It used to be that August 6th was that dark date when a B-29 christened the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima Japan in 1945. There are many arguments posited about this event and the second bomb dropped on 
Nagasaki on 8/9/45, which boiled down to whether President Truman was justified in making the decision on the basis of saving the lives of American soldiers. Was President Truman justified? Well let's take a look: He was a WWI veteran who served with distinction as a captain of a Field Artillery unit; He signed into law the GI Bill, which provided veterans returning from WWII untold economic and educational benefits; For better or worse, he made it military policy to integrate the U.S. Armed forces; He decided to keep the conflict in Korea a limited war, rather than engage the Chinese and Soviets in another world conflict. Enough with the accolades; he knew something about leadership, and about doing what's right by our soldiers and the people.
Flash forward 56 years later to the year 2001. Sitting in the Oval of Office holding the highest office in our land is George W. Bush, a man whose literally failed at every venture he's been involved in. He ran companies into bankruptcy and as Governor of Texas, he was responsible for more executions (152) than any governor before him. Like Truman, he too served his nation, but as pilot in Texas Air National guard which saw no combat action, and often times, he couldn't be bothered to show up for duty. Yet, because of a fateful decision he made this day in 2001, over what to do with a critical piece of information that could have saved the lives of over 3,000 soldiers, not to mention nearly 3,000 U.S. citizens on September 11, 2001, one has to wonder what Truman would have done in if he was handed the Bin Laden memo. Again, the debate is always open to question, but right now I'm envisioning 19 Saudi terrorists in Leavenworth Penitentiary, had Truman been the President to make the call.
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Over the years teaching at La Scuola d’Italia NY, I have learned that
children are not just students; they are careful observers of the world,
full of q...
6 months ago
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ReplyDeleteWell, for the sake of accuracy, this President really wasn't elected at all. In 2000, he was anointed the winner by the SCOTUS on the basis of biased and tainted election results, and in 2004, he and his cronies deliberately kept large segments of Democrat-leaning Ohioans from voting at all.
ReplyDeleteHowever, your point is taken and we need to figure out a way -- as a country -- to make this process more than a sound-bite contest. Truman was that guy and maybe Eisenhower was, too. But it seems to me like we've allowed this process to slip into such a level of irrelevancy that makes it easy of idiots like GWB to succeed.
Truman "the buck stops here"
ReplyDeleteBush "the deer stops where?"
interestingly enough Truman at one point had the lowest recorded poll ratings in modern times - for a president....but recovered by the end of his term in 1953
bush --- shooting for that record, closing fast....and no chance of recovery
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ReplyDeleteSorry DCup, I stand corrected. I'd like to think that I have a chronic form of selective dyslexia, but the fact is that I read it too fast and responded even faster. Can you forgive me?
ReplyDeleteDCap, thanks for the information about Truman. I didn't know he was that unpopular. You think maybe it was his decision to desegregate the armed forces or maybe putting his brains before his balls and not plunging the world into another war by engaging the Chinese and the Russians?