Carl Davidson – 6/2/16

This page was last updated on June 16, 2016.

THIS MAY NOT MATTER SO MUCH TO A YOUNGER GENERATION; Carl Davidson; Facebook; June 2, 2016.

You can learn more about BCR’s leftster management here. “Leftster” is the combination of leftist and gangster, inspired by the left-originated “bankster.”

They know they can’t win if they don’t lie #13. (links to the other episodes in this series)

On his Facebook page, Carl Davidson (KD) of Beaver County Reds (BCR) wrote, “THIS MAY NOT MATTER SO MUCH TO A YOUNGER GENERATION, but it does for those of us who lived through it, and tried to expose it at the time. – ‘Truth will out’ Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice.” KD’s referring to a nearly two-year-old Common Dreams (CD) piece entitled “George Will Confirms Nixon’s Vietnam Treason.” CD describes itself as “Breaking News & Views for the ~~Communist~~Progressive Community.” This appears to be another example of KD presenting old “news” as something new.

If you do the unthinkable and read the George Will (GW) opinion piece referenced by the CD piece, you will find the CD piece’s title is a lie. Mr. Will did NOT confirm “Nixon’s Vietnam Treason.” GW simply related a theory by Ken Hughes, author of “Chasing Shadows: The Nixon Tapes, the Chennault Affair, and the Origins of Watergate.” According to GW, “Hughes argues that Nixon ordered a crime in 1971 hoping to prevent public knowledge of a crime he committed in 1968.” GW didn’t present anything new or offer an opinion regarding Mr. Hughes’ theory.

Going just a little off topic, I continue to marvel at how much lefties dislike Richard Nixon (RMN). As you’ll read below, there’s a lot for lefties to like about RMN and he was not a conservative Republican by any stretch of the imagination.

Though lefties would have us blame RMN for the Vietnam War, it was two Democrat presidents (JFK and LBJ) who initiated and escalated U.S. combat involvement. One of the evil <g> RMN’s (R) 1968 campaign promises was to withdraw troops from Vietnam. Troop strength reached its peak of about 540,000 at about the time LBJ left office and President Nixon took office in 1969. By the end of his first year in office, RMN reduced U.S. troops in Vietnam to about 460,000. By the end of 1970 and 1971, troop levels were about 335,000 and 157,000, respectively. There were “only” about 27,400 U.S. troops in Vietnam by the end of RMN’s first term at the end of 1972. A ceasefire began in January 1973 and all U.S. troops were out of South Vietnam by the end of 1973. (Note: Depending on the source, the above figures vary slightly.)

The gripe of lefties appears to be RMN didn’t immediately cease combat operations and didn’t immediately bring all U.S. troops home. Part of getting U.S. troops out of Vietnam was training South Vietnamese so they could fight for themselves. That might sound reasonable to most of us, but not to communists of the day like KD. North Vietnam was communist and U.S. communists were allies.

RMN took the first step to normalizing relations between the U.S. and Red China, something three Democrat presidents (Truman, JFK, and LBJ) before him did not. RMN traveled to Red China and met with Mao Tse-tung, two more actions his Democrat predecessors did not do.

Regarding domestic policy, RMN was a Rockefeller Republican, as were Presidents Bush. RMN imposed price and wage controls in a vain attempt to control inflation, as did FDR during the Depression and WWII. Both FDR’s and RMN’s controls were epic and predictable failures. FDR’s wage controls – plus a 94% marginal tax rate on taxable income above $200,000 – fathered today’s medical care mess. RMN’s oil price controls – in effect until President Reagan took office in 1981 – led to less supply and the shutting-in of some domestic crude oil wells. If you had the fun of “odd-even” rationing and sitting in lines as I did to get gasoline, thank RMN and the Democrat-controlled Congress. The misnamed “windfall profits” tax – it was an excise tax – enacted in 1980 also contributed until repealed in 1988. RMN gave us OSHA (signed the act passed by Congress), the EPA (via executive order, later approved by Congress), and supported the Equal Rights Amendment, though presidents have no role in the process. RMN even proposed a national healthcare system, twice. When his 1971 proposal went nowhere in Congress, RMN reworked it and in 1974 proposed his Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan (CHIP) to Congress. Read RMN’s message to Congress regarding CHIP and you’ll find he gave it far more thought and provided far more guidance than President Obama did with Obamacare. Though Democrats held the majority in both houses of Congress throughout the RMN’s presidency, RMN and Democrats failed to agree on something both wanted.

Below are comments posted by KD followers. Based on their comments, I don’t think any of the commenters below read any of the relevant articles. Hat’s off to Abdul Leon Cooper, so far the only follower to mention the info in GW’s piece came from Mr. Hughes. That said, Mr. Cooper failed to mention GW’s column didn’t do what CD and KD claimed.

Carl Davidson: “No, we knew it was true back then, and wrote about it in the left press. Will simply uses new documents to confirm it.”

[RWC] False. As covered above, GW did not “use new documents.” GW simply related another author’s opinion about what was behind the Watergate scandal.

Magie Read: “Carl Davidson I’m just showing my absolute disgust for George Will. He knew it, too. Just thought he should wait longer to declare water to be wet.”

[RWC] Will Ms. Read have “absolute disgust for” KD if she learns KD lied about this, and a lot of other stuff?

Daleth Hall: “Why did George wait so long? Why did he cover up Nixon’s felony and crime against humanity for almost 50 years? Thousands of people DIED because of that.”

[RWC] Wow! Completely clueless.

Harry Targ: “George HW Bush on behalf of Reagan communicated with Iranians to hold the hostages until after the 1980 elections also. Elections first has a long tradition.”

Jerry Harris: “Regan [sic] did the same to Carter over the Iran Hostage issue.”

Haywood Hall: “OLD NEWS.. and yes similar to Regan [sic] and Carter”

Janet Gilles: “Truth should have been acknowledged. CIA director Bush went on to get Iran to keep the Embassy hostages until the election, in exchange for which, Reagan sold Iran Hawk missiles during an international arms boycott.”

[RWC] If you’re wondering what Messrs. Hall, Harris, Targ, and Ms. Gilles are talking about, lefties unhappy with Ronald Reagan’s election floated a conspiracy theory that had VP-candidate George H.W. Bush secretly traveling to/from Europe via an SR-71 Blackbird (a spy plane) to conduct secret negotiations with Iran during the 1980 presidential campaign to release the U.S. hostages held in Tehran. Unable to accept President Jimmy Carter’s landslide loss to Ronald Reagan, believers claimed the Reagan campaign secretly negotiated a deal with Iran in which the hostages wouldn’t be released until after the election.

If you wanted to conduct secret negotiations, you wouldn’t involve an SR-71. Though retired since 1999, the SR-71 remains the fastest manned airplane (Mach 3.2+) ever to fly. The SR-71 also holds the record altitude – 85,000+ feet - for sustained flight. That said, the SR-71 was anything but inconspicuous on the ground.

If you ever heard Rush Limbaugh claim Democrats charging Republicans with some misdeed value the seriousness of the charge over evidence, this is the origin. As reported by the NY Times in 1991, “Congressional Democratic leaders today ordered a formal investigation into whether Ronald Reagan’s Presidential campaign made a deal with Iran in 1980 to delay the release of American hostages until after the election. … ‘These allegations are both persistent and disturbing,’ the two leaders said in a joint statement. ‘We have no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing, but the seriousness of the allegations, and the weight of circumstantial information, compel an effort to establish the facts.’ Was ‘October Surprise’ Feared?” As you will read below, “the weight of circumstantial information” was zero.

When the House October Surprise Task Force presented its final report, chairman Lee H. Hamilton (D-NY) wrote, “The task force report concluded there was virtually no credible evidence to support the accusations. Specifically, we found little or no credible evidence of communications between the 1980 Reagan campaign and the Government of Iran and no credible evidence that the campaign tried to delay the hostages’ release.”

In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity. <g>