The first was the choice of Truman. Most 20th-century vice presidents and presidents in both parties hailed from small towns, but she just happened to alight on a Democrat who ascended to the presidency when an ailing president died in office.

He also nuked Japan.

Not that Truman was all-out evil or anything (honestly I don’t really know enough about his whole administration to judge).

But I know he nuked people.

Maybe Palin didn´t know. We ought to criticize her for her intentional message, e.g. ¨the moral superiority of small town values,¨ and not a possibly unintentional endorsement. Too bad Americans would rather play gotcha and scandalmonger than discuss how Republicans have appropriated populist politics and anti-elitism despite their elitism, how Republicans have crowed about small towns to stoke anger and divisiveness and then attack vulnerable minorities, etc. And of course Americans really do not seem to want to discuss why these mythical small town values may in fact be inferior, if hatred of women and gays is a big part, and how we ought to embrace a more moral position instead.

Yeah, I realize there are some extenuating circumstances there. 

But the point remains that he’s the only US president so far to use the nuclear option.

Mike - Probably because he figured - for right or wrong - that the people killed in both blasts would pale in comparison to the lives lost - on both sides - from a conventional invasion.  We were facing up against a population that was going to fight to the last person with a ferocity tempered by the belief that we would do to them what they did to the Chinese during Nanjing.

Truman was pretty great on domestic policy (also I love him just for the extent to which he simply, truly *hated* Republicans) and foreign policy (Marshall Plan, UN etc.) his biggest misstep was Korea. I’m on the fence re: the A-Bomb. I feel like you can make an argument for Hiroshima, Nagasaki much less so.

OK, guys, srsly, I did NOT want to start this discussion again.

I really just wanted to point out that it’s interesting that the one president Palin is comparing herself to is the president who went nuclear.  It doesn’t much matter to me whether it was merited or not.

Palin is creepy both for what she personally believes in (or appears to) and for the lies and dog-whistles she is willing to have others put in her mouth. The only way you can give her a pass for quoting westbrook pegler is to say that she’s too ignorant or uncaring about such things to have known. Evil doesn’t qualify you for the vice-presidency, but neither does disconnection from reality.

OK, guys, srsly, I did NOT want to start this discussion again.

Awww, you’re no fun.

Point taken, though.  There are some interesting parallels, some of them I don’t want to think about.

“Maybe Palin didn´t know. We ought to criticize her for her intentional message, e.g. ¨the moral superiority of small town values,¨ and not a possibly unintentional endorsement.”

Why shouldn’t we? You go up on stage in front of millions of viewers, quote an idiot, and then when she’ll probably be confronted on it twitter “oh I didn’t know!” Please! I don’t want someone who is going to walk into the oval office to actually know who they’re saying they agree with and be expected to proof read and fact check their speeches.

One consideration behind demanding unconditional surrender of the Japanese was the great number of Allied prisoners, military and civilian(Mother Avengers’, in particular) who the Japanese held all over their conquered territory, and the fear that they would be killed if the Japanese Home Islands were invaded.

I’m just saying…......

she’s too ignorant

You know why this is no excuse?

I’d never heard of this guy until this very post, and had no idea that anyone had ever made “insinuations” about the assassination of RFK. 

I still have a feeling I wouldn’t have accidentally used his quote in a speech.  Because I’m not stupid enough to use someone’s words without knowing who they were.

Just as striking was the unnamed writer she quoted. He was identified by Thomas Frank in The Wall Street Journal as the now largely forgotten but once powerful right-wing Hearst columnist Westbrook Pegler.

As scary as this quote is I don’t believe that we can attriubute it the lipstick mama. Speech writers exist for a reason.  This woman didn’t know what the Bush doctrine was I doubt if she was aware of an racist, esoteric reporter from the 60’s.  Now she may agree with the sentiment expressed be crediting her with knowing the source I believe is a stretch.

She can either play stupid on this, and we can hang that around her neck, or she is evil, and we can hang that around her neck.

Either way, no excuses.  Didn’t she also say “The Buck Stops Here” in reference to Truman?  Or does this dumb flotsam think that means “shoot it NOW before it runs away”?

Is Pegler the guy who was thrown out of the John Birch Society for being too crazy?

You mean we hanen’t killed all those Kennedys yet?

middleclassguy is yet another demonstration of Dumbass Dana’s everlasting quote: “Conservatives have more class.”

I’m not in a lather about the Pegler thing. But I gotta stand up for my child. We grow good people in big cities, too, dammit! Those infernal Republicans (who of course wrote Palin’s speech) may be afraid of city folks (who tend to vote Democratic, of course), but it’s so chauvinist to elevate small-towners over others as if they have magical virtue juju powers.

We grow good people in big cities, too, dammit!

You just have to use espalier techniques.

The years I spent attending college in a small rural midwest town with “good small town values” was a mixed bag in my experience. 

Yes, there were some people who were open, friendly, and down-to earth which was refreshing compared to growing up as a latchkey kid in a working class neighborhood in NYC. 

On the other hand, those “small town values” also included openly displayed racism, homophobia, and a level of narrowmindedness which railed against anything different from their conformist rural White Midwest lifestyle. 

I’m on the fence re: the A-Bomb. I feel like you can make an argument for Hiroshima, Nagasaki much less so.

Though the atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are tragic for the killed and injured civilians, I believe the overwhelming portion of the responsibility for that tragedy needs to be laid at the feet of the Japanese Empire and its leaders as their part of WWII really originated as a consequence of their Chinese military adventures. 

Those started with their unprovoked invasion of Manchuria in 1931 for their natural resources/preemptive defensive strategy*, bombings/unprovoked invasions of Shanghai in 1932, and the more murderous unprovoked invasion of the rest of China in 1937 which touched off the Second Sino-Japanese War which snowballed into WWII when Imperial Japan felt the need to take out the US Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor and invade SE Asia for their abundant oil supplies. 

From conversations with older Chinese who were old enough to remember living under Japanese occupation or who fled the Japanese invasion as refugees like my parents and their families…..few will feel any sorrow for something they felt the Japanese brought upon themselves through their colonialist adventures and the heinous brutalities they visited on their fellow compatriots.  Keep in mind that unlike the US who entered the war in 1941, the Chinese have been subjected to the Japanese invasion, occupation, and the war since at least 1937….and in certain areas…for longer than that. 

* Imperial Japan’s idea of a “preemptive defense”...developed by Imperial Japanese Army founder Aritomo Yamagata during the Meiji era….was used to justify Imperial Japan’s increasing meddling in Korean politics from the 1890’s till 1910 when Japan annexed Korea into its empire.

But once we destroyed one, why did we need to destroy another?…

Japan delayed surrender for so long, that we almost destroyed a third city. Hiroshima was bombed August 6; Nagasaki on August 9. Hirohito did not decide to surrender until August 12. Had they not surrendered on August 15, the US would have dropped a third bomb in the following few days.

No one was looking forward to the amphibious invasion of Japan. Considering how hard the Japanese fought to retain the little lumps of coral they had held, with names like Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, and Peleliu, the tenacity and ferocity with which they would have kept the Allies off the Japanese home islands was all but unimaginable. Considering that the bulk of the US troops would have been exhausted from three years of combat, a lot of the baby boomers would never have been born.

More or less nothing seems worth doing, but oh well.
I just don’t have anything to say now.
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quoting a guy who argued for RFK’s assassination?

He was consistent—he also called for FDR’s assassination, and Truman’s.

About the small-town values thing, if Alaska is her touchstone for that, does small-town values include a rate of rape and child abuse significantly higher than the big cities?

Palin, or her speech writer, Matthew Sculley, a senior Bush speech writer, inserted the quote from Pegler as a message to the far right.  The message itself seemed innocent, but the people who the message was meant for understood it.  It had nothing to do with small towns, or Harry Truman.  It was letting the fringe right people know that she and McCain are on their side.

If she said Pegler praised Truman, she really doesn’t get it.  Or she’s a liar.

Pegler and Truman hated each other.  Pegler called Truman a hick and a “thin lipped hater,” while Truman called Pegler a guttersnipe.  Pegler’s article on the results of the 1948 presidential election (which Truman won, barely) carried the headline “Election Results Called End of the American Republic.”

Either ignorant or lying.  I know where I’m putting my money.

Tenya writes, ¨Why shouldn’t we? You go up on stage in front of millions of viewers, quote an idiot, and then when she’ll probably be confronted on it twitter “oh I didn’t know!” Please! I don’t want someone who is going to walk into the oval office to actually know who they’re saying they agree with and be expected to proof read and fact check their speeches.¨

The reason we shouldn´t is that it is tangential to her qualifications and policy positions and distracts from a serious discussion of what Palin believes. So why should we play gotcha with fact checking without addressing the heart of Palin´s folly, this mess about supposed small town values? Oh, right, we can´t, because Americans think small town values ARE in fact about hating gays and women and ARE in fact better. We will get the government we deserve for that.

It’s probably bad form on the blogosphere to come in and pimp something you wrote, but I’m only doing it in case people might enjoy it. This is the opening monologue to a play I wrote in November of 2004:

          HEATHER
This is where I’m from. You knowwhatI’msayin’? Place called America. America’s not like other places ‘cause it’s not just a country, it’s an idea. And normal countries aren’t ideas. They’re places. You know, Paraguay’s not an idea. Neither is Norway, or Tibet. Nobody talks about the Ethiopian Dream or what is or is not un-Belgian. And I’m realizing just tonight, it’s a Tuesday night in November by the way if you’re wondering why I’m thinking about this stuff right now, I’m realizing that it’s weird to be from an idea. “Hi, my name’s Heather and I’m from the Theory of Relativity.” Of course it’s not quite as boring as that. It’s more like being from a “Place Called Hope”, or a “Shining City on a Hill”. I grew up in a city. Or right next to one anyway. I don’t know if it’s shining exactly, and it’s not on a hill. It’s by a lake. It’s a good lake. A great lake in fact. And that’s shiny enough for me. People say you can’t see the stars in the city, but that’s not true. I mean, yeah, you can see more out in the country, but you can see them here. You just have to look harder for them. You know what I really love that you can’t get anywhere else? Our lights, the lights of the buildings and the streets. I love the way they meet the stars. Our lights are looking up and God’s lights are looking down. People talk about the cities, man, but look, I challenge you to not love that. Those lights are the lights we create. Nature gave us darkness and we made it brighter. Outside the cities is the heartland. The prairies and the country roads, the little towns and the family farms. We celebrate this place as the real America, you go to this place and tears form in your eyes, and you realize that it’s full of, what’s the phrase I’m looking for? Oh yes…retarded hill folk! The entire destiny of the entire planet is being determined by retarded hill folk! Contrary to popular propaganda, the virtues of this country are in its metropolitan oases of sanity and decency. The rest of it seems to be where ignorance and hatred get labeled as “moral values”. I’m not going to smile and nod anymore when I hear that phrase applied to the opposite of what it really means. From now on, there will be a complete moratorium on smiling and nodding. Morality is something great minds have debated for thousands of years. How to be a good person is something that you struggle with all your life, it’s something that you earn and it’s something that you’re called to be, when there aren’t any easy choices or easy answers. But wait, I’m making it all too complicated right? That’s the Devil’s work! The way to be a good person is to refrain from fucking anybody you’re not supposed to fuck! And then you get to go to Heaven! It’s not at all immoral to wage war when you don’t have to, or poison the earth because it’s cost effective, or destroy people’s livelihoods or refuse to heal the sick and the dying because they don’t have a high enough credit limit! Only godless college educated elitists would ever think that! Well let me tell you something that you need to hear, okay? My moral values are BETTER than yours, you sick fucks! That’s right, I said “sick fucks”! You’re the ones who are so obsessed with the sex other people are having that you’re willing to…God I don’t want to be this bitter and crazy but this is my night for it okay?