Not Understanding The Liberal Perspective.

[PoliticalChic]

1. From ’70-’73, North Vietnamese forces and Khmer Rouge fought and won against US-supported Cambodians. “Lon Nol's troops quickly fell apart from lack of supplies, lack of support, and lack of leadership.” Before the Holocaust: The End of Cambodia

2. The weakness of Nixon due to the Watergate scandal allowed the Left-Wing Democrats to destroy any hope of either the United States living up to its commitments in South Vietnam, or of even allowing the aid that would have allowed the South to defend itself. Starting with the 1974 budget, they refused to allocate another penny, and forbade US military action “in or over” Indochina.

3. The record of Communist states massacring large numbers of their own people is well documented. Starting with the Soviet Union, which pioneered the terror-famine, mass deportations, concentration camps and mass executions, Stalin murdered up to 20 million. Under Mao Tse-Tung, an estimated 65 million Chinese were killed by execution, torture, and starvation. Vietnam, over a million. North Korea, about two million. Courtois, et.al., "The Black Book of Communism," p.4.

4. Yet, on this very day, in 1975, Anthony Lewis wrote this in the NYTimes: : “Some will find the whole bloodbath debate unreal. What future possibility could be more terrible than the reality of what is happening in Cambodia now?”
(emphasis mine)

Yes, the casualties were in the thousands, and, yes, the communists were winning, and we had agreed to the peace treaty.
But for the left to claim that they had no idea what was going to happen....

I don't understand the liberal perspective.


5. Starting in April ’75, the Communist Khmer Rouge defeated Lon Nol in Cambodia. Democrats, starting with the 1974 budget, refused to allocate another penny, and forbade US military action “in or over” Indochina. Just as the right had warned, the communists began a systematic war on the entire populations of their nation, so savage, it is hard to comprehend. It is estimated that the number of dead numbered between 1.7 to 2.5 million out of a population of around 8 million. The Killing Fields - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


"What future possibility could be more terrible..."March 17, 1975.[/B]

BTW, the Washington Post, pretty much the same:"The threatened 'bloodbath' is less ominous than a continuation of the current bloodletting."
VISION & VALUES: Useful Idiots: Then and Now « The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College

And the LATimes urged the cutoff of funds to the Lon Nol government "for the good of the suffering Cambodian people..."Peter Rodman, “More Precious Than Peace: Fighting and Winning the Cold War in the Third World,” p.186.

Didn't they know?

Shouldn't they have known?

 

[Sallow]

For a brief time the Nixon administration supported the Khmer Rouge and it was the Vietnamese that finally wrested Cambodia from their control.

 

[Mr.Fitnah]

For a brief time the Nixon administration supported the Khmer Rouge and it was the Vietnamese that finally wrested Cambodia from their control.

More habitual unsupported dialogue .

 

[geauxtohell]

"Liberal Perspective" on what?

I love how the Conservatives chalk every failure of the six plus years of the Nixon Administration to Nixon being "crippled by Watergate".

Besides being hilarious, if Nixon didn't want to be crippled by Watergate, he shouldn't have been a party to illegal activity.

I swear, Ann Coulter's next book will be a history-rewrite to exonerate Nixon. Just as she did with "Tailgunner Joe"

She's quite the comedian.

 

[Sallow]

For a brief time the Nixon administration supported the Khmer Rouge and it was the Vietnamese that finally wrested Cambodia from their control.

More habitual unsupported dialogue .

Google is your friend too.

You might want to also find the conversation between Nixon and Kissinger where Nixon says he wants to blow the dikes in Vietnam to kill a quarter million people. And strangely enough it was Kissinger that advises against it..stating that it would turn the whole world against us. Nixon is quoted saying, "You gotta think big, Henry!"

You may also wanna check out that the Viet Mihn were the allies of the United States during WWII. And how one of Ho Chi Mihn's hero's was Thomas Jefferson.

Or..that Eisenhower recognized that..if a fair election were held in Vietnam..Mihn would have won fair and square.

Americans are quick to blame everyone else for the deaths of millions..but unable to accept blame when it was this country that caused the deaths of millions.

 

[PoliticalChic]

"Liberal Perspective" on what?

I love how the Conservatives chalk every failure of the six plus years of the Nixon Administration to Nixon being "crippled by Watergate".

Besides being hilarious, if Nixon didn't want to be crippled by Watergate, he shouldn't have been a party to illegal activity.

I swear, Ann Coulter's next book will be a history-rewrite to exonerate Nixon. Just as she did with "Tailgunner Joe"

She's quite the comedian.

Let me try to bring the debate back to it's proper venue.

The OP is not about Nixon.

Rather, it is about how the Left has besmirched the name and reputation of the United States by actions which directly resulted in the slaughter of almost two million Cambodians in multiple horrifying ways.

I'm not arguing that we should have continued the war, nor that the communists would not have won at that place and time, but rather that the liberal opinion makers should have known what was going to happen, and therefore lied to the American public and showed a willful disregard for the lives of people, many of whom were allies of the United States.

The OP gives the NYTimes, the LATimes and the Washington Post as examples.

Surely you agree that they were and they are the house organs of the liberal establishment.

Nor, I am sure, would anyone cognizant of the history of the last century be unaware of the
horrific results of communist victories, communist governments.

Don't you think the Democrat politicians should have made allowances to at least slow the mayhem?
Did you know that when the Pentagon’s accountants tried to use a couple of hundred million dollars of unused appropriations left over from 1972 and 1973 to aid the South, Ted Kennedy organized Senators, 43-38, to forbid the expenditure. David Frum, “How We Got Here,” p. 305.
Not troops, not even air strikes....just the funds that had already been allocated.
And by not slowing down the North Vietnamese, it allowed them to join with the Khmer Rouge to crush Lon Nol?

The Left wanted the communists to win, and they got their way.

Perhaps things might have been different if political talk radio, and Fox News had been around at that time.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

1. From ’70-’73, North Vietnamese forces and Khmer Rouge fought and won against US-supported Cambodians. “Lon Nol's troops quickly fell apart from lack of supplies, lack of support, and lack of leadership.” Before the Holocaust: The End of Cambodia

2. The weakness of Nixon due to the Watergate scandal allowed the Left-Wing Democrats to destroy any hope of either the United States living up to its commitments in South Vietnam, or of even allowing the aid that would have allowed the South to defend itself. Starting with the 1974 budget, they refused to allocate another penny, and forbade US military action “in or over” Indochina.

3. The record of Communist states massacring large numbers of their own people is well documented. Starting with the Soviet Union, which pioneered the terror-famine, mass deportations, concentration camps and mass executions, Stalin murdered up to 20 million. Under Mao Tse-Tung, an estimated 65 million Chinese were killed by execution, torture, and starvation. Vietnam, over a million. North Korea, about two million. Courtois, et.al., "The Black Book of Communism," p.4.

4. Yet, on this very day, in 1975, Anthony Lewis wrote this in the NYTimes: : “Some will find the whole bloodbath debate unreal. What future possibility could be more terrible than the reality of what is happening in Cambodia now?”
(emphasis mine)

Yes, the casualties were in the thousands, and, yes, the communists were winning, and we had agreed to the peace treaty.
But for the left to claim that they had no idea what was going to happen....

I don't understand the liberal perspective.


5. Starting in April ’75, the Communist Khmer Rouge defeated Lon Nol in Cambodia. Democrats, starting with the 1974 budget, refused to allocate another penny, and forbade US military action “in or over” Indochina. Just as the right had warned, the communists began a systematic war on the entire populations of their nation, so savage, it is hard to comprehend. It is estimated that the number of dead numbered between 1.7 to 2.5 million out of a population of around 8 million. The Killing Fields - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


"What future possibility could be more terrible..."March 17, 1975.[/b]

BTW, the Washington Post, pretty much the same:"The threatened 'bloodbath' is less ominous than a continuation of the current bloodletting."
VISION & VALUES: Useful Idiots: Then and Now « The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College

And the LATimes urged the cutoff of funds to the Lon Nol government "for the good of the suffering Cambodian people..."Peter Rodman, “More Precious Than Peace: Fighting and Winning the Cold War in the Third World,” p.186.

Didn't they know?

Shouldn't they have known?

Asking about the liberal perspective implies that they have one, and that it connects with the world the rest of us live in, they don't. What they have is a belief that the world is a place where intentions count more than results, and where the only reason their ideas did not work in the past is that the people doing them lacked intelligence, resolve, and the power they needed to implement them. That is why they prefer to impose their agenda through fiat rahter than attempt to explain the pros and cons of their position, everyone else is too stupid to understand them. Yet they think that people who accept the existence of God are deluded.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

"Liberal Perspective" on what?

I love how the Conservatives chalk every failure of the six plus years of the Nixon Administration to Nixon being "crippled by Watergate".

Besides being hilarious, if Nixon didn't want to be crippled by Watergate, he shouldn't have been a party to illegal activity.

I swear, Ann Coulter's next book will be a history-rewrite to exonerate Nixon. Just as she did with "Tailgunner Joe"

She's quite the comedian.

You apparently fail to understand the Nixon perspective, the law did not apply to him.

 

[PoliticalChic]

1. From ’70-’73, North Vietnamese forces and Khmer Rouge fought and won against US-supported Cambodians. “Lon Nol's troops quickly fell apart from lack of supplies, lack of support, and lack of leadership.” Before the Holocaust: The End of Cambodia

2. The weakness of Nixon due to the Watergate scandal allowed the Left-Wing Democrats to destroy any hope of either the United States living up to its commitments in South Vietnam, or of even allowing the aid that would have allowed the South to defend itself. Starting with the 1974 budget, they refused to allocate another penny, and forbade US military action “in or over” Indochina.

3. The record of Communist states massacring large numbers of their own people is well documented. Starting with the Soviet Union, which pioneered the terror-famine, mass deportations, concentration camps and mass executions, Stalin murdered up to 20 million. Under Mao Tse-Tung, an estimated 65 million Chinese were killed by execution, torture, and starvation. Vietnam, over a million. North Korea, about two million. Courtois, et.al., "The Black Book of Communism," p.4.

4. Yet, on this very day, in 1975, Anthony Lewis wrote this in the NYTimes: : “Some will find the whole bloodbath debate unreal. What future possibility could be more terrible than the reality of what is happening in Cambodia now?”
(emphasis mine)

Yes, the casualties were in the thousands, and, yes, the communists were winning, and we had agreed to the peace treaty.
But for the left to claim that they had no idea what was going to happen....

I don't understand the liberal perspective.


5. Starting in April ’75, the Communist Khmer Rouge defeated Lon Nol in Cambodia. Democrats, starting with the 1974 budget, refused to allocate another penny, and forbade US military action “in or over” Indochina. Just as the right had warned, the communists began a systematic war on the entire populations of their nation, so savage, it is hard to comprehend. It is estimated that the number of dead numbered between 1.7 to 2.5 million out of a population of around 8 million. The Killing Fields - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


"What future possibility could be more terrible..."March 17, 1975.[/b]

BTW, the Washington Post, pretty much the same:"The threatened 'bloodbath' is less ominous than a continuation of the current bloodletting."
VISION & VALUES: Useful Idiots: Then and Now « The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College

And the LATimes urged the cutoff of funds to the Lon Nol government "for the good of the suffering Cambodian people..."Peter Rodman, “More Precious Than Peace: Fighting and Winning the Cold War in the Third World,” p.186.

Didn't they know?

Shouldn't they have known?

Asking about the liberal perspective implies that they have one, and that it connects with the world the rest of us live in, they don't. What they have is a belief that the world is a place where intentions count more than results, and where the only reason their ideas did not work in the past is that the people doing them lacked intelligence, resolve, and the power they needed to implement them. That is why they prefer to impose their agenda through fiat rahter than attempt to explain the pros and cons of their position, everyone else is too stupid to understand them. Yet they think that people who accept the existence of God are deluded.

1. "...the world is a place where intentions count more than results,..."
I don't think we can say that, Q, as it denies the the Left the accomplishments of the communist victory in Vietnam, the conquest of large segments of public opinion and the success of taking the White House in '08.

2. "...the only reason their ideas did not work in the past is that the people doing them lacked intelligence, resolve, and the power they needed to implement them."
Yes, I see your point.
Totalitarianism is brilliant... the subjugated...er, governed, must be the reason that the Soviet Union didn't last....

But, in the case of the Khmer Rouge savages, it was the North Vietmanese savages that defeated them....serendipity, I guess.

It will be interesting to see how the Left, most historians are of the Left, will write about the downfall of the Obammunists.

Don't be surprised if they plagurize your line "...the people doing them lacked intelligence, resolve, and the power they needed to implement them."


3. "...they prefer to impose their agenda through fiat rahter than attempt to explain the pros and cons of their position,..."
Now, I have to quibble with you on this one, Q.
There is an element of totalism that resonates with human nature for many folks, either because they are too busy with the permutations of their daily existence, or perhaps they are coacetic with having someone else take care of them...

But I must admit that, once they reach a certain plateau of power...yes, fiat and force.

Tocqueville wrote about that aspect back in the 19th century. He said that statism offered to take care of all wants and needs, if you merely allow the masters to make all the decisions.

Writing “Democracy in America” in the 1830’s, he described “an immense, tutelary power, which takes sole charge of assuring their enjoyment and of watching over their fate.” As he predicted, this power is “absolute, attentive to detail, regular, provident, and gentle,” and it “works willingly for their happiness, but it wishes to be the only agent and the sole arbiter of that happiness. It provides for their security, foresees and supplies their needs, guides them in their principal affairs, directs their industry, regulates their testaments, divides their inheritances.” It is entirely proper to ask, as he asked, whether it can “relieve them entirely of the trouble of thinking and of the effort associated with living.”

4. But, to relate this to the OP, when they controlled all media, they simpley lied.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

3. "...they prefer to impose their agenda through fiat rahter than attempt to explain the pros and cons of their position,..."
Now, I have to quibble with you on this one, Q.
There is an element of totalism that resonates with human nature for many folks, either because they are too busy with the permutations of their daily existence, or perhaps they are coacetic with having someone else take care of them...

But I must admit that, once they reach a certain plateau of power...yes, fiat and force.

Tocqueville wrote about that aspect back in the 19th century. He said that statism offered to take care of all wants and needs, if you merely allow the masters to make all the decisions.

Writing “Democracy in America” in the 1830’s, he described “an immense, tutelary power, which takes sole charge of assuring their enjoyment and of watching over their fate.” As he predicted, this power is “absolute, attentive to detail, regular, provident, and gentle,” and it “works willingly for their happiness, but it wishes to be the only agent and the sole arbiter of that happiness. It provides for their security, foresees and supplies their needs, guides them in their principal affairs, directs their industry, regulates their testaments, divides their inheritances.” It is entirely proper to ask, as he asked, whether it can “relieve them entirely of the trouble of thinking and of the effort associated with living.”

4. But, to relate this to the OP, when they controlled all media, they simpley lied.

I must admit that I did give the impression that I believe only liberals are totalitarian. On the other hand, everyone expects conservatives to be totalitarian, even me. What upsets me about liberals doing it is that they betray their roots when they do so. Don't they realize that liberal is supposed to be the party of individual freedoms, not state control? It offends me that advocates of statism call themselves liberals.

 

[geauxtohell]

I'm not arguing that we should have continued the war, nor that the communists would not have won at that place and time, but rather that the liberal opinion makers should have known what was going to happen, and therefore lied to the American public and showed a willful disregard for the lives of people, many of whom were allies of the United States.

This is magically delicious.

If I "should have known what was going to happen" at the racetrack, I would retire a rich man tomorrow.

Blaming liberals for the rise of Pol Pot is absurd. When will Nixon ever be accountable for what happened under his watch?

 

[geauxtohell]

"Liberal Perspective" on what?

I love how the Conservatives chalk every failure of the six plus years of the Nixon Administration to Nixon being "crippled by Watergate".

Besides being hilarious, if Nixon didn't want to be crippled by Watergate, he shouldn't have been a party to illegal activity.

I swear, Ann Coulter's next book will be a history-rewrite to exonerate Nixon. Just as she did with "Tailgunner Joe"

She's quite the comedian.

You apparently fail to understand the Nixon perspective, the law did not apply to him.

I can only assume you are being facetious.

 

[editec]

The Southeast Asian mess was a LIBERALS' WAR, I quite agree.

After all, what party took us into that dismal swamp?

DEMOCRATS, folks, DEMOCRATS.

As to NIXXON?

Well, given that NiXXON was the last truly effective "liberal" POTUS this nation ever had, I have to conclude that the liberals (or either party) are no less willing to get the USA involved in a stipid and pointless war than the conservatives.

In fact, if history be our guide, so-called liberals are much more likely to get us into WAR than so-called conservatives.

 

[PoliticalChic]

I'm not arguing that we should have continued the war, nor that the communists would not have won at that place and time, but rather that the liberal opinion makers should have known what was going to happen, and therefore lied to the American public and showed a willful disregard for the lives of people, many of whom were allies of the United States.

This is magically delicious.

If I "should have known what was going to happen" at the racetrack, I would retire a rich man tomorrow.

Blaming liberals for the rise of Pol Pot is absurd. When will Nixon ever be accountable for what happened under his watch?

Did you miss the course in 'History of the 20th Century"?

Or this, from the OP:
3. The record of Communist states massacring large numbers of their own people is well documented. Starting with the Soviet Union, which pioneered the terror-famine, mass deportations, concentration camps and mass executions, Stalin murdered up to 20 million. Under Mao Tse-Tung, an estimated 65 million Chinese were killed by execution, torture, and starvation. Vietnam, over a million. North Korea, about two million. Courtois, et.al., "The Black Book of Communism," p.4.

What kind of willful disregard allows anyone who had not been in a coma to miss the results of communist take-overs?

Eisenhower said, presciently, 'Public opinion wins wars.'

That's what you are pretending to ignore. The opinion makers were all liberals.

1. When Nixon responded to a North Vietnamese offensive in 1972 by mining the Haiphong harbor, Democrats unleashed the Nazi comparisons. Congressman Ron Dellums: “In the last years of the Second World War, after the Germans knew they were defeated, they went on an orgy of killing…will our removal be in the same frenzied manner?’ Anonymous Author for the Black Panther Newspaper, The Black Panther. In Black Panther 8 no. 9

2. Also, there was Walter Cronkite’s report of the Tet Offensive. The MSM hammered away on the idea that we were losing and that we should lose.
“To listen to Cronkite you would have assumed the Tet Offensive was a dramatic triumph by North Vietnam and a devastating defeat for the U.S. Not hardly. I did a little research into the real number of casualties each side suffered in those battles: Country/Force Killed / Wounded / Missing
US, Korea, Australia 1,536 / 7,764 / 11
South Viet Nam 2,788 / 8,299 / 587
North Viet Nam and Viet Cong 45,000 / not known / not known” HolyCoast.com: Cronkite's Vietnam Editorial

3. NYTimes’ Harrison Salisbury traveled to North Vietnam in 1966-67, and reported that the US was deliberately targeting the civilian population. But Guenter Lewy, in “America in Vietnam,” revealed that “Only after the articles had appeared did a small number of persons learn that Salisbury, in effect, had given the authority of his byline to unverified Communist propaganda and the New York Times printed it as though Salisbury had established it himself with his own on-the-scene reporting…borrowed extensively from a North Vietnamese propaganda pamphlet, “Report on US War Crimes in Nam-Dinh City…” Lewy, p. 400-401

 

[Quantum Windbag]

"Liberal Perspective" on what?

I love how the Conservatives chalk every failure of the six plus years of the Nixon Administration to Nixon being "crippled by Watergate".

Besides being hilarious, if Nixon didn't want to be crippled by Watergate, he shouldn't have been a party to illegal activity.

I swear, Ann Coulter's next book will be a history-rewrite to exonerate Nixon. Just as she did with "Tailgunner Joe"

She's quite the comedian.

You apparently fail to understand the Nixon perspective, the law did not apply to him.

I can only assume you are being facetious.

Are you saying that Nixon did not believe he was above the law?

 

[geauxtohell]

You apparently fail to understand the Nixon perspective, the law did not apply to him.

I can only assume you are being facetious.

Are you saying that Nixon did not believe he was above the law?

Oh. You weren't being facetious. Apologies.

I certainly think Nixon thought he was above the law.

 

[geauxtohell]

That's what you are pretending to ignore. The opinion makers were all liberals.

I am not pretending to ignore it. I am pointing out that it's an absurd thing to base your entire premise on. Both the over-statement of the power of the "opinion makers" and the oft tossed around notion that they are all "liberals".

Absurd.

Do you think the President has any capacity to influence public opinion? As I said, when is Nixon going to ever be held accountable for his own failures? Blaming the "liberal media" is a repeating record.

1. When Nixon responded to a North Vietnamese offensive in 1972 by mining the Haiphong harbor, Democrats unleashed the Nazi comparisons. Congressman Ron Dellums: “In the last years of the Second World War, after the Germans knew they were defeated, they went on an orgy of killing…will our removal be in the same frenzied manner?’ Anonymous Author for the Black Panther Newspaper, The Black Panther. In Black Panther 8 no. 9

So what? Poor Dick couldn't deal with opposition party dissent? Nixon didn't give a damn about it when he started bombing Cambodia.

2. Also, there was Walter Cronkite’s report of the Tet Offensive. The MSM hammered away on the idea that we were losing and that we should lose.
“To listen to Cronkite you would have assumed the Tet Offensive was a dramatic triumph by North Vietnam and a devastating defeat for the U.S. Not hardly. I did a little research into the real number of casualties each side suffered in those battles: Country/Force Killed / Wounded / Missing
US, Korea, Australia 1,536 / 7,764 / 11
South Viet Nam 2,788 / 8,299 / 587
North Viet Nam and Viet Cong 45,000 / not known / not known” HolyCoast.com: Cronkite's Vietnam Editorial

Another conservative fallacy. "Cronkite lost us the war". I am sure it had nothing to do with the fact that we had been involved in Viet Nam for over a decade. The war greatly intensified after Ia Drang in 1965. The American public was sick of it. Popular opinion shifted against Viet Nam when the average "silent majority" voter got sick of seeing their sons (and occasionally daughters) being slaughtered on the other side of the world in another nation's civil war.

Furthermore, looking at body counts (which was one of the major mistakes of our entire Viet Nam Strategy) is a flawed way to gauge success. In the end, we routed the North Vietnamese at Tet. It was hardly their high water mark, and American public opinion was more influenced by the fact that, in a period of a few days, the NVA could basically put our backs to the wall while the ARVN forces were completely incompetent.

Body counts are naive. The North would have fought to the last man. It was the Viet Namese's nation. Not ours. Our soldiers rotated home and basically wanted to stay alive for their tour. The NVA already was home.

3. NYTimes’ Harrison Salisbury traveled to North Vietnam in 1966-67, and reported that the US was deliberately targeting the civilian population. But Guenter Lewy, in “America in Vietnam,” revealed that “Only after the articles had appeared did a small number of persons learn that Salisbury, in effect, had given the authority of his byline to unverified Communist propaganda and the New York Times printed it as though Salisbury had established it himself with his own on-the-scene reporting…borrowed extensively from a North Vietnamese propaganda pamphlet, “Report on US War Crimes in Nam-Dinh City…” Lewy, p. 400-401

And that's just sloppy reporting. So what?

 

[PoliticalChic]

That's what you are pretending to ignore. The opinion makers were all liberals.

I am not pretending to ignore it. I am pointing out that it's an absurd thing to base your entire premise on. Both the over-statement of the power of the "opinion makers" and the oft tossed around notion that they are all "liberals".

Absurd.

Do you think the President has any capacity to influence public opinion? As I said, when is Nixon going to ever be held accountable for his own failures? Blaming the "liberal media" is a repeating record.

1. When Nixon responded to a North Vietnamese offensive in 1972 by mining the Haiphong harbor, Democrats unleashed the Nazi comparisons. Congressman Ron Dellums: “In the last years of the Second World War, after the Germans knew they were defeated, they went on an orgy of killing…will our removal be in the same frenzied manner?’ Anonymous Author for the Black Panther Newspaper, The Black Panther. In Black Panther 8 no. 9

So what? Poor Dick couldn't deal with opposition party dissent? Nixon didn't give a damn about it when he started bombing Cambodia.

2. Also, there was Walter Cronkite’s report of the Tet Offensive. The MSM hammered away on the idea that we were losing and that we should lose.
“To listen to Cronkite you would have assumed the Tet Offensive was a dramatic triumph by North Vietnam and a devastating defeat for the U.S. Not hardly. I did a little research into the real number of casualties each side suffered in those battles: Country/Force Killed / Wounded / Missing
US, Korea, Australia 1,536 / 7,764 / 11
South Viet Nam 2,788 / 8,299 / 587
North Viet Nam and Viet Cong 45,000 / not known / not known” HolyCoast.com: Cronkite's Vietnam Editorial

Another conservative fallacy. "Cronkite lost us the war". I am sure it had nothing to do with the fact that we had been involved in Viet Nam for over a decade. The war greatly intensified after Ia Drang in 1965. The American public was sick of it. Popular opinion shifted against Viet Nam when the average "silent majority" voter got sick of seeing their sons (and occasionally daughters) being slaughtered on the other side of the world in another nation's civil war.

Furthermore, looking at body counts (which was one of the major mistakes of our entire Viet Nam Strategy) is a flawed way to gauge success. In the end, we routed the North Vietnamese at Tet. It was hardly their high water mark, and American public opinion was more influenced by the fact that, in a period of a few days, the NVA could basically put our backs to the wall while the ARVN forces were completely incompetent.

Body counts are naive. The North would have fought to the last man. It was the Viet Namese's nation. Not ours. Our soldiers rotated home and basically wanted to stay alive for their tour. The NVA already was home.

3. NYTimes’ Harrison Salisbury traveled to North Vietnam in 1966-67, and reported that the US was deliberately targeting the civilian population. But Guenter Lewy, in “America in Vietnam,” revealed that “Only after the articles had appeared did a small number of persons learn that Salisbury, in effect, had given the authority of his byline to unverified Communist propaganda and the New York Times printed it as though Salisbury had established it himself with his own on-the-scene reporting…borrowed extensively from a North Vietnamese propaganda pamphlet, “Report on US War Crimes in Nam-Dinh City…” Lewy, p. 400-401

And that's just sloppy reporting. So what?

Now you have made eminently clear your antipathy for President Nixon.
Does that re-establish lib creds? Good.

Now, I need a wee bit of a further clarification, as it's been a long weekend, and I could use a good laugh.

"Do you think the President has any capacity to influence public opinion?"

As this is your response to my indicating the NYTimes, the LATimes, and the Washington Post as pre-eminent opinion makers, and identifiably liberal, I need to be clear....

are you suggesting that the opinion-making ability of the President, especially a Republican President is in any manner, way or form, the equal of the liberal house-organs that I have identified?

Oops....I'm starting to giggle already!

We won't even include CBS, NBC and ABC, you know, Cronkite and his epigones.


And as for "And that's just sloppy reporting. So what?" as a response to the fact that Salisbury allowed the Communists to write his column, and had it published in the NYTimes...

Since it is a Sunday eve, I hesitate to point out that that response puts you precariously close to being considered ineligible to give any opinion.
I'll do you a great favor and make believe you weren't thinking when you wrote that.


A more reputable opinion can be found here:
"To others, he was aiding the enemy. Tom Wolfe, reporting from the aircraft carrier Coral Sea, wrote:
"To the Americans who knew the air war in the north firsthand, it seemed as if the North Vietnamese were playing Mr. Harrison Salisbury of The New York Times like an ocarina, as if they were blowing smoke up his pipe and the finger work was just right and the song was coming forth better than they could have played it themselves." Newseum War Stories: An Essay by Harry Evans


If that's not enough to have you reconsider that opinion, let me remind you that the same liberal opinion-maker, the NYTimes, published the propaganda of Joseph Stalin, while he covered up the forced starvation of the farmers of the Ukraine.

""There is no famine or actual starvation nor is there likely to be."

--New York Times, Nov. 15, 1931, page 1

"Any report of a famine in Russia is today an exaggeration or malignant propaganda."
--New York Times, August 23, 1933

"Enemies and foreign critics can say what they please. Weaklings and despondents at home may groan under the burden, but the youth and strength of the Russian people is essentially at one with the Kremlin's program, believes it worthwhile and supports it, however hard be the sledding."

--New York Times, December 9, 1932, page 6

"There is no actual starvation or deaths from starvation but there is widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition."

--New York Times, March 31, 1933, page 13

As one of the best known correspondents in the world for one of the best known newspapers in the world, Mr. Duranty's denial that there was a famine was accepted as gospel. Thus Mr. Duranty gulled not only the readers of the New York Times but because of the newspaper's prestige, he influenced the thinking of countless thousands of other readers about the character of Josef Stalin and the Soviet regime. And he certainly influenced the newly-elected President Roosevelt to recognize the Soviet Union."
Pulitzer-Winning Lies | The Weekly Standard

Now, no one with any clue about history would make himself look so stupid as to say
"And that's just sloppy reporting. So what?"

Don't you agree?

 

[PoliticalChic]

OMG- this morninig Newsweek gave the explanation for several posts in this thread!

"When NEWSWEEK recently asked 1,000 U.S. citizens to take America’s official citizenship test, 29 percent couldn’t name the vice president. Seventy-three percent couldn’t correctly say why we fought the Cold War. Forty-four percent were unable to define the Bill of Rights. And 6 percent couldn’t even circle Independence Day on a calendar."

How Ignorant Are Americans? - Newsweek