Glenn Thiel – 4/14/08

This page was last updated on April 14, 2008.

Bandwagon or garbage truck?; Glenn Thiel; Beaver County Times; April 14, 2008.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“George Washington was the father of our country; Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence; Abraham Lincoln was the Great Emancipator who led us through a Civil War and freed the slaves.

“Great Democratic presidents like FDR got us out of the Great Depression and successfully battled the Japanese in World War II; Harry Truman had to decide whether to allow hundreds of thousands of soldiers to die in a land invasion of Japan or to drop the atomic bomb; John Kennedy pulled us back from the brink of annihilation in his battle with Khrushchev over offensive missiles in Cuba.”

[RWC] In a previous letter Mr. Thiel told us he “had the good fortune of being able to teach various leadership courses for a local university, and what amazes me is how ill-informed the average person seems to be on the subject of leadership.” I could say the same about Mr. Thiel regarding history.

FDR did not get us out of the Great Depression. At the time World War II began, FDR had been in office for nine years and the U.S. was still solidly in the Depression. As a reminder, the unemployment rate was still a very high 14.6% in 1940 (down from 24.9% in 1933) and didn’t get below 10% until 1941 (9.9%). WWII ended the Depression, not FDR. In fact, it’s clear some of FDR’s leftist policies actually held back recovery.

JFK didn’t pull “us back from the brink of annihilation in his battle with Khrushchev over offensive missiles in Cuba.” Khrushchev blinked and removed the missiles as a result of the U.S. Navy blockade of Cuba. JFK should get credit for this, but Mr. Thiel appears to paint some other image of what happened.

“Now we have Hillary Clinton, who failed her bar exam, served as legal counsel for the Black Panthers, and who was tutored under the most immoral and amoral man to ever serve as president.

“We also have Barak Obama, a racist and power-mad egomaniac with virtually no experience.

“We should not be surprised at the latest offerings of a failed party that has also given us Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Ted Kennedy, Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Howard Dean — losers all.

“I would compare these people to pygmies, but I do not want to insult the pygmies.

“Some of you who are so ready to jump on this bandwagon need to take a closer look at the high tax policies, entitlement programs and universal health care that we would all have to pay for.

“It is more likely that you are jumping onto a garbage truck more than a bandwagon.”

[RWC] In all, this is a pretty lame letter. Mr. Thiel appears to be taking his cue from other flamethrowers whose work we read on this website.