>This retroactive hagiography for a mass murderer of millions of Vietnamese
>and Cambodians still just leaves me stunned every time it's repeated.
>
>-- Nathan Newman
-See, didn't I tell you that Nathan would have apoplexy? Nathan, what's your -take on Truman and Johnson, speaking of mass murderers? Or Kennedy, who -nearly got all ofus killed?
I'm not going to give a big defense of Truman's foreign policy given the bloodiness of the Korean War, but he did risk his Presidency to fireMacArthur to prevent a broader war with China. And comparing Nixon versus Truman on civil rights is no contest-- Truman was probably the most daring defender of civil rights in our history, given he proposed desegregation of schools and public accomodations in 1948 and was willing to see the Dixiecrats walk out of the convention on the issue, quite different from Nixon's cynical promotion of black capitalism "affirmative action."
As for Kennedy-- get nothing from me; I think he is the most overrated guy of the 20th century. Did almost nothing other than pass tax cuts for the wealthy and got us into Vietnam.
Johnson is of course the interesting case, fantastic on domestic policy, a disaster of epic proportions on foreign policy. But I will still take Johnson's stupid escalation over Nixon's mass bombing of Cambodia.
And yep, I will take Clinton's humanitarian interventions in Haiti and Kosovo over all of them on foreign policy. Again, against Luke's point, some things have improved tremendously on policy over the years. Thirty years ago, Bush's ham-handed applauding of the coup in Venezula would not be considered a scandal-- his failure to follow through effectively on dumping Chavez would have been the scandal.
So viva the political progress.
-- Nathan Newman