Between 2000 and 2005, Mr. Cronkite narrated three documentaries for public radio. The producer of those docs, Reese Erlich, was simultaneously writing a book on the then-pending U.S. invasion of Iraq titled “Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn’t Tell You,” which he co-authored with Norman Solomon.
In his recent article for Truthdig.com, Erlich states that:
Walter opposed the war unless the United Nations voted to support it. I thought the U.S. was manipulating the U.N. and that even if the Security Council favored an invasion, war was not justified. However, before declaring his stand he wanted to wait until after a final U.N. vote, which didn’t happen before my publication deadline. So we jointly agreed not to publish the interview.
Here are some of the insights Mr. Cronkite shared back in 2002 which, in hindsight, prove to be quite prescient:
“President George Bush recently announced a new doctrine that gives the U.S. the right to take unilateral militarily action against any country or group that threatens our national interests. I think it is about as a dangerous foreign policy as a nation could adopt. It violates international law and the whole theory—and hopes—that world peace rests with the United Nations. It would destroy the United Nations. Why should Washington be so peremptory? Presumably, we don’t assign this same right to any other nation. I assume this policy is limited to the United States. How does that set with the rest of the world? It is aggressive and dangerously so.
… “In September and October 2002, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated against war in both Britain and the U.S. There’s no question there is a strong anti-war mood in U.S. I think we can expect another one of those serious divisions that so wracked our nation during the time of Vietnam if this administration moves unilaterally.
… “The military leadership of Pakistan has apparently defied the majority feeling of Pakistanis who have some sympathies with the Taliban, the former leadership in Afghanistan. They see our invasion of Afghanistan as part of a war against the Arab and Muslim worlds. If that is the case, the government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan could be overthrown. The militant Muslims could take over the nation. That would give them control over the nuclear weapons in Pakistan.”
… “We have adopted this aggressive policy out of Washington that does not give us any real indication of how we would run the country after presumably we win a military contest there. It would depend a lot on how quickly we won, how much destruction was caused, and how many thousands of lives of civilians were lost. How serious will the bitterness be among the Iraqi people toward any conqueror who came in that fashion?
… “With commercial competition from the 24-hour channels on cable, the percentage of the American television audience that watches the network news has dropped. It was 98 percent when I was at CBS. It’s less than 50 percent today. This consequent drop in advertising revenue has caused the merged companies to cut their budgets. They’ve cut back foreign bureaus and the number of reporters covering foreign news. We are not getting adequate information from abroad about those foreign events that are going to impact the nation, which is the only remaining superpower and apparently is ready to flex that power.
… “The press always has to dig and delve for what it can find. Its only purpose is to share that information with the American people. In this democracy of ours, we should be on guard that we are not denied the facts about what the government is doing in our name. That is the basis of a democracy and particularly one that proclaims freedom of speech and press. We cannot let a veil of secrecy be pulled around the official government in Washington.”
Iconic News Anchorman Walter Cronkite died today at the age of 92. Cronkite anchored the “CBS EVENING NEWS” from 1962-1981. He was with us through the space race, the Vietnam War, Watergate, the Civil Rights Movement, the Kennedy assassination… Mr. Cronkite, like those events themselves, was and is part of our American History.
According to the Museum of Broadcast Communications notes, exactly 40 years ago, Mr. Cronkite “was on the air for 27 of the 30 hours that Apollo 11 took to complete its mission.”
Like so many who have passed before him, he will be missed. And he will live on.
WALTER CRONKITE. Born in St. Joseph, Missouri, U.S.A., 4 November 1916. Attended University of Texas, 1933-35. Married: Mary Elizabeth Maxwell, 1940; three children. Newswriter and editor, Scripps-Howard, also for United Press, Houston, Texas; Kansas City, Missouri; Dallas, Austin, and El Paso, Texas; and New York City; United Press war correspondent, 1942-45, foreign correspondent, reopening bureaus in Amsterdam, Brussels; chief correspondent, Nuremberg war crimes trials, bureau manager, Moscow, 1946-48, manager and contributor, 1948-49, CBS-News correspondent, 1950-81, special correspondent, since 1981; managing editor, CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, 1962-81. Honorary degrees: American International College; Harvard University; LL.D., Rollins College, Bucknell University, Syracuse University; L.H.D., Ohio State University. Member: Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (president, national academy, New York chapter, 1959, Governor’s Award, 1979); Association Radio News Analysts. Recipient: several Emmy Awards; Peabody Awards, 1962 and 1981; William A. White Award for journalistic merit, 1969; George Polk Journalism Award, 1971; Gold Medal, International Radio and Television Society, 1974; Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award in Broadcast Journalism, 1978 and 1981; Presidential Medal of Freedom, 1981.
TELEVISION SERIES
1953-57 You Are There
1957-67 Twentieth Century
1961-62 Eyewitness to History
1961-79 CBS Reports
1967-70 21st Century
1962-81 CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite (managing editor)
1980-82 Universe (host)
1991 Dinosaur!
TELEVISION SPECIALS (selection)
1975 Vietnam: A War That Is Finished
1975 In Celebration of US
1975 The President in China
1977 Our Happiest Birthday
1984 Solzhenitsyn:
1984 Revisited
PUBLICATIONS
The Challenges of Change. Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1971.
Eye on the World. New York: Cowles, 1971.
Unger, Arthur. “`Uncle Walter’ and the `Information Crisis’” (interview). Television Quarterly (New York), Winter 1990.
“Covering Religion” (interview). The Christian Century (Chicago, Illinois), 14 December 1994.
Snow, Richard F. “He Was There” (interview). American Heritage(New York), December 1994.
FURTHER READING
Attanasio, Paul. “Anchors Away: Good Evening Dan, Tom and Peter. Now Buzz Off.” The New Republic (Washington, D.C.), 23 April 1984.
Cronkite, Kathy. On the Edge of the Spotlight: Celebrities’ Children Speak Out About Their Lives. New York: Morrow, 1981.
Rottenberg, Dan. “And That’s the Way It Is.” American Journalism Review (College Park, Maryland), May 1994.
David Letterman stirred things up a bit this week when he had Sen. McCain on his show (after McCain recently cancelled on Letterman to talk to Katie Couric instead). Letterman pressed McCain hard for answers and explanations. He challenged McCain and his and Sarah Palin’s ongoing insistence that there is hidden information and suggestions of a hidden agenda in Barack Obama’s fleeting association with former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers. We all know about these claims, they’ve been discussed and debunked ad nauseum. But McCain and Palin and many of their supporters are not yet satisfied, convinced that the media, Democrats and Liberals are “avoiding the truth” and “sweeping the facts under the rug.”
I wrote about Obama and Ayers recently in my post, Obama, Ayers & The UnAmericanization Of Sarah Palin. There’s a lot of info there and links to even more. But I will reiterate some points in this post that I feel bear repeating. But first, let’s take a look at a clip from McCain’s visit on Letterman earlier this week:
As you can see, Mr. McCain is quite fond of telling Americans that Bill Ayers said in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks that Ayers wished he had bombed more. Let’s look at what Ayers actually said and also his follow-up to its misinterpretation:
In 2001, A New York Times article quoted Ayers as saying:
“I don’t regret setting bombs” and “I feel we didn’t do enough”, and, when asked if he would “do it all again” as saying “I don’t want to discount the possibility.”
In a Letter to the Editor published September 15, 2001, Ayers responded to the quotes with:
“This is not a question of being misunderstood or ‘taken out of context’, but of deliberate distortion.”
Ayers insisted then and still maintains that when he said he had “no regrets” and that “we didn’t do enough” he was referring to his efforts to stop the United States from waging the Vietnam War. The statements were not intended to imply the he wished they had set more bombs.
In a 2004 interview, Ayers was quoted as saying:
“The one thing I don’t regret is opposing the war in Vietnam with every ounce of my being…. When I say, ‘We didn’t do enough,’ a lot of people rush to think, ‘That must mean, “We didn’t bomb enough shit.”‘ But that’s not the point at all. It’s not a tactical statement, it’s an obvious political and ethical statement. In this context, ‘we’ means ‘everyone.’”
In the forward of Ayers’ memoir, he comments on his reflections about his time as part of the Weathermen:
[I am] embarrassed by the arrogance, the solipsism, the absolute certainty that we and we alone knew the way. The rigidity and the narcissism.
Today, Ayers is aDistinguished Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Education and was one of the co-authors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge grant proposal that won $49.2 million for public school reform. In 1997 Chicago awarded him its Citizen of the Year award for his work on the project.
So the question here, is John McCain telling people what he wants to believe Bill Ayers said, or what Bill Ayers actually said? Ironically for me, even if Mr. Ayers had claimed that he wished he’d bombed more, I still wouldn’t find Mr. Obama’s association with him any more disturbing than I do now. They served on a board together. Along with many other members. And Mr. Obama has always maintained that he openly condemns the actions Mr. Ayers partook in as a member of the Weathermen. If they were close friends and Mr. Obama thought of Bill Ayers as a hero? That would be a different story. But that’s not this story. There isn’t a respectable newspaper or publication that has not debunked McCain and Palin’s tired accusations trying to link Barack Obama to terrorists and their none-too-mild suggestion that Obama’s actually an enemy of this country and secretly wishes it, and all of us, harm.
Now let’s take a look at Mr. McCain’s association with G. Gordon Liddy. I’m not writing about this to suggest we should be concerned about John McCain’s association with the man, but to highlight how easy it is to have associations with people that may be politically and morally questionable. And I think Mr. McCain’s association with Mr. Liddy appears to be far closer than Barack Obama’s ever was or is with Bill Ayers.
Now a conservative radio talk-show host, Liddy spent more than 4 years in prison for his role in the 1972 Watergate burglary. That was just one element of what Liddy did, and proposed to do, in a secret White House effort to subvert the Constitution. Far from repudiating him, McCain has embraced him…
Last November, McCain went on his radio show. Liddy greeted him as “an old friend,” and McCain sounded like one. “I’m proud of you, I’m proud of your family,” he gushed. “It’s always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon, and congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great.”
Now McCain claims on Letterman that Liddy has paid his debt to society. And while it’s true that Bill Ayers never went to jail due to a legal technicality, he has most certainly given back to society in his involvement and founding of many various education reforms and youth programs. And has been widely recognized for such. What has G. Gordon Liddy been doing and saying since his release from prison?
Shortly after the federal raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, Liddy commented to his radio listeners:
“Now if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they’re going to be wearing bulletproof vests… They’ve got a big target on there, ATF. Don’t shoot at that, because they’ve got a vest on underneath that. Head shots, head shots… Kill the sons of bitches.”
Later, Liddy claimed that he was just suggesting that people should defend themselves if federal agents came in firing weapons:
“I was talking about a situation in which law enforced agents comes smashing into a house, doesn’t say who they are, and their guns are out, they’re shooting, and they’re in the wrong place. This has happened time and time again. The ATF has gone in and gotten the wrong guy in the wrong place. The law is that if somebody is shooting at you, using deadly force, the mere fact that they are a law enforcement officer, if they are in the wrong, does not mean you are obliged to allow yourself to be killed so your kinfolk can have a wrongful death action. You are legally entitled to defend yourself and I was speaking of exactly those kind of situations. If you’re going to do that, you should know that they’re wearing body armor so you should use a head shot. Now all I’m doing is stating the law, but all the nuances in there got left out when the story got repeated.”
But then Liddy proceeded to state that he should have suggested shots to the groin instead of the head.
So, in addition to appearing on Liddy’s radio show and publicly praising the man, McCain also allowed Liddy’s home to be the site of a McCain fundraiser at which guests could have their pictures taken with McCain and Liddy. Over the years, Liddy has made at least four contributions totaling $5,000 to Sen. McCain’s campaigns — including $1,000 this year. Sound familiar? In 1995, Bill Ayers hosted a “coffee” for Mr. Obama’s first run for office. He then donated $200 to Sen. Obama’s campaign. Once.
In discussing Obama’s tenuous link to Ayers, McCain has publicly proclaimed:
“I think not only a repudiation but an apology for ever having anything to do with an unrepentant terrorist is due the American people.”
By that same manner of thinking, I would certainly expect, at the very least, the same from Sen. McCain. But on Letterman, McCain instead stands behind G. Gordon Liddy and defends their friendship.
Now understand fully Liddy’s history and his crucial actions against America and Americans; Liddy was the chief operative for the White House Plumbers during Richard Nixon’s Presidency. Liddy masterminded the first break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate building to plant bugs and photograph documents. This was 1972. The same time Mr. Ayers was an active member of the Weathermen. Liddy’s act of burglary was covered up and became the now infamous Watergate scandal which eventually led to President Nixon’s resignation and Liddy himself was convicted of conspiracy, burglary and illegal wiretapping and received a 20-year sentence. He served four and a half years before his sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter.
But wait, there’s so much more. During his years as the chief of the White House Plumbers under Nixon’s rule, Liddy suggested firebombing the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. (where classified documents leaked by Daniel Ellsberg were being stored), kidnapping anti-war protest organizers and transporting them to Mexico during the Republican National Convention, and luring mid-level Democratic campaign officials to a house boat in Baltimore where they would be secretly photographed in compromising positions with call girls. Luckily, most of Liddy’s suggestions were rejected. However, his suggestion of breaking into Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office was given the go-ahead by the Nixon Administration. Ellsberg had leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times. The Pentagon Papers was a top secret, 14,000 page government report about the history of the Government’s internal planning and policy concerning the Vietnam War. The actual name of that report was United States–Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense. As a result of Ellsberg’s copying and giving portions of this report to the New York Times, the Times began publishing excerpts as an article series in 1971.
Oh, and one last thing that may or may not be important. Liddy has stated that as a child he listened to Adolph Hitler’s speeches and they “made me feel a strength inside I had never known before. Hitler’s sheer animal confidence and power of will [entranced me]. He sent an electric current through my body.”
Liddy later stated that he condemned Nazism and believed Hitler was evil.
Once again, my point here isn’t to smear McCain, but to shine a light on people and their relationships to others and how easy those relationships are to exploit (see also McCain Campaign Smears Snap Back Again With William Timmons). And like Sarah Palin’s husband, Todd, and his associations with bigots and America-haters as a member of the AIF, McCain has some deep, dark skeletons in his closet that are at least as disturbing as anything he claims of Barack Obama. And to my mind, worse. At least Mr. Obama condemned the actions of the young Mr. Ayers, while John McCain publicly defended his friendship with and pride in G. Gordon Liddy just days ago.
If there’s anything to be swept under the rug, now might be a good time.
In Karen Tumulty’s TIME MAGAZINE article, In Battleground Virginia, a Tale of Two Ground Games, she writes about visiting the GOP’s “Gainesville operation on Saturday morning, to get a first-hand glimpse of its ground game in Prince William County, Virginia, a fast-growing area about 30 miles from Washington, D.C.”
In her article, Tumulty describes her experience observing GOP Chairman Jeffrey M. Frederick as he “climbed atop a folding chair to give 30 campaign volunteers who were about to go canvassing door to door their talking points — for instance, the connection between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden: “Both have friends that bombed the Pentagon,” he said. “That is scary.” It is also not exactly true — though that distorted reference to Obama’s controversial association with William Ayers, a former 60s radical, was enough to get the volunteers stoked. “And he won’t salute the flag,” one woman added, repeating another myth about Obama. She was quickly topped by a man who called out, “We don’t even know where Senator Obama was really born.” Actually, we do; it’s Hawaii.”
Now, let’s talk a bit about this whole Bill Ayers connection the GOP (particularly Sarah Palin) love to reiterate and distort beyond recognition. Bill Ayers earned a B.A. from the University of Michigan in American Studies in 1968. Ayers became interested in the student activist organization Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in 1965 when then SDS President asked the question, “How will you live your life so that it doesn’t make a mockery of your values?” Ayers commented that his feeling at the time was, “You could not be a moral person with the means to act, and stand still… To stand still was to choose indifference. Indifference was the opposite of moral.”
In 1965, Ayers joined a picket line protesting a Michigan pizzeria for refusing to seat African Americans. The first time Ayers was arrested was at a sit-in at a local draft board.
Ayers eventually became one of the leaders of SDS. The particular group of members Ayers headed in Detroit later became known as the Weathermen. In 1969, Ayers participated in planting a bomb at a statue dedicated to riot police casualties in the 1886 Haymarket Riot confrontation between labor supporters and the police. The intention was to destroy the statue, not kill or injure anyone. And no one was.
Ayers also participated in the Days of Rage riot in Chicago in October 1969. According to Ayers:
“The Days of Rage was an attempt to break from the norms of kind of acceptable theater of ‘here are the anti-war people: containable, marginal, predictable, and here’s the little path they’re going to march down, and here’s where they can make their little statement.’ We wanted to say, “No, what we’re going to do is whatever we had to do to stop the violence in Vietnam.”
In 1970, several associates of Ayers, including his then girlfriend, were killed in a nail bomb-making explosion in a townhouse in Greenwich Village. Shortly after the explosion, Ayers and other Weathermen members went “underground”. Ayers participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, the United States Capitol building in 1971, and The Pentagon in 1972. Again, no one was killed or injured.
By 1977, federal charges were dropped against Ayers due to Prosecutorial Misconduct. In 1980, Ayers and his girlfriend, Bernardine Dohrn (a former Weathermen member and mother of their two sons) turned themselves into authorities.
In 2001, Richard Elrod, a city lawyer injured in the Weathermen’s Chicago “Days of Rage,” received an apology from Ayers and Dohrn for their part in the violence. As Elrod remembers:
“[T]hey were remorseful. They said, ‘We’re sorry that things turned out this way.’”
In 2001, A New York Times article quoted Ayers as saying:
“I don’t regret setting bombs” and “I feel we didn’t do enough”, and, when asked if he would “do it all again” as saying “I don’t want to discount the possibility.”
In a Letter to the Editor published September 15, 2001, Ayers responded to the quotes with:
“This is not a question of being misunderstood or ‘taken out of context’, but of deliberate distortion.”
Ayers insisted then and still maintains that when he said he had “no regrets” and that “we didn’t do enough” he was referring to his efforts to stop the United States from waging the Vietnam War. The statements were not intended to imply the he wished they had set more bombs.
In the forward of Ayers’ memoir, he comments on his reflections about his time as part of the Weathermen:
[I am] embarrassed by the arrogance, the solipsism, the absolute certainty that we and we alone knew the way. The rigidity and the narcissism.
In a 2001 interview, Ayers pointed out:
“We weren’t terrorists. The reason we weren’t terrorists is because we did not commit random acts of terror against people. Terrorism was what was being practiced in the countryside of Vietnam by the United States.”
In a letter to the editor of the same paper, Ayers wrote:
“I condemn all forms of terrorism — individual, group and official”
In 2004, Ayers was asked again: ”How do you feel about what you did? Would you do it again under similar circumstances?” His reply:
“I’ve thought about this a lot. Being almost 60, it’s impossible to not have lots and lots of regrets about lots and lots of things, but the question of did we do something that was horrendous, awful? … I don’t think so. I think what we did was to respond to a situation that was unconscionable.”
He continued:
“The one thing I don’t regret is opposing the war in Vietnam with every ounce of my being…. When I say, ‘We didn’t do enough,’ a lot of people rush to think, ‘That must mean, “We didn’t bomb enough shit.”‘ But that’s not the point at all. It’s not a tactical statement, it’s an obvious political and ethical statement. In this context, ‘we’ means ‘everyone.’”
Where is Ayers today? What has he done with his life? According to Wikipedia:
Ayers is currently a Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Education. His interests include teaching for social justice, urban educational reform, narrative and interpretive research, children in trouble with the law, and related issues.
He began his career in primary education while an undergraduate, teaching at the Children’s Community School (CCS), a project founded by a group of students and based on the Summerhill method of education. After leaving the underground, he earned an M.Ed from Bank Street College in Early Childhood Education (1984), an M.Ed from Teachers College, Columbia University in Early Childhood Education (1987) and an Ed.D from Teachers College, Columbia University in Curriculum and Instruction (1987).
He has edited and written many books and articles on education theory, policy and practice, and has appeared on many panels and symposia.
During the 90′s, Ayers worked with Chicago then Mayor Richard M. Daley in shaping the city’s school reform program,and was one of the co-authors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge grant proposal that won $49.2 million for public school reform. In 1997 Chicago awarded him its Citizen of the Year award for his work on the project.
Ayers has served on the board of directors for the Woods Fund of Chicago, an organization devoted to poverty relief and the promotion of social mobility.
Now… Barack Obama’s “association” with Ayers: Both men worked separately on education reform in Chicago. The two men met at a luncheon meeting about school reform when Obama was named to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge Project Board of Directors to oversee the distribution of grants in Chicago.
In 1995, Ayers hosted a “coffee” for Mr. Obama’s first run for office.
Sen. Obama also served as one of the board of directors of the above mentioned Woods Fund of Chicago between 2000 and 2002. The board met twelve times.
According to the Chicago Sun Times:
Ayers and Obama interacted occasionally in their roles with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a not-for-profit group charged with spending tens of millions of dollars it obtained through its affiliation with a school-improvement foundation created by late Ambassador Walter H. Annenberg. Obama chaired the Chicago Annenberg Challenge’s board of directors. Ayers served on the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, which made recommendations to the board on which organizations should get grants. The groups worked on school-reform efforts between 1995 and 2000.
In April 2001, Ayers contributed $200 to Obama’s re-election fund to the Illinois State Senate.
Mr. Obama has openly condemned the actions of the Weathermen. He was only 8 when Ayers was active in the group.
CNN’s review of project records found nothing to suggest anything inappropriate in the two men’s involvement together in non-profit projects. Reviews by The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time magazine, The Chicago Sun-Times, The New Yorker and The New Republic came to the same conclusion. The New York Times said that “their reporting doesn’t support the idea that Obama and Ayers had a close relationship.”
Chicago political strategist Marilyn Katz had this to say about Ayers:
“What Bill Ayers and Bobby Rush [Black Panther-turned-U.S. Rep.] did 40 years ago has nothing to do with [the presidential campaign. Ayers] has a national reputation. He lectures at Harvard and Vassar. He writes the textbooks that are the standard for innovative approaches to reaching inner-city youth.”
You can decide for yourself what you think of Bill Ayers and whether or not you believe Mr. Obama’s “connection” to Ayers is “worrisome” and whether that connection makes Mr. Obama himself–as many McCain/Palin supporters have suggested–a terrorist. I, for one, know how I feel. And it’s not the same as Sarah Palin. Which brings me to another point…
Sarah Palin considers herself a good Christian. An extremely religious, church-going, creationist-believing Christian. Now I may have a vast misunderstanding of the Christian faith, but I was under the impression that a large part of that faith was about forgiveness. So where is Sarah Palin’s forgiveness of Bill Ayers actions almost 40 years ago? Has he not proven himself to be a valuable member of society? Has he not expressed regret at some of the actions he took that may have caused harm? Has he not given back to society, at least in part, that which he may have taken away? Where is, at the very least, the ability to understand and show compassion? I do not see it. What I see is someone pointing fingers, calling out “terrorist” and inciting others to do the same. What part of Christianity does Sarah Palin claim to practice and represent? And why not this part?
Let’s dig a little deeper, shall we?
Sarah Palin’s husband, Todd Palin, was an active member of the Alaskan Independence Party (AIP). This party is decribed on Wikipedia as:
A political party in the U.S. state of Alaska that advocates a state vote which includes several options, including increased state autonomy, territorial status, becoming a separate nation or commonwealth state, and, failing that, nationhood. It calls for increased Alaskan control of Alaskan land, gun rights, privatization, home schooling, and reduction of governmental intrusion in the private lives of its citizens with adherence to the founding documents of the United States. The party has appeared on the ballot in Alaska in all state elections since 1970.
But what else is it? According to Salon.com:
The AIP was born of the vision of “Old Joe” Vogler, a hard-bitten former gold miner who hated the government of the United States almost as much as he hated wolves and environmentalists. His resentment peaked during the early 1970s when the federal government began installing Alaska’s oil and gas pipeline. Fueled by raw rage — “The United States has made a colony of Alaska,” he told author John McPhee in 1977… During a gubernatorial debate in 1982, Vogler proposed using nuclear weapons to obliterate the glaciers blocking roadways to Juneau. “There’s gold under there!” he exclaimed.
Here’s where it gets interesting:
Vogler convinced Richard Nixon’s former interior secretary, Wally Hickel, to run for governor under his party’s banner. Hickel coasted to victory, outflanking a moderate Republican and a centrist Democrat. An archconservative Republican running under the AIP candidate, Jack Coghill, was elected lieutenant governor.
Hickel’s subsequent failure as governor to press for a vote on Alaskan independence rankled Old Joe. With sponsorship from the Islamic Republic of Iran, Vogler was scheduled to present his case for Alaskan secession before the United Nations General Assembly in the late spring of 1993. But before he could, Old Joe’s long, strange political career ended tragically that May when he was murdered by a fellow secessionist.
Hmmm… the Islamic Republic of Iran… Now I’m not saying good, bad, or otherwise. I’m just talking about connections here. Todd Palin, Sarah Palin’s husband, and the Alaskan Independence Party which talks of seceding from the Union, run by an America-hating extremist… Just saying. It could beg the question, How much do Sarah and Todd Palin really believe in the McCain/Palin slogan ‘Country First’? And what about their link to a “terrorist country” like Iran? You know, the country we’re talking about invading? My point here is, lines can be drawn connecting people to certain belief systems and certain people. And this connection is far greater and far more worrisome (or at least should be) in the Palins’ case than it is in the Ayers/Obama case.
One last thing, though records show that Sarah Palin has been a registered Republican since 1982, AIP Chairmen and members continue to suggest that Mrs. Palin was an AIP member herself. Regardless of membership or not, Mrs. Palin has spoken at AIP conventions as recently as this year quoting “Keep up the good work.” And her personal ties to the organization go even deeper than that as is pointed out in great detail by Salon.com and The Nation’s Max Blumenthal on the Rachel Maddow Show:
See how easy it is to start drawing connections between candidates and extremists?
I commented on this just several days ago in an earlier post, but it seems even ordinary Republicans are commenting on the very real dangers inherent in this sort of irresponsible campaigning. While the “lynch mobs” are getting their anger and hatred fueled by both McCain and Palin, the “real” Republicans are starting to insist that this has nothing to do with what they signed on for and some are actively beginning to revoke their support for McCain/Palin.
At a McCain rally just last Wednesday in Pennsylvania, a woman yelled out about Obama, “He’s a damn liar! Get him. He’s bad for our country.” Activists are openly calling Obama a terrorist. At another rally on Thursday, the crowd busted out with name calling with one woman ranting, “Obama Osama!” , while local officials at other McCain/Palin rallies have warmed up the crowds by railing against “Barack Hussein Obama.” In the meantime, John McCain and Sarah Palin have done nothing to temper this behavior, but have, in fact, continued to incite it!
Even John Weaver, McCain’s former top strategist, has openly commented that it is McCain and Palin’s responsibility to temper this behavior:
“People need to understand, for moral reasons and the protection of our civil society, the differences with Sen. Obama are ideological, based on clear differences on policy and a lack of experience compared to Sen. McCain. And from a purely practical political vantage point, please find me a swing voter, an undecided independent, or a torn female voter that finds an angry mob mentality attractive.
“Sen. Obama is a classic liberal with an outdated economic agenda. We should take that agenda on in a robust manner. As a party we should not and must not stand by as the small amount of haters in our society question whether he is as American as the rest of us. Shame on them and shame on us if we allow this to take hold.”
Today, former Republican Gov. William Milliken reported that he will no longer be supporting John McCain:
“He is not the McCain I endorsed. He keeps saying, ‘Who is Barack Obama?’ I would ask the question, ‘Who is John McCain?’ because his campaign has become rather disappointing to me.
“I’m disappointed in the tenor and the personal attacks on the part of the McCain campaign, when he ought to be talking about the issues.”
Milken, who is 86, went on to comment about the McCain/Palin ticket:
“I know John McCain is 72. In my book, that’s quite young. [But] what if [Palin] were to become president of the United States? The idea, to me, is quite disturbing, if not appalling.
“Increasingly, the party is moving toward rigidity, and I don’t like that. I think Gerald Ford would hold generally the same view I’m holding on the direction of the Republican Party.”
Lincoln Chafee, a former Republican U.S. senator from Rhode Island, said he’s voting for Obama and urging others to do likewise:
“That’s not my kind of Republicanism. I saw what Bush and Cheney did. They came in with a (budget) surplus and a stable world, and look what’s happened now. In eight short years they’ve taken one peaceful and prosperous world, and they’ve torn it into tatters… there are a whole lot of us deserting.”
Bob Eleveld, a former Kent County Republican chairman who led McCain’s West Michigan campaign in 2000, had this to say:
“I think the straight talk is gone. I think he’s pandering to the Christian right. That’s some straight talk from me.”
Here’s a video from a McCain rally in which Senator McCain lets a supporter rant about ”socialists taking over our country” and refer to Barack Obama and other Democrats as “hooligans.”:
John J. Pitney Jr., a political science professor at California’s Claremont McKenna College and former Republican operative, had this to say about Republicans acting out their longstanding frustrations:
“McCain has always frustrated the Republican base. In this campaign, he has alternated between partisan attacks and calls for bipartisan cooperation. It’s nice that he thinks he can round up congressional votes the way a border collie rounds up sheep. But you can’t be a border collie and a pit bull at the same time. The crowds want a pit bull.”
I said it earlier and I’ll repeat it because it bears repeating. This is dangerous. This is not a battle of ideologies, but a lynch mob. There is very real violence that can erupt out of this and people may be killed as a result. McCain and Palin are losing this election and they are desperate. Desperate enough to incite the most dangerous and long-brewing characteristics of their worst followers. And this is the team running for highest office in our land? Is this what we’ve been reduced to? A country built on angry mob mentality? This country has been split in ways not seen since the Civil War and only nearly matched by the protest movements of the Vietnam era. Do not underestimate the power of people when they become frightened and feel cornered and their hatred, fear, and anger is given fuel.
Recently I wrote about Sydney Schanberg’s article in THE NATION suggesting that John McCain sponsored and pushed into federal law a set of prohibitions that keep the most revealing information about POWs left behind in Vietnam buried as classified documents. Last night, during the debate, John McCain made this comment:
“I know the veterans, I know them well, and I know that they know that I’ll take care of them, and I have been proud of their support and their recognition of my service to the veterans, and I love them, and I’ll take care of them, and they know that I’ll take care of them.”
Here’s a video put together by a group who call themselves “Vietnam Veteran’s Against McCain“. They discuss, in great detail, the circumstances behind the federal classification of these documents:
Add to this the organization “Veterans For Peace“, a large national organization made up of veterans of every war, from Korea to Vietnam and Iraq, who led a protest in the streets of St. Paul against the Republican National Convention.
A formation of 60 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans marched in uniform to Xcel Energy Center… to deliver a briefing on veterans’ issues to Senator McCain on the opening day of the Republican National Convention.
IVAW member Wes Davey led the march and attempted to deliver the briefing to Senator McCain’s staff. Despite numerous mailed, faxed, and in-person invitations to meet, McCain’s office refused to send anyone to receive the briefing. When Davey, a retired Army First Sergeant and former St. Paul police officer, attempted to deliver the briefing, he was escorted off the premises.
On the other hand:
Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) marched to the Pepsi Center in Denver on Wednesday, August 27 where they were met by Phil Carter, Senator Obama’s Senior Veterans’ Liaison. Carter is negotiating the terms of a meeting with IVAW representatives. IVAW has requested a meeting with Senator Obama himself and his Senior Foreign Policy Advisor.
“Iraq Veterans Against the War” also stated the following about McCain on its Website:
Senator McCain has consistently voted against veterans interests. In a recent report, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America gave Senator McCain a “D” rating to Senator Obama’s “B+.” Disabled American Veterans reports that Senator McCain only voted for legislation that benefited veterans 20% of the time while Senator Obama supported veterans’ needs 80% of the time.
USMC veteran Adam Kokesh, also a member of IVAW, held up a two-sided sign at the RNC that read: “You Can’t Win An Occupation” and “McCain Votes Against Vets.” He ended up getting tossed out of the convention. Here’s the video:
And once again, Senator Barack Obama has openly supported the bipartisan effort to improve the G.I. Bill.
And finally, here is footage of John McCain belittling Delores Alfond, head of the National Alliance of POW/MIA whose brother went missing in action in Vietnam. His denigrating attitude here is eerily similar to his tone toward Senator Obama in moments from last Friday night’s debate:
I can’t say for sure if all the accusations against Mr. McCain are valid or not, but what I can say with some certainty, is that there are a large number of veterans out there who would disagree with Mr. McCain’s comment that “I know the veterans, I know them well, and I know that they know that I’ll take care of them.”
I’m not sure what to make of this. If true, it’s disturbing news indeed. Sydney Schanberg recently wrote an article for The Nation which very strongly suggests that John McCain is and has been highly involved in a coverup involving hundreds of American POWs who were knowingly left behind in Vietnam. For those not familiar with Schanberg’s writing, here is a brief biography:
Sydney H. Schanberg, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, has for nearly 50 years been a reporter and columnist for the New York Times, Newsday and the Village Voice. He has reported extensively on the POW story.
Schanberg has written extensively on foreign affairs–particularly Asia–and on domestic issues such as ethics, racial problems, government secrecy, corporate excesses and the weaknesses of the national media.
Most of his journalism career has been spent on newspapers but his award-winning work has also appeared widely in other publications and media. The 1984 movie, THE KILLING FIELDS, which won several Academy Awards, was based on his book THE DEATH AND LIFE OF DITH PRAN – a memoir of his experiences covering the war in Cambodia for the New York Times and of his relationship with his Cambodian colleague, Dith Pran.
For his accounts of the fall of Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge in 1975, Schanberg was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting “at great risk.” He is also the recipient of many other awards – including two George Polk awards, two Overseas Press Club awards and the Sigma Delta Chi prize for distinguished journalism.
In the opening paragraph of his article, Schanberg states:
John McCain, who has risen to political prominence on his image as a Vietnam POW war hero, has, inexplicably, worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn’t return home. Throughout his Senate career, McCain has quietly sponsored and pushed into federal law a set of prohibitions that keep the most revealing information about these men buried as classified documents. Thus the war hero people would logically imagine to be a determined crusader for the interests of POWs and their families became instead the strange champion of hiding the evidence and closing the books.
I would go on to detail the theories and facts, but could never do justice to the large body of information Schanberg has collected, and will therefore simply put up a link to the article itself. There are two versions of the article: A shorter one which appeared on September 17, 2008 which can be read HERE, and a longer, far more detailed version of the article which can be read HERE.
Between 2000 and 2005, Mr. Cronkite narrated three documentaries for public radio. The producer of those docs, Reese Erlich, was simultaneously writing a book on the then-pending U.S. invasion of Iraq titled “Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn’t Tell You,” which he co-authored with Norman Solomon.
Iconic News Anchorman Walter Cronkite died today at the age of 92. Cronkite anchored the “CBS EVENING NEWS” from 1962-1981. He was with us through the space race, the Vietnam War, Watergate, the Civil Rights Movement, the Kennedy assassination… Mr. Cronkite, like those events themselves, was and is part of our American History.
