Letter: Remedial history for Republicans: Truman, Kennedy, Clinton did what?

Re July 27 letter, “Writer’s assessment of past GOP administrations off the mark,” by Martin Robic.

That letter was immediately nominated for the “Forget About What’s True” (FAWT) award. But upon further review, the judges decided that this letter far surpassed the qualifications for the above honor.

You see, this letter not only distorts historical events; it also attempts to personally embarrass the author of another letter by accusing the writer of memory failure, and having his head in the sand. So the judges decided to create another award category, the “Conservatives Re-creating American History Poorly” (CRAHP) award. For the remainder of this letter, this acronym will be referred to as “acronym.” So here are a few historical realities, just for the record:

The first tax on Social Security passed in 1983 under a Republican administration. President Harry Truman dismissed MacArthur because the president makes decisions involving the invasion of a foreign country - not generals. Truman would not risk using a third atomic weapon because of a war with China. Back then it was called Red China.

The North American Free Trade Agreement was not a President Bill Clinton idea. The bill was on Clinton’s desk only because Bush 41 lost the election. It was Bush’s project and passed both chambers with a majority Republican vote. You might notice there is no “C” in NAFTA; China was not a part of it. The bill involved Mexico and Canada.

There was no Vietnam war during the Kennedy administration. Recent documents from that period suggest that Kennedy had signed off on legislation to withdraw American “advisors” from that country in October of 1963. (Dwight Eisenhower first sent military advisors to Vietnam). Kennedy was troubled by the Diem regime and avoided war with North Vietnam.

President Lyndon Johnson did begin the war, but he later realized it was a lost cause when he declined to run for re-election in 1968. But there was a second president who had a role in that war, and he was not mentioned in the letter. How convenient to overlook him because he was Republican - the one who first won office with his “secret plan to end the war.”

The plan remained secret for four years, then he declared that peace was at hand and won a second term. And then he said well, not really, and proceeded to invade Laos and Cambodia. To omit this particular president might be a sign of failing memory, but it will also qualify the writer for “acronym” of the month.

Yes, President Richard Nixon sure had a plan to end that war, but President Barack Obama has no plan to end this current war. Actually, he shouldn’t need one because the previous administration already had one: Cheney told us in 2003, “1 think it will go relatively quickly ... weeks rather than months.”

At the same time, our Secretary of Defense stated: “ It could take six days, six weeks, I doubt six months.”

It will be a few months before we present the “acronym” award, and we realize this letter might be a hard “acronym” to beat. However, don’t give up. With the current field of Republican candidates in the primary race, particularly the most recent front-runner, we could have a big pile of, well, you know.

The writer lives in Surfside Beach.

This story was originally published September 17, 2015 at 6:49 AM with the headline "Letter: Remedial history for Republicans: Truman, Kennedy, Clinton did what?."