First Jesse now Arnold

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'Terminator' in Calif. Recall Race

By ERICA WERNER
The Associated Press
Thursday, August 7, 2003; 7:55 AM

LOS ANGELES - With a surprise jump into California's recall race, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger touched off the heaviest tremors in the state's political earthquake to date, saying he wasn't afraid of attacks sure to come from Democrats and conservative Republicans alike.

If Arnold is elected, all Californians will have to take a class in spelling his name. 14 letters, more than half the alphabet. That's going to be a job for some layed back individuals.

-- posted by Fred2000

Top 992. Aug 7, 2003 4:37 PM

» Fred2000 - Re: Re: Bias in media? ....Yes

In response to message posted by Lawhawk:

"News should be color blind. It shouldn't matter whether the news rooms are black or white."

Lawhawk... When news runs counter to peoples opinion, they will unjustifiably feel there is bias. As example, the ultraconservatives feel there is liberal bias while at the same time many of the talk programs are rabidly biased in conservative philosophies.

But when all is said and done, objections to bias in America are just excuses and give people a platform and an opportunity to justify their failures.

-- posted by Fred2000