Monday, October 30, 2017

EXPLAINING THE LIBERAL CESSPOOL



EXPLAINING THE LIBERAL CESSPOOL
Steven Hayward, Powerline

Why is it, Glenn Reynolds likes to ask, that liberal-run cities and institutions all seem to be hotbeds of sexism and racism? To adapt this slightly, maybe there’s a reason the left is so obsessed with sexual harassment and racism, because it is practiced so much in their communities and institutions.

These thoughts come to mind in looking over the peculiar Cosmopolitan magazine (yes, Power Line’s research staff reads Cosmo so that you don’t have to) interview with actress Amber Tamblyn, in which she makes the startling claim that the Harvey Weinstein scandal would likely never have come to light if Hillary Clinton had won the election.

Let that claim sit there and sink in for a moment.

Here’s how Tamblyn actually puts the argument:


Honestly, I trace everything back to the election of Donald Trump. I think that without him being elected, if it had been Hillary Clinton, this would’ve never happened to Harvey Weinstein. I feel like the election of Donald Trump was a singular pointed message at women telling us that our lives don’t matter, and that our safety doesn’t matter, and that our physical health doesn’t matter, our reproductive rights don’t matter, that our gender just doesn’t matter, and that we are somehow owned by the country. I think within that one move, it was a giant gesture, and Donald Trump symbolizes, for most women—not all of them—he symbolizes and epitomizes everything that is deeply wrong with masculinity and with the objectification of women. And so within that single vote, it sort of was like a switch was flipped on and every woman just went, I’m done. It’s as simple as that: I’m done.


Tamblyn is trying to give the matter a left-wing spin, suggesting that Trump’s infamous Access Hollywood tape and its aftermath was a tipping point that launched p—y hats and a thousand wymyn’s marches.

But slow down a moment: why would Weinstein—and the culture of sexual harassment apparently widespread in Democrat-run institutions (like the California state legislature, according to the New York Times this morning)—have remained unchallenged if Hillary was in the White House? Probably for the same reason that Bill Clinton got a pass for his relentless behavior 20 years ago: power is the most important thing to liberals. And if the dignity and safety of a few women have to be sacrificed, well, broken omelets and all that. After all, as we now know, everyone knew about Weinstein. But did nothing about it. And according to Tamblyn, still wouldn’t today if their person was in power.

Feminists like to say that “conservatives don’t get it” about sexual harassment. Hypothesis: maybe that’s because conservative-leaning people generally don’t harass women like liberals do. (As someone somewhere asked recently: where would you like your daughter to intern: Vice President Mike Pence’s office, or the Weinstein Company?) Maybe the left complains about “objectifying women” because it is routine behavior for leftists.

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Bannon Speech Surprises, Heads Up!



Jon Fleischman
Executive Director, CA Republican Party (1999-2001)
Vice Chairman, South - CA Republican Party (2007-2011)
Dear Bob Dunn,
Below is a column I penned yesterday for Breitbart:

Bannon Speech Surprises,
Delights Typically Moderate California Republican Party
By Jon Fleischman

Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon's address at the California Republican Party convention on Friday in Anaheim was remarkable - not just for its content, but for the reaction it elicited from the audience.

"Steve Bannon's speech was the one that really fired up this convention," said State Senator Joel Anderson (R-Alpine).  "It's easy as a California Republican to lose heart when you consider the kind of policy-making coming out of Sacramento. Bannon was able to remind people that, nationally, we are making great strides and gave everyone here a reason to work harder than ever."

California Republicans are often seen nowadays as a moderate bunch. But the party faithful warmed quickly to Bannon's message of challenging the Washington establishment.

In fact, Bannon's address caused more buzz at the convention than did speeches from more traditional conservative figures - House Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield), Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, and Fox News show host Judge Jeanine Pirro.

Stepping out from behind the podium, comfortably walking about the stage, Bannon gave a forty-minute-long extemporaneous speech covering a myriad of issues that began with effusive praise of President Donald Trump. He continued by emphasizing the importance of winning and how victories beget victories, and about the great challenge ahead in taking on the "corporatists, lobbyists, consultants, and the politicians they control."

Bannon's speech was equal parts praise for President Trump and his policies; a call to action against the GOP establishment; a strong critique of former President George W. Bush and U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ)'s recent speeches against Trump; and words of strong encouragement for the activists in the audience.

Sen. Cotton, a favorite of conservatives, hammered the Democrats who run California's government for making California a "sanctuary state" for those here in violation of federal immigration laws. He also focused on the massive gas tax recently passed by Democrats in Sacramento. "If you live in West L.A. or San Francisco and you have the money to afford a Tesla, maybe you'll be OK," Cotton told delegates.  "What about the farmer in the Central Valley who has a pickup truck and needs to fill it up three times a week?"

Rep. McCarthy also praised President Trump - and also, like Cotton, blasted Democrats in Sacramento for their left-wing, progressive agenda. McCarthy also admonished those Republicans in the state legislature who have recently been voting with Democrats, warning that they will not win a majority by being Democrat-light.

While there was a lot of enthusiasm among the delegates present, the road ahead for California Republicans looks rocky. Delegates did pass a change in party rules that allows the party to endorse primary candidates at their next convention, ostensibly to ensure at least one candidate survives the "jungle" primary.  However, the next scheduled convention is in early May, long after candidate filing is closed and ballots are printed.  In 2016 two Democrats - then-Attorney General Kamala Harris and then-U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez - made the runoff for U.S. Senate, with no Republican on the general election ballot. There is a legitimate concern that this will happen again with the Governor's race and U.S. Senate race in 2018.

Moreover, Democrats nationally are targeting about a half-dozen GOP-held House seats in California that voted for Hillary Clinton in the presidential election.

In a somewhat controversial move, convention delegates approved a change in the party's rules allowing for the party to set up a special account from which to pay the chairman an unspecified salary. Nothing was in that change to the rules that would require any disclosure about what persons or companies are making contributions into that special fund. Up until this point the chairmanship has always been a volunteer-held position.

This column originally appeared on Breitbart.com/California
Please feel free to share on social media.



Personally, I like that position to be a paid one. Let it be someone's day job, no half efforts. We are only giving partial service without a dedicated and professional team... BH

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

American Troops Liberate Raqqa from ISIS Control




American Troops Liberate Raqqa from ISIS Control
 Jim Geraghty, Jolt, National Review

Making the click-through worthwhile today: The forces allied against ISIS inflict a stinging defeat to the terror group; the Federal Communications Commission assures Americans that they aren’t going to yank broadcasting licenses because of presidential disapproval of news reports; a stunning allegation against the Clintons that feels like it’s coming to light a year late; and why Virginia voters are right to be concerned about MS-13.

 ISIS Is Now Caught Between Raqqa and a Hard Place

Outstanding news as the week progresses: 

American-backed forces said on Tuesday that they had seized the northern Syrian city of Raqqa from the Islamic State, a major blow to the militant group, which had long used the city as the de facto capital of its self-declared caliphate.

Celebrations erupted in Raqqa, where residents had lived under the repressive rule of militants who beheaded people for offenses as minor as smoking. Fighters could be seen cheering and firing celebratory gunfire in the streets, according to residents reached by phone and text message.

The United States Central Command stopped short of declaring victory, saying that “more than 90 percent of Raqqa is in S.D.F. control,” a reference to the Syrian Democratic Forces, an American-backed militia group made up of Syrian Kurds and Arabs.

Col. Ryan S. Dillon, a spokesman for the United States military in Baghdad, said Tuesday that Raqqa was on the verge of being liberated, but that there were still pockets of the city controlled by the Islamic State. Syrian Democratic Forces officers, however, were emphatic in phone interviews and public statements that they had finally wrested control of the city from the militants after a monthslong campaign. 

“The military operation is over,” said Talal Salo, a commander reached by phone at the group’s headquarters in Hasaka. 

Newsweek looks at recent presidential boasting about ISIS and it’s easy to get the sense that the publication would love to rebuke Donald Trump for taking credit for something he did not influence. But the magazine can’t quite dismiss all of the evidence that the momentum of battle has shifted in the past year. Maybe that’s a result of presidential decisions, or perhaps Trump’s decision to defer to his generals on most of the details. Either way, Trump hasn’t loused it up, and he’s in position to reap the accolades.

Perhaps the two most symbolic victories against ISIS have occurred while Trump has been in office: the retaking of the Iraqi city of Mosul in July, and now the liberation of Raqqa. U.S. officials have also claimed that the recapturing of ISIS-held territory has accelerated under Trump. Special Presidential Envoy McGurk — who held the same role in the Obama administration — said that of the 27,000 square miles of territory in Iraq and Syria reclaimed from ISIS since 2014, around 8,000 square miles have been retaken under Trump’s watch. 

But some commentators have claimed that Trump is simply reaping the benefits of the hard graft put in by the former administration. The battle for Mosul, for example, commenced in October 2016 and lasted for nine months: Iraqi forces had liberated the whole of eastern Mosul by January 24 — four days into Trump’s presidency — with the remaining six months consisting of a gruelling slog for the Old City. 

This is a bit like arguing that Harry S. Truman didn’t preside over the Allied victory in World War Two, because Franklin Roosevelt had done so much before.

It is worth noting that while controlling swaths of territory made ISIS distinct, it was not the only feature that made it dangerous. The New York Times talks to terrorism experts and concludes that the group will probably refocus its efforts on the method that worries us the most, attacks in Western countries: 

The group has also developed a powerful social media network that with no physical presence allows it to spew propaganda, claim responsibility for terrorist attacks, and not just inspire attacks but also help plot and execute them remotely. 

A large share of its attacks in the West in recent years have been carried out by men who communicated online with ISIS, taking detailed instructions through encrypted messages, but never meeting their terrorist mentors . . .  

And the group has continued to sow chaos even as it has lost territory. In 2017 alone, it has claimed responsibility for three terrorist attacks in Britain that killed 37 people, the Istanbul nightclub bombing on New Year’s Eve that killed 39 people, and strikes in more than seven other countries. 

As the group was losing Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, in August, it sent a van tearing through crowds in the heart of Barcelona, killing 13 people and loudly declaring its continued relevance. 

Our fight against ISIS, and the broader movement of violent Islamist extremism, is far from over. But we have enough bad days; we should take moments to celebrate the victories. 

The Good News Is the First Amendment Isn’t in Real Danger . . . 

 This is not surprising, but it is worth mentioning: 

In his first public appearance since [President] Trump tweeted that Comcast’s NBC and other broadcasters should lose their licenses for reporting “fake news,” Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai instead noted that his agency could not do what the president wanted. Pai has served as a commissioner on the FCC since 2012, before Trump elevated him to chairman this year. 

“Look, I will reiterate what I have said for many years at the FCC up to and including last month,” Pai said in an appearance at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. “I believe in the First Amendment. The FCC under my leadership will stand for the First Amendment. And under the law, the FCC does not have the authority to revoke a license of a broadcast station based on the content of a particular newscast.” 

Asked a second time more directly if he would block a broadcaster’s license application based on content, Pai said he would “stand with exactly what I’ve said last month and for years at the FCC.” Pai did not mention the president by name. 

One of the problems of the Trump administration is that we have a government assigned the duty of protecting the citizenry’s rights under the U.S. Constitution, led by a president who appears to not understand what the government can and cannot do under that constitution. 

The president urged the Senate Intelligence Committee to “[look] into the Fake News Networks in OUR country to see why so much of our news is just made up-FAKE!” Probably because that’s not the jurisdiction of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and the First Amendment protects all kinds of unpopular speech, including reports derided as “fake news.” 

He’s expressed irritated impatience with the way Congress passes legislation: “Well, I think things generally tend to go a little bit slower than you’d like them to go. It’s just a very, very bureaucratic system. I think the rules in Congress and, in particular, the rules in the Senate, are unbelievably archaic and slow-moving.” Of course, the legislative process is designed to be slow-moving and deliberate. While it’s not clear Thomas Jefferson or George Washington ever made the “cup and saucer” comparison, it is clear that the Senate is designed to prevent the quick passage of bad ideas.

When complaining about the Russian sanctions, Trump declared, “it encroaches on the executive branch’s authority to negotiate. Congress could not even negotiate a health care bill after seven years of talking . . .  The Framers of our Constitution put foreign affairs in the hands of the President. This bill will prove the wisdom of that choice.” But Congress does indeed get a big role in setting America’s foreign policy! The Senate has to confirm the Secretary of State and all ambassadors, appropriate funds for the State Department budget and foreign aid, and ratify all treaties. This is why so many Republicans were upset by the Iran deal, which was never ratified by the Senate as a treaty.

How Did All of This Alleged Russian Bribery and Extortion Remain Secret for So Long? 

Now here’s something for the Senate Intelligence Committee to investigate, with great haste and thoroughness: 

Before the Obama administration approved a controversial deal in 2010 giving Moscow control of a large swath of American uranium, the FBI had gathered substantial evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy business inside the United States, according to government documents and interviews. 

Federal agents used a confidential U.S. witness working inside the Russian nuclear industry to gather extensive financial records, make secret recordings and intercept emails as early as 2009 that showed Moscow had compromised an American uranium trucking firm with bribes and kickbacks in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, FBI and court documents show. 

They also obtained an eyewitness account — backed by documents — indicating Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to benefit former President Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation during the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on a government body that provided a favorable decision to Moscow, sources told The Hill. 

But FBI, Energy Department and court documents reviewed by The Hill show the FBI in fact had gathered substantial evidence well before the committee’s decision that Vadim Mikerin — the main Russian overseeing Putin’s nuclear expansion inside the United States — was engaged in wrongdoing starting in 2009. 

How does this get uncovered and no charges are filed? How does this not become public knowledge? Some Hillary Clinton fans argued during the 2016 campaign that the FBI had become politicized and was driven by a vendetta against her. If that was the case, how did these allegations remain secret all the time? 

These revelations point in the opposite direction, suggesting that while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, no one in law enforcement wanted to press charges against the Clintons, no matter how damning the evidence. 

ADDENDA: Guy Benson on Ed Gillespie’s commercials focusing on crime and the MS-13 gang: “The issue clearly has traction, and I’ve been told the GOP possesses some data indicating that it resonates.” Perhaps it’s as simple that the northern Virginia Democratic thinking class believes that any discussion of illegal immigrants and gangs constitutes paranoid xenophobia. Except . . .  northern Virginia really does have an MS-13 problem, committing unspeakably brutal crimes. 

Here’s the Washington Post local news section today: 

One MS-13 member clicked a cigar cutter open and closed with a metallic ring, while another told the 15-year-old they would cut her fingers off, the prosecutor said. Another gang member asked where the gasoline was so they could burn the girl up. 

Ten members and associates of MS-13 lured Damaris A. Reyes Rivas to a Springfield park in January because they wanted revenge. They blamed the Gaithersburg teen for the death of their clique’s leader, Christian Sosa Rivas, whose body had been dumped in the Potomac about a week earlier. 

[Prosecutor] Stott then recounted the ruthless slaying of Damaris, whose killing, along with that of Sosa Rivas and the abduction of another teen, has led to the arrests of 18 young people and highlighted the resurgence of MS-13, the region’s largest and most violent gang. Damaris’s killers were remorseless, capturing her final minutes in gruesome cellphone videos. 

Do you have to be a paranoid xenophobe to find that horrifying and want state government to do something about it?



Thursday, October 12, 2017

CAMPUS CHAOS — A SHOUT-DOWN A DAY


Learning to protest...

CAMPUS CHAOS — A SHOUT-DOWN A DAY
Paul Mirengoff, Powerline

Stanley Kurtz reports on the escalating campus free speech crisis. He notes that last night’s disruption of Charles Murray’s speech at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor means that every working day for the past week has seen a significant shout-down.

Here are the specifics:

Thursday, October 5: Students at Columbia University stormed into a class on sexuality and gender law to protest its instructor, Suzanne Goldberg. Goldberg is both a professor of law and Executive Vice-President of the Office of University Life. She is also a Title IX compliance officer. The classroom invaders were protesting Columbia’s handling of Title IX sexual assault claims.
Stanley observes that Goldberg is considered a pioneer of LGBT civil rights law. Thus, this disruption was an attack on the cultural left.

Friday, October 6: University of Oregon President Michael Schill was prevented from delivering his State of the University Speech when about 45 chanting students took over the stage. Although Schill knew the disruption was coming, he pre-emptively capitulated by pre-recording his speech for later distribution. Those who attended the event may have wondered why they bothered.

Monday, October 9: Texas State Representative Briscoe Cain was shouted down before he could begin a talk sponsored by the Federalist Society of Texas Southern University Law School. After the shouters were ejected by campus police, TSU President Austin Lane called them back and canceled Cain’s talk. Lane’s capitulation is astounding even for a college administrator.

Tuesday, Octboer 10. Student protesters at Columbia University shouted down and largely stopped a talk via skype by Tommy Robinson, the controversial former leader of the English Defense League. Students blocked entrances to the speech, shouted over Robinson, then stormed the stage and forced him to abandon his talk.

Wednesday, October 11: Charles Murray’s talk at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor was severely disrupted. Murray was able to speak only for brief periods in between disruptions lasting 40 minutes before the protesters finally walked out.

The presence of an administrator and campus security may have prevented a total shut-down. However, as Stanley says, forty minutes of chaos cannot become the norm for controversial talks or else free speech and civil exchange are over.

* * * * * *
Shout-downs like these are well-calculated to enforce left-wing orthodoxies on campus. They serve as a warning to students who reject such orthodoxies to hold their tongue. They also discourage invitations to controversial speakers, discourage acceptances, and inhibit debate on controversial topics, even at campuses that merely read about disruptions elsewhere.

The remedy is the adoption of codes that promise (and deliver) tough discipline against the disrupters. Recently, the University of Wisconsin’s Board of Regents adopted such a policy. It mandates suspension for students twice found responsible for shouting-down visiting speakers, and expulsion for three-time offenders.

The policy follows the lead of the Wisconsin Campus Free Speech bill, which passed the State House last spring. That bill is based on model legislation that Stanley wrote, along with Jim Manley and Jonathan Butcher of Arizona’s Goldwater Institute.

The impact of the University’s policy was in evidence earlier this week when conservative author Katie Pavlich spoke at the UW Madison. Stanley reports:

The protest against Pavlich was obscene, sophomoric, and just plain stupid, but it took place outside the venue. The demonstrators decided not to disrupt Pavlich’s talk, and specifically attributed their decision to the new “three strikes” discipline policy. Had that policy not been adopted, we would likely have seen two shout-downs on Tuesday instead of one.

The alternatives facing state legislators and college administrators are clear. Either adopt and enforce serious discipline policies on the Goldwater model or experience more frequent and increasingly serious shout-downs.

The correct course is obvious for anyone with the slightest regard for free expression.

Wednesday, October 04, 2017

Ken Burns, shill of the international left



Ken Burns, shill of the international left
Passed along for another perspective.


BE SKEPTICAL OF KEN BURNS’ DOCUMENTARY: THE VIETNAM WAR
By Terry Garlock

Some months ago I and a dozen other local veterans attended a screening at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta - preview of a new documentary on The Vietnam War by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. The screening was a one hour summation of this 10-part documentary, 18 hours long.

The series began showing on PBS Sunday Sep 17, and with Burns’ renowned talent mixing photos, video clips and compelling mood music in documentary form, the series promises to be compelling to watch. That doesn’t mean it tells the truth.

For many years I have been presenting to high school classes a 90 minute session titled The Myths and Truths of the Vietnam War. One of my opening comments is, "The truth about Vietnam is bad enough without twisting it all out of shape with myths, half-truths and outright lies from the anti-war left." The overall message to students is advising them to learn to think for themselves, be informed by reading one newspaper that leans left, one that leans right, and be skeptical of TV news.

Part of my presentation is showing them four iconic photos from Vietnam, aired publicly around the world countless times to portray America’s evil involvement in Vietnam. I tell the students "the rest of the story" excluded by the news media about each photo, then ask, "Wouldn’t you want the whole story before you decide for yourself what to think?"

One of those photos is the summary execution of a Viet Cong soldier in Saigon, capital city of South Vietnam, during the battles of the Tet Offensive in 1968. Our dishonorable enemy negotiated a cease-fire for that holiday then on that holiday attacked in about 100 places all over the country. Here’s what I tell students about the execution in the photo.

Enemy execution by South Vietnam’s Chief of National Police, 1968 . . . "Before you decide what to think, here’s what the news media never told us. This enemy soldier had just been caught after he murdered a Saigon police officer, the officer’s wife, and the officer’s six children. The man pulling the trigger was Nguyen Ngoc Loan, South Vietnam’s Chief of National Police. His actions were supported by South Vietnamese law, and by the Geneva Convention since he was an un-uniformed illegal combatant. Now, you might still be disgusted by the summary execution, but wouldn’t you want all the facts before you decide what to think?"

The other one-sided stories about iconic photos I use are a nine year old girl named Kim Phuc, running down a road after her clothes were burned off by a napalm bomb, a lady kneeling by the body of a student at Kent State University, and a helicopter on top of a building with too many evacuees trying to climb aboard. Each one had only the half of the story told by news media during the war, the half that supported the anti-war narrative.

Our group of vets left the Ken Burns documentary screening . . . disappointed. As one example, all four of the photos I use were shown, with only the anti-war narrative. Will the whole truth be told in the full 18 hours? I have my doubts but we’ll see.

On the drive home with Mike King, Bob Grove and Terry Ernst, Ernst asked the other three of us who had been in Vietnam, "How does it make you feel seeing those photos and videos?" I answered, "I just wish for once they would get it right."

Will the full documentary show John Kerry’s covert meeting in Paris with the leadership of the Viet Cong while he was still an officer in the US Naval Reserve and a leader in the anti-war movement? Will it show how Watergate crippled the Republicans and swept Democrats into Congress in 1974, and their rapid defunding of South Vietnamese promised support after Americans had been gone from Vietnam two years? Will it show Congress violating America’s pledge to defend South Vietnam if the North Vietnamese ever broke their pledge to never attack the south? Will it portray America’s shame in letting our ally fall, the tens of thousands executed for working with Americans, the hundreds of thousands who perished fleeing in overpacked, rickety boats, the million or so sent to brutal re-education camps? Will it show the North Vietnamese victors bringing an influx from the north to take over South Vietnam’s businesses, the best jobs, farms, all the good housing, or committing the culturally ruthless sin of bulldozing grave monuments of the South Vietnamese?

Will Burns show how the North Vietnamese took the city of Hue during the 1968 Tet Offensive, bringing lists of names of political leaders, business owners, doctors, nurses, teachers and other "enemies of the people," and how they went from street to street, dragging people out of their homes, and that in the aftermath of the Battle of Hue, only when thousands of people were missing and the search began did they find the mass graves where they had been tied together and buried alive?

Will Burns show how America, after finally withdrawing from Vietnam and shamefully standing by while our ally was brutalized, did nothing while next door in Cambodia the Communists murdered two million of their own people as they tried to mimic Mao’s "worker paradise" in China?

Will Burns show how American troops conducted themselves with honor, skill and courage, never lost a major battle, and helped the South Vietnamese people in many ways like building roads and schools, digging wells, teaching improved farming methods and bringing medical care where it had never been seen before? Will he show that American war crimes, exaggerated by the left, were even more rare in Vietnam than in WWII? Will he show how a naïve young Jane Fonda betrayed her country with multiple radio broadcasts from North Vietnam, pleading with American troops to refuse their orders to fight, and calling American pilots and our President war criminals?

Color me doubtful about these and many other questions.

Being in a war doesn’t make anyone an expert on the geopolitical issues, it’s a bit like seeing history through a straw with your limited view. But my perspective has come from many years of reflection and absorbing a multitude of facts and opinions, because I was interested. My belief is that America’s involvement in Vietnam was a noble cause trying to stop the spread of Communism in Southeast Asia, while it had spread its miserable oppression in Eastern Europe and was gaining traction in Central America, Africa and other places around the world This noble cause was, indeed, screwed up to a fare-thee-well by the Pentagon and White House, which multiplied American casualties.

The tone of the screening was altogether different, that our part in the war was a sad mistake. It seemed like Burns and Novick took photos, video clips, artifacts and interviews from involved Americans, South Vietnamese, North Vietnamese, Viet Cong, civilians from south and north, reporters and others, threw it all in a blender to puree into a new form of moral equivalence. Good for spreading a thin layer of blame and innocence, not so good for finding the truth.

John M. Del Vecchio, author of The 13th Valley, a book considered by many Vietnam vets to be the literary touchstone of how they served and suffered in the jungles of Vietnam, has this to say about Burns’ documentary: " Pretending to honor those who served while subtly and falsely subverting the reasons and justifications for that service is a con man’s game . . . From a cinematic perspective it will be exceptional. Burns knows how to make great scenes. But through the lens of history it appears to reinforce a highly skewed narrative and to be an attempt to ossify false cultural memory. The lies and fallacies will be by omission, not by overt falsehoods."

I expect to see American virtue minimized, American missteps emphasized, to fit the left-leaning narrative about the Vietnam War that, to this day, prevents our country from learning the real lessons from that war.

When we came home from Vietnam, we thought the country had lost its mind. Wearing the uniform was for fools too dimwitted to escape service. Burning draft cards, protesting the war in ways that insulted our own troops was cool, as was fleeing to Canada.

America’s current turmoil reminds me of those days, since so many of American traditional values are being turned upside down. Even saying words defending free speech on a university campus feels completely absurd, but here we are.

So Ken Burns’ new documentary on the Vietnam War promises to solidify him as the documentary king, breathes new life into the anti-war message, and fits perfectly into the current practice of revising history to make us feel good.

Perhaps you will prove me wrong. Watch carefully, but I would advise a heavy dose of skepticism.
-----------------------------------------

Terry Garlock lives in Peachtree City, GA. He was a Cobra helicopter gunship pilot in the Vietnam War.