History Lesson

It's difficult to make a persuasive argument when others just make stuff up. And when one's audience is made up of people who know so little, remember so little, analyze so little and aren't curious enough to learn anything, it's difficult to convince them otherwise. Barbara O'Brien gives us yet another example of how people with access to the media can make historically false claims with impunity. It's like those Soviet 5-Year plans... pure revisionist history. I'm grateful for Barbara's attempt to put the matter straight.

David Kirkpatrick in yesterday’s New York Times:

Democrats have spent three decades trying to exorcise the ghost of Senator George S. McGovern, whose losing 1972 presidential campaign calling for a withdrawal from Vietnam crystallized his party’s image as soft on national defense.

Barbara O'Brien at Mahablog:

George McGovern did not lose the 1972 presidential election because he called for withdrawal from Vietnam. I repeat, George McGovern did not lose the 1972 presidential election because he called for withdrawal from Vietnam.

How do I know this? Simple. In 1972, both bleeping major party candidates — Republican Nixon and Democrat McGovern — were calling for a bleeping withdrawal from bleeping Vietnam.

The Vietnam issue in 1972 was not at all parallel to the pro-war and anti-war positions people are taking now. In 1972, a substantial majority of the electorate recognized the course was unstayable and wanted it to end. And in 1972, President Richard bleeping Nixon and his Secretary of State, the motherbleeping Henry Kissinger, tried frantically to end the war before the 1972 elections. The Nixon-Kissinger “October surprise” was the announcement of a peace settlement with North Vietnam (which fell through after the elections).