No Comparison

Me and Doc Syracuse

I generally enjoy your comments, but no, the GOP does not "own national security, period". They posture. They teach. They scowl. They pretend and we pretend with them, because everyone wants to believe that the right is always there "up on that wall", ready for use - just break the glass, grab the might and sweep away evil.

Didn't turn out that way. The paradigm on which America stood tallest was created by those Americans pleased to call themselves democrats. The greatest generation had the golden advantage and blessed good fortune to have probably the greatest political leadership in history.

The cliche at the heart of the GOP says that progressives don't have what it takes to "handle the truth". Let's paraphrase from a different movie: what the democrats have, the GOP can't find; and what the GOP has, it used to have.

DocSyracuse replied on Dec 30, 2009 at 19:38:44

“I'll stick with the Few Good Men reference, it really does fit.

And your reference to the dem leadership during WWII is well-meaning but flawed. There is no comparison between the dem party in the 40's and the likes of Clinton, Reed, Pelosi, et. al. No. Comparison.”

Oh really? So then I reply:

You really should try to hide that omniscient aura of certainty. Your saying "No comparison" doesn't mean it's true - and in fact it's not.

Like clockwork a conservative goes straight to aging cliches, trotted out whenever they have to confront the huge overarching historical fact of the extraordinary success of the 4 term leadership of the Roosevelt-Truman era.

The truth for me is that there is a left, and there's a right - in any era. That greatest generation lived in a time when the left ran it. Of course the left wasn't Pelosi, or you, or me, or Clinton or Obama. They were simply the left of their time. And their triumph, counted and charged for history, was a spectacular event for humanklind.

I'll be wrong tomorrow; I think it's your turn today.

DocSyracuse replied on Dec 31, 2009 at 23:12:36

“I believe our viepoints are more in line that you think. I absolutely agree with you on the excellent leadership provided by Roosevelt and Truman. I've been a WWII buff for some time, and those men were true leaders who had very difficult decisions to make.

That was my point in referencing their performance as it contrasts (in my opinion) with the present dem leadership.

And I don't think I was going for any kind of omniscient tone there. I didn't think I needed to cite the various shortcomings of the present dem congress and president and the successes of that during the greatest generation. The differences are stark and unmistakable, at least in my opinion.

We agree absolutely when it comes to our views of FDR and Truman. Maybe we have differences when it comes to our opinion of how far the current quality of leadership compares to that during WWII.”

Then the lurching, unstable technical behemoth that is HuffingtonPost prevented us from continuing the thread...