Tag Archives: Vietnam War

Romney speech put in perspective

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I watched Mitt Romney blister the daylights out of Donald J. Trump on Thursday morning and all but cheered at my TV set as I watched the speech.

Then I thought a bit more about it and realized: Didn’t the 2012 Republican nominee support many of the positions for which he’s now blasting the 2016 GOP frontrunner? And isn’t the party to which he belongs culpable of the things associated with Trump?

One example stands out. You’ll recall Romney saying four years ago that he would make life so miserable for illegal immigrants that they would “self-deport” themselves back to their home country. Now he says Trump’s anti-immigrant position is inhumane.

The New York Times noted: “He also listed Mr. Trump’s offenses — ‘the bullying, the greed, the showing off, the misogyny, the absurd third-grade theatrics.’ Did Mr. Romney have any sense of irony when he said those words? For far too long, they could have been used to describe many in his party: legislators, congressional leadership, its policy makers.”

There was much to commend Romney’s remarks Thursday morning. Perhaps the most skillful put-down related to Trump’s denigrating the heroism exhibited by U.S. Sen. John McCain during the Vietnam War. Romney noted the “dark irony” of Trump saying McCain was a “war hero because he got captured.” Romney said that while McCain was being tortured by his North Vietnamese captors, Trump was gallivanting with married women.

I want Romney’s remarks to stick. I want them to make Republicans think long and hard about the man who says he wants to be their party’s nominee.

The reverse of what I want might occur. Instead of forcing GOP voters to turn away from Trump, Romney’s scathing rebuke might solidify Trump’s support among those primary voters who want to send some kind of message to the party high command.

Think about this, too. Mitt Romney embodies the very public policies embraced by the Republican establishment that’s become Donald Trump’s punching bag.

 

Well, I’ll be dipped …

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Dear old Dad had a saying he would use whenever he was mortified, surprised, confused or amazed.

“Well, I’ll be dipped in sesame seeds,” he would say.

Tonight, my dad is being dipped and covered in ’em. I don’t have any other way to describe the news out of South Carolina that TV celebrity/real estate mogul Donald J. Trump has rolled to another Republican Party presidential victory.

The fight is on at this moment for second place. The combatants are U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida.

I’ve admitted already, but it’s worth another admission, a confession, a mea culpa: I was wrong about Trump’s staying power. Many times along the way I thought he’d said something that would doom him.

It started with his denigration of Sen. John McCain’s status as a Vietnam War hero. “He’s a hero because he got captured,” Trump said. “I like people who aren’t captured, OK?”

There would be many other instances of profound crassness. None of them mattered in the eyes of those who continue to support this guy.

I am no longer going to make such predictions as they relate to Trump.

This campaign has become a case study in weirdness.

The insults keep piling up — right along with the victories this individual keeps winning.

He’s two-for-three at the moment. Cruz won the Iowa caucuses, barely. Trump rolled to victory in New Hampshire and appears to be rolling in South Carolina.

If the Republican National Committee still harbors any hope of stopping Trump, of denying him the party’s presidential nomination, my advice is simple and straightforward.

Y’all have to get real busy. Like right now!

Oh, and Dad? Wherever you are, I’m just as baffled as you might be.

 

‘Establishment’ now the target of the right

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Once upon a time, the term “establishment” became a four-letter word to those on the left.

That was during, oh, the Summer of Love — 1967, or thereabouts, the year I graduated from high school. Protesters were taking to the streets to chant slogans and carry signs against the Vietnam War and, yep, the establishment that supported that effort.

Little did I realize at the time that I’d be joining that conflict … but that’s another story for another time — maybe.

The establishment comprised old guys in dark suits who sat around big conference room tables in Washington, D.C., making decisions that affected young people’s lives.

In too many tragic cases, those old guys’ decisions ended young people’s lives — if you know what I mean.

Well, here we are in the present day. Nearly 50 years later, and the term “establishment” is still a four-letter word. Only now the righties have taken up the cudgel. They’re beating the daylights out of establishment politicians because, I reckon, they aren’t radical enough to suit the righties’ point of view.

Presidential candidates are split into two camps: establishment and, well, something else. Outsiders? TEA Party faithful? Rabble rousers?

The establishment is getting pummeled now by those on the right and the far right, much like it got battered in the old days by those on the left and the far left.

To be sure, the establishment is taking its share of hits today from the left. One presidential candidate, the “democratic socialist,” is taking aim at the top 1 percent, the very wealthy and seeks to level the playing field to aid the rest of the country.

The heaviest fire against the establishment these days is coming from the right.

Those poor establishment guys — the fellows who still wear the dark suits — just can’t get a break.

As the song from the old days tells us, “There’s something happenin’ here, what it is ain’t exactly clear.”

 

How does Bernie attract young voters?

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Many of my friends seem to think I live, eat, drink and breathe politics.

Not true. I actually have a life outside of the political world. Still, I enjoy the give-and-take of political discussion.

This morning a friend of mine and I were talking about the presidential race. The conversation turned to Bernie Sanders, the independent U.S. senator from Vermont who’s running for the Democratic nomination.

“Why do young people like him so much?” my friend asked.

I haven’t given it that much thought as I’ve watched Sanders chip away at Hillary Rodham Clinton’s one-time inevitability as the Democratic nominee.

Then it dawned on me as my friend posed the question: Sanders has a grandfatherly appeal.

Back in the very old days, when I was a twentysomething idealist, I joined an army of young voters who supported the late Sen. George McGovern. His campaign centered on a single issue: ending the Vietnam War.

By 1972, the war was still raging. My own interest in the war was a bit different from many of my peers. They faced the prospect of going there. I had been there and returned. I came back after my Army stint as confused and confounded about our mission in ‘Nam as I was when I went over in the spring of 1969.

Sanders’ appeal to young voters today — more than four decades later — is a bit more elusive. I have trouble understanding his economic appeal, but then again, maybe it’s just me; I might be a bit slower on the uptake than I used to be.

I’ve concluded that perhaps a lot of Sanders’ appeal rests on the fact that he’s a bit longer in the tooth than any of the other candidates running for president this year — although Clinton isn’t that much younger.

Hillary Clinton faces an authenticity challenge. Sanders doesn’t. He seems to be precisely how he presents himself: a loveable curmudgeon.

I’ll admit that I haven’t talked to that many young people about Sanders’ candidacy. Another young friend with whom I’ve recently gotten acquainted asked me this morning about Michael Bloomberg — the former New York mayor who’s pondering an independent/third party candidacy for president.

I haven’t a clue what would drive a Bloomberg candidacy, other than be a spoiler, I said. He, too, is an older gentleman. Would my young friend support Bloomberg because he reminds her of Grandpa? I might ask next time I see her.

Yes, this election season is the most unconventional many of us ever have seen. This fascinating love affair that Old Man Bernie has developed with younger voters just might be yet another result of the unrest that’s gripped so many Americans.

 

 

 

Torture returns to the political debate arena

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It’s back. Torture has made its return as an issue being discussed by presidential candidates.

Donald J. Trump has dredged it from the has-been issue pile, saying something about how he would order the waterboarding of bad guys in order to get information from them.

Don’t do it, says someone who knows a thing or three about torture.

I prefer to stand with the expert on these things. That would be U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who lost the presidency in the 2008 campaign to fellow Sen. Barack Obama.

What’s a bit ironic, of course, is that McCain and Trump would be at loggerheads over this issue. Why the irony? You’ll recall that one of Trump’s initial insults was tossed in McCain’s direction when he said that the senator is a war hero only because he got captured by the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War and that he (Trump) preferred people “who weren’t captured, OK?”

Here they are again. McCain has long opposed the use of waterboarding as an “enhanced interrogation” technique. He calls it torture, which he believes breaks faith with American principles.

What does McCain now about torture? More than most Americans ever will know, and certainly far more than Donald Trump knows about it.

McCain’s five-plus years as a captive after being shot down during the Vietnam War included many years of torture: beatings, solitary confinement and the communists’ various versions of “enhanced interrogation.”

When the senior senator from Arizona calls a particular act a form of torture, well, I am inclined to believe him.

I am doing so in this particular exchange.

He’s right as well to suggest that the information gleaned from waterboarding has been sketchy at best and has not provided nearly as much actionable intelligence as has been suggested.

Sen. McCain isn’t speaking as some soft-pedaling, squishy, politically correct liberal. He speaks as someone who’s been straight to hell and back.

 

GOP fretting like crazy over Trump, Cruz

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The drama being played out in the inner circles of the Republican Party national network is among the most fascinating things I’ve ever seen.

Two men have emerged as co-favorites for the GOP presidential nomination — and the party brass is none too happy about either of them.

Donald J. Trump has managed to insult his way to the top of the still-large GOP heap; U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas antagonized his Senate colleagues to the point that it’s no generally understood that, well, no one on Capitol Hill likes, or even respects, the junior senator.

Republican statesmen, such as Robert Dole, say a Cruz nomination would bring “cataclysmic” losses to the party; it could cost Republicans control of the Senate and bring Democrats within striking distance of getting control of the House.

Aw, but today’s firebrands label the likes of former Sen. Dole as “has been,” “loser,” “RINO.”

That’s their view. It’s not mine.

Trump is now calling himself a conservative. His prior public statements about such things as abortion and universal health care betray his claim, according to so-called “true conservatives.”

But there he is. Looking down from atop the GOP heap. He’s going after Cruz’s eligibility to run for president. He’s feuding with a broadcast journalist. He’s managed to insult Iowa voters, Hispanics, Muslims, our allies abroad, every working politician in Washington, D.C., women, reporters and editors . . . and others I can’t even think of at the moment.

Hey, it’s all OK with those who think Trump is “fresh.”

Wow!

As for Ted Cruz, well, he took his senatorial oath in January 2013 and began hunting for every open microphone he could find. He had his presidential ambitions planned out even before winning a contest in his first political election . . . ever!

He’s trampled over Senate colleagues, broken long-established Senate rules of decorum by calling the body ‘s majority leader a liar. He questioned whether decorated Vietnam War veterans, such as Secretary of State John Kerry and former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, had a true appreciation for the military; and this came from someone who never donned a military uniform!

The Republican Party has a problem, all right.

What will the GOP do? How will it deny either of these men its presidential nomination?

Given that so few of us have ever seen such intraparty angst, I’m afraid the Grand Old Party is on its own.

Good luck, ladies and gents.

 

So very wrong about Campaign ’16 . . . so far

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I’ve said it more times than I can remember, which is that I’m wrong far more frequently than I am right.

My political prognostication skill has been exposed for what it is: shaky . . . at best.

Thus, I am prepared to acknowledge how wrong I’ve been about the current campaign for the presidency. My wrongness tracks along both parties’ trails.

First, the Republicans.

Donald J. Trump’s candidacy has withstood the candidate’s own serious shortcomings as a presidential aspirant, let alone his actual ability to govern.

Never in a zillion years did I think he’d still be in this campaign — let alone leading the GOP gaggle of candidates — after the countless insults he has hurled along the way.

Sen. John McCain’s valor during the Vietnam War doesn’t make him a hero? The ridiculous back/forth with broadcast journalist Megyn Kelly during the first presidential debate? His assertion that he’ll build a wall along our southern border and force Mexico to pay for it? His revealing Sen. Lindsey Graham’s cell phone number? His proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the United States? His assertion that he witnessed “thousands of Muslims cheering” the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11?

OK, I’ve left some of ’em out.

Despite all that, this guy continues to lead the pack.

Anger among GOP voters? That’s what is moving this man forward? If that is the case, then the Republican Party “base” is lost its sanity.

During President Obama’s State of the Union speech, I tried to imagine Donald Trump standing at that lectern offering high-minded, soaring rhetoric designed to lay the groundwork for how he intends to govern. Imagine him as well standing on the steps of the U.S. Capitol next January offering his inaugural speech to the nation as its 45th president.

All I hear coming from this guy are blustering, blistering insults.

Is that really what we want in the next president of the United States? Our head of state? Our commander in chief?

Now for the Democrats.

I once thought Hillary Rodham Clinton’s nomination was a shoo-in. She had it locked up. Nothing, or no one, would derail the Hillary Express on its way to the nomination and to the White House.

Then came Bernie Sanders, the democratic socialist with a campaign theme that has resonated with his party’s base. Break up the big banks, de-fang the Wall Street power brokers, spread the wealth around, lift up everyone’s wages and reduce the income gap between the very rich and the rest of the country.

Republicans have made a lot of hay over Benghazi, which has become a form of political shorthand that means: Clinton lied about what she knew about the attack on the U.S. consulate in that Libyan city. There’s a congressional select committee that’s still looking for something to torpedo Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Meanwhile, Sanders — the independent U.S. senator from Vermont — is drawing huge, enthusiastic crowds. He’s ahead by a good bit in New Hampshire, the site of the nation’s first primary vote and is now virtually tied with Clinton in Iowa, which is about to kick off the voting with its caucuses.

Do I believe Hillary Clinton will be denied the nomination? No. But it sure ain’t the coronation I thought it would be when this campaign began.

Let me add, too, that I do not believe Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee. I have some faith — although it’s been hammered — that the Republican Party brass comprises reasonable, intelligent and sane men and women who understand the consequences of nominating someone whose main skill lies in his ability to insult anyone who disagrees with him.

I don’t like acknowledging how wrong I have been.

Still, I feel better now for saying so out loud.

 

What? Discrepancies in Trump’s background?

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Karma can be a bitch.

Donald J. Trump’s account of his years at a military academy is now being challenged.

The Republican presidential candidate has portrayed his years at the academy as sufficient preparation for making him commander in chief. Now come reports that Trump’s years in the New York military school weren’t nearly as rosy as he has portrayed them.

Trump had received medical and student deferments that kept him from serving in the military during the Vietnam War. Trump, though, has portrayed his enrollment at New York Military Academy as being the next best thing to serving in the military.

Some former classmates now say that Trump wasn’t nearly as attentive to the students under his command as he should have been . . .  and as he has portrayed himself as being.

Turnabout is fair play, yes? Trump and others have asked questions about Barack H. Obama’s past. His academic records at Columbia University; his birth records.

Now the proverbial shoe is on the proverbial other foot.

How will Trump answer these questions?

Others and I are waiting.

 

Time to get back into the game

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That was a nice break from the presidential political campaign.

It’s now over.

High Plains Blogger has been pretty quiet for the past few weeks on the goings-on related to the Democratic and Republican campaigns for the White House. The intent was to stay quiet during the Christmas holiday. I had given thought to maintaining the moratorium through New Years Day. I admit it: I can’t do it.

So, I’ll be getting back in the game.

* * *

The Iowa caucuses are coming up, followed quickly by the New Hampshire primary.

Donald J. Trump continues to lead the GOP pack, although for the life of me I remain baffled to the max as to what’s going on with Republican voters. I keep hearing and reading things about how Trump has changed the rules of the campaign. How he’s rewriting the playbook.

The more offensive he is toward his primary foes, the better it goes for the guy. I thought he was toast at the very beginning when he denigrated Sen. John McCain’s heroic service during the Vietnam War. Good grief, the list of insults has grown beyond my ability to remember them all.

But … by golly he remains at the top of the heap.

The Democrats? It’s still Hillary Clinton’s contest to lose (although I’ve never quite understood that phrase; I’ll just use it anyway, because it’s what pundits keep saying).

I’m going to be watching and waiting for Trump to say the one thing that sends his campaign into the crapper. It might not be a single utterance, though, that dooms his weird campaign. It might be an accumulation of things that will dawn on GOP primary voters when they finally get the chance to cast actual ballots.

They’ll need to ask: Is this the guy we really and truly want to nominate to become the 45th president of the United States of America?

If it’s going to be Trump, well, as Hillary Clinton herself as said: Fasten your seatbelts.

 

 

President declares victory … over whom, what?

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It’s being reported tonight that President Obama today declared victory as he and his family took off out west on their family Christmas vacation.

I get that he’s anxious to finish his final full year as president on a high note. I question, though, whether there’s a victory yet to declare.

The president held his annual end-of-year press conference touting a few key victories: the Iran nuclear deal, the continuing enrollment of the Affordable Care Act, the recent budget deal worked out by Congress, re-establishing ties with Cuba, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and some other things.

They’ve all produced good signs of progress. But victory?

Not yet.

There’s still that ongoing fight with the Islamic State. He pledged yet again that the United States is hitting ISIL “harder than ever” and vowed to ramp up the pounding that U.S. and allied nations are delivering to the terrorist monsters. That fight is far from over. Indeed, it might never end. It won’t end by the time the current president leaves office and likely won’t end by the time the next one departs the White House.

It all reminds me of the time the late U.S. Sen. George Aiken, R-Vt., once declared that it would be in the best interest of the country to “declare victory” in Vietnam and just go home.

Well, at least don’t have to “go home.” Still, there’s much more work to do before the 44th president hands the White House keys over the 45th.

Enjoy the time with your family, Mr. President. Come on back, though, and get to work.

Oh … and Merry Christmas to you as well.