Nam

After watching three out of four episodes of Ken Burns' "The Vietnam War" on PBS I am chagrined to confess that there was much about this war that I didn't know. But I have still drawn a few conclusions from what I have seen so far. I know not whether these conclusions are what Ken Burns had in mind for his audience, but I do feel that his treatment of this very contraversial subject seems, so far, to be even-handed. (But I haven't seen Jane Fonda on  the anti-aircraft gun yet.)

First, I must start by stating I was never in the armed forces nor, obviously, in Vietnam although I was of an eligible age. I have two metal rods holding my spine in shape as testament to why this is so. I had actually been called for my pre-induction physical in 1963 but was, to my lasting gratitude, rejected. So I spent those war years working on Wall Street, getting remarried and having another family. And, to my shame, I was barely aware of what was happening in Southeast Asia or why there was unrest at home. All this gnashing of teeth was like chirping  crickets to my busy life.

Anyway, to my few thoughts inspired by  this TV documentary special:

- Much of the angst coming out of this conflict was due, IMHO, to the gradualism exhibited by both JFK and then mostly Lyndon Johnson. I now strongly feel that getting into this quagmire was a mistake, but, once committed. I think someone very wise said, "if you go to war, go to war." Don't pussyfoot around like we have done so many times since WWII. Our painfully slow escalation of this conflict allowed the Viet Cong and North Viernam time to react to each incremental increase of commitment ... and America's youth to organize an effective domestic resistance ... the legacy of which we are experiencing even unto today.

- "A resolute army will almost always defeat a reluctant army." This is just another way of saying that, unless there is a real threat to one's homeland, your soldiers are not quite as motivated as the enemy. However bravely Americans fought in Nam, we were really not being pulled by patriotism, but rather pushed by fear and platitudes. ("Hell no, I won't go!) LBJ never really made the case that the "domino theory" was a big enough threat to Peoria. And history has shown that it wasn't. Matter of fact, I am astounded at the friendly reception American tourists recieve when they visit Vietnam (even the North) today ... given what this program showed us doing over there in the 1960s.

- And lastly, resistance to the war taught a generation of America's youth that it was OK to love one another but hate your country. This "hippie" culture was the genesis of much of our national divide today. It is a price that we will be paying for many years to come.

Flipper

Flipper

When I was growing up the main-stream media clearly had a right-leaning bias.  Some time around the early 1970's things there flipped dramatically to the left.  I suspect it was a result of the Watergate scandal and Richard Nixon's resignation.  However, the events in Viet Nam and the resulting protests ... along with Walter Cronkite's declaration of our eventual defeat by the Viet Cong ... and the publishing of the Pentagon papers by the New York Times ... all clearly presaged Woodward and Bernstein's triumph.  After that, the media fully realized its transformative powers and believed that its primary mission was bringing about even more social change ... as opposed to just reporting,  This coupled with the Supreme Court's decisions emasculating libel laws gave the U.S. media an extraordinary headwind to port.

The question then poses itself -- when will our media's bias flip back to the right?  (And I can confidently predict that this will happen someday ... the question is, of course, when?)  Clearly the Fox News network and the successes of the right-leaning talk radio (and some blogs) suggests that there is some movement in this direction.  However, the media tally (mostly network news, newspapers, Hollywood, and news magazines) is still overwhelmingly liberal.  My wife posed this very question to me this morning while watching Morning Joe on MS/NBC (which was sans Joe Scarborough, and, thus, a little hard to digest without some antacid tablets ... Mika Brzezinski's continued smirks exacerbated my dyspepsia.)

Over the course of today, I've attempted to answer this question many ways ... perhaps a Democrat scandal of the magnitude of Nixon's ... perhaps when Fox News's ratings match those of the combined network news programs ... perhaps even when a right-slanted movie takes the country by storm (Act of Valor?).  All these things are possible indications, but, upon much reflection, I have come up with what I believe to be the acid test ... that would be when that political chameleon, Arianna Huffington, flips back and, once again, becomes a conservative.