Monday, April 30, 2007

Get it straight, Mr. Cheney

And so titles a recent opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times (Opinion, April 24, 2007) authored by none other than George S. McGovern, former U.S. senator from South Dakota and Democratic nominee for president in 1972 (he lost to Nixon).

The piece is a straightforward chastisement of a Cheney attack on the Democratic Party. McGovern provides a concise and relevant comparison of the Iraq War with the Vietnam War, the fiscal irresponsibility of the Bush-Cheney administration, the truth-challenged path we were offered to justify invading Iraq, and the morally corrupt team currently occupying the White House.

McGovern also has an interview in the current issue of Rolling Stone Magazine (Fortieth Anniversary). While McGovern lost the 1972 bid to become president, peace and the Vietnam War was a major platform issue of his campaign. Like the Iraq War, the Vietnam War was a civil war and our participation in it was immoral since that country posed no threat to us.

A telling quote from the Rolling Stone interview is
“I take a lot of satisfaction in the fact that, even though we lost [the 1972 campaign], we helped end the war in Vietnam. My campaign made it impossible for that war to continue.”
Of course, not long after his re-election Nixon resigned under threat of impeachment. Offering us a comparison between the Nixon administration and the current administration, McGovern writes
“It is my firm belief that the Cheney-Bush team has committed offenses that are worse than those that drove Nixon, Vice President Spiro Agnew and Attorney General John Mitchell from office after 1972. . . . I expect to see Cheney and Bush forced to resign their offices before 2008 is over.”

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