Message #11360

[msrobbie]

No, Robbie does not bite.  But, consider this.  With the exception of Harry Truman and possibly Jimmy Carter, no president since before FDR has not been guilty of some so-called "moral" indiscretions (and I'm not referring to just sexual ones), many while in office. (Okay, so Truman dropped the bomb, but that's another whole issue.)  Nixon didn't sleep around, but he sure drove Pat Nixon to drink.  It's the illegal arrest of thousands of demonstrators during the Nixon administration (put up in the 'tent prisons' and then released when the Justice Department people warned Nixon's henchmen that the arrests were without legal basis) and the "Pentagon Papers" and the "enemies list" and the secret bombings of Cambodia and the National Guard fiasco at Kent State.  Everyone wants to get all up in arms about the Waco incident (and, by the way, have you ever talked to any of the locals who knew any of David Koresh's bunch? I have), but everyone seems to forget the Kent State killings.  Those Kent State students did not have a stockpile of weapons, and there were teenagers in the crowd.  That old saying that "What is past is prologue" is a word to the wise and the not so wise.  I believe it was Harry Truman (forgive me if I paraphrase) who said something like, "The only thing new under the sun is the history you haven't yet read."



And Nixon did not go too quickly or too quietly.  He produced Memoirs, which is a really slick piece of fiction purported to be fact.  I'm not defending Clinton, I'm just suggesting that we view all our government leaders with equal perspective.



My point (and I DO have one) is that I will not be swayed.  I choose to read and watch and listen and assimilate information, weighing it carefully, and making my own judgments and coming to my own conclusions.  I do not need special interest groups trying to tell me what to think or advising me on what is "moral" or "immoral".   I have a functioning, perfectly good brain of my own, and I will develop my own opinions (of which I have many).  



I do hope we are not boring our international readers with all this talk.  We Americans do love a good debate.