8 Comments

1. Tony Baker on June 23, 2018 at 4:08 pm

   It’s a real bind. So incomprehensible to me that anyone could look at Donald Trump and see anything but a lying, whoring scumbag. That is the most succinct I can be. I never found any public figure more viscerally repulsive. I even liked Jimmy Swaggert more. At least he could sing and play the piano. But everyday I do business with people who see Trump as some kind of an answer, to what question I must puzzle. Five out of every six voters I see on the street here voted for him, and it’s tattooed on their foreheads. I spot them from a hundred yards across a parking lot. I relate pleasantries, inquire of their health and children, and realize my own affection for them. I never lived in a time like this.

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   • Philip Caputo on July 21, 2018 at 8:27 pm

     Who among has lived through a time like this?

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2. Mary Koch Larsen on September 28, 2017 at 2:14 pm

   Ken Burns on Colbert said some very similar things about the parallels of the 60s and 70s to the present time. Food for thought for everyone.

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3. Darlene Arendt on September 10, 2017 at 10:38 pm

   “Vietquake” was quite interesting. It made me think of other similarities, one of which was the 1968 presidential election versus the 2016 presidential election. Hubert Humphrey should have won the 1968 election, but he underestimated the anti-war issues of the youth supported by Eugene McCarthy. Hillary Clinton should have won the 2016 election, but she underestimated the affordable college issues of the Millennials supported by Bernie Sanders.

   Also, I just finished your book “Rumor of War.” My husband had recently told me that he had been in Da Nang, Vietnam in the mid-1960’s during his service in the US Army. He was only there for a week, and it wasn’t for combat, but this piqued my interest in learning more about the Vietnam War. I can see why your book is considered a classic. I feel like I now understand what combat was like for the men who served in Vietnam. Looking forward to Ken Burn’s documentary “The Vietnam War.”

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   • Enfilade on January 6, 2018 at 11:00 pm

     Long ago, Hillary Clinton should’ve been charged, tried, convicted, and sentenced to the fullest extent for her crimes.

     Once the FBI/DOJ/ODNI frame up of Trump via the use of a false Russian dossier that was financed by DNC and paid for through Hillary’s lawyers, and then falsely used by FBI to gain FISA wiretapping warrants is complete, and the participants of that attempted coup d’etat of a sitting U.S. President are imprisoned, Hillary will hopefully face the same fate.

     Hillary’s Accomplishment List:
     ——————————
     Booted from Nixon case as newly minted attorney
     Watergate
     Vince Foster
     Ron Brown
     Had a child fathered by Webb Hubbell
     Filegate
     Named a Post Office as U.S. Senator
     Travelgate
     Lied about Benghazi
     Lied about being “under sniper fire” in Bosnia
     Emailgate
     Haiti relief fraud
     Uranium One Russian collusion
     $145 million from Russia after Uranium One sale
     Felony mishandling confidential information
     ~Not enough room for everything….

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     • Philip Caputo on January 7, 2018 at 3:29 pm

       Ah, the hysteria of Trump true-believers, who emulate their idol in the mangling of the English language. Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary: “coup d’etat — a sudden decisive exercise of force in politics: esp: the violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group.”

       How the Mueller investigation meets this definition is beyond me, as is the author’s peddling of Hillary rumors (some hoary with age) as established fact. Enfilade, whoever you are, you need to take some deep breaths and maybe a tranquilizer or two.

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       • Ed Z on June 22, 2018 at 8:33 pm

         Phillip, you seem to fall for the same trap as the majority and that is to fall on one side or the other, democrat (Clintons, Obama etc.) or republican (The Bush’s, I wanted to place Trump here but seems he needs a category all to himself.) Consider that, although there is some difference, both groups are “handled” but powers much more powerful. Enfilade may be a bit extreme but dismissing his points on Hillary’s “accomplishment list” is kind of a cop out. I enjoyed the documentary but really had to laugh when Burns tried to pin the major blame on JFK. I enjoyed your interviews in the documentary very much
         .

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4. Tony Baker on September 5, 2017 at 4:33 pm

   Well, you make me want to get all your stuff back out and read it again. I only read the sword-to-pen piece – couldn’t find the other one – but absorbed me totally. The purpose of knowledge is to guide action, and to write about one’s personal war is to give knowledge to guide action, even if it shows the writer in a bad light. Jordan Peterson said that a human being is a chimpanzee full of snakes, a loosely organized set of semi-autonymous entities subsumed – hopefully – by an over-arching hierarchy of values. Your essay amplifies that idea.

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