Olbermann's LeMay reference

[garthranzz]

I didn't get it. Can someone explain?

And while you're explaining references, in the absolutey critical, must read Armed Madhouse, Greg Palast says, n p. 198 he says in a footnote: "They've been at it a long time. < A reference to Republicans suppressing the vote, mainly minority, and thus stealing elections.> Readers with sharp calculators and long memories will realize that not only did Al Gore win comfortably in 2000, but so did Hubert Humphrey when he defeated Richard Nixon in 1968 - among the votes cast, bu not votes counted."

I'm embarrassed to admit I'm not sure what he's referring to. Was there evidence of sufficient suppression of Black votes - or non-counting of them - in the South to throw those states to Humphrey? What about other states, the north industrials like Illinois, Wisconsin, and of course Ohio, as well as California and Oregon?

Also, on this topic, from what I understand, while there's evidence that Daley delivered Chicago to Kennedy, Republican operatives delivered South Illinois to Nixon in the same way, and that while Johnson didn't need voters to get the votes in Texas, Nixon also didn't need voters to get the votes in California. Can anyone confirm any of that?

Thanks.

[Bozita]

1. inspiration for "Seven Days in May"

iirc.

[garthranzz]

4. Been a long time since I read that book

But that still doesn't explain what LeMay did that makes him equal to Nixon and McCarthy.

[Sydnie]

5. Also the inspiration for Dr. Strangelove

He also wanted to invade Cuba even though the Soviets agreed to stand down. That is when they finally cut him lose.

He was also Wallace's running mate and said that he had no problem with the idea of using nuclear weapons.

He also said that there was no such thing as innocent civilians so killing innocent bystanders with his bombing raids didn't bother him either.

He was a walking war machine and not much more.

[Swamp Rat]

2. My dad worked for General Curtis E. LeMay (SAC)

:scared:

[garthranzz]

3. OK, but what did LeMay do that puts him on a par with Nixon and McCarthy?

That's what I don't get.

[bertha katzenengel]

6. I don't get it, either.

All I know is that he engineered the Berlin Air Lifts.

I'll be watching this thread, hoping to learn.

[GOPisEvil]

10. Curtis LeMay also ordered low-level incendiary bombing of Japanese cities.

In one night, over half of Tokyo (still mostly a wooden city at the time) burned and I believe over 100,000 killed.

In "Fog of War" Robert McNamara talks about working for LeMay. Scary guy, that LeMay could be.

[garthranzz]

16. Well then kudos to KO for great research!

My recollection was that he was a nutty general and Wallace's running mate, but now I see how he fits the pattern of false omniscience. He just wasn't a politician, and so didn't have as much public scrutiny.

[Sydnie]

17. Oh, but he was a politican in his later years

He was George Wallace's running mate!

[elperromagico]

25. Here's a LeMay quote from a press conference with Wallace:

He's referring to the rodent residents of an island used to test nuclear weapons.

"The rats were supposed to be vaporized inside of this fireball. But, uh, the rats out there are bigger, fatter and healthier than they ever were before."

[wakeme2008]

34. HI GOPisEvil

:hi: I have not seen you posting in some time......

Did you have a realllllly long round on the Golf course... :rofl:

[Poiuyt]

8. He loved bombs

Very strongly anti-Communist. He was one of Kennedy's advisers who was pushing hard to invade Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis (which would have brought on a nuclear war).

[Swamp Rat]

9. He was MUCH worse.

A real lunatic. If he had his way, only cockroaches and scorpions would have survived... maybe.

[Sydnie]

11. Only if they could fly a plane

and learn to attack each other. Otherwise, it would be wide spread "dusting" for them too.

He singlehandedly got more pilots killed in with his bombing raids then any other military leader in history, didn't he? :scared:

[longship]

13. Bombed the bejesus out of Japan in WWII. Head of SAC during Cold War.

General Curtis LeMay. He's the one who would chew up anybody below him and spit them out. Had a cigar perpetually in his mouth. Was known to be the toughest SOB in the business.

BTW, he's the one who walked into the Oval Office and tried to bully Kennedy into bombing the bejesus out Cuba. Of course, had Kennedy abided his advice we would likely not be sitting here having a nice conversation via the Internet. ;-)

[Syrinx]

15. wasn't he behind Operation Northwoods?

I'm not sure about that.

[MuseRider]

12. I'll bet you have heard

some interesting stories. Man oh man.

:hi: How ya doing?

[Swamp Rat]

18. Way'at MuseRider!

:hi: It's not easy living here, but I'm surviving. :hug:

[MuseRider]

22. I made my

husband watch part of Spike Lee's Katrina. He cried for his old home. He has always said he could never go back, not even to the Jazz fest since this has happened but sometime during the show he changed his mind. I had been telling him we needed to go back and spend some money there so it seems after the house is built we might be going back for a little trip. YAY! I was so worried I would never get back to your wonderful city.

I am certain it isn't easy. I just can't imagine that it is not a lot better at this point but I guess it is not. What a sad and difficult situation for you. Need anything?

[garthranzz]

31. This is for who?

I'm in New Orleans. Things are better, but still wierded out in some ways.

[lonestarnot]

21. He's way dead now isn't he?

[Sydnie]

23. Thankfully

October of 1990.

[garthranzz]

28. Yeah, but he was called Tricky Dick for a reason...

Shrub is a direct descendent.

[RoyGBiv]

7. LeMay ...

For one, LeMay wanted to initiate a first strike nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis and was at least accused by some as trying to work around Kennedy to make that happen by giving Kennedy false information. In the context of Olberman's comments, he believed he was omniscient in these matters.

He was also George Wallace's running mate and pretty much presented his part of the platform as one of initiating total war against the nation's enemies. He did not fear nuclear war, he said, because he believed the US could win such an exchange.

Stupid, stupid man.

[Marr]

19. That's what I assumed he was referring to- LeMay's eagerness

to start wars- nuclear wars in his case.

[lonestarnot]

24. Yes, that was it.

[Va Lefty]

14. LeMay was a super hawk

He ran as VP on Wallace ticket in '68. He advocated a nuclear first strike on Soviet Union.

[elperromagico]

20. Wallace actually outran Humphrey in 8 of the ex-Confederate states.

In Texas, Humphrey won narrowly. In Florida, Humphrey placed second but ran about ten points behind Nixon. In SC, NC, TN, and VA, Humphrey ran third, again about ten points behind the 1st place finisher (Nixon).

According to Dave Leip's website, a swing of 153,573 votes would have given Humphrey the win. These swings would be found in Missouri (10,245), New Jersey (30,631), Ohio (30,215), and Illinois (67,481).

It's worth noting that three of those states (MO, NJ, IL) were also at the center of controversy in 1960. I wouldn't doubt that Nixon (or his operatives) hedged their bets in the second campaign.

A more likely scenario, also suggested by Leip, would have given neither Nixon or Humphrey an electoral majority - exactly the scenario Wallace wanted. This would have required a swing of 41,971 votes in Missouri, New Jersey, and Alaska.

As for stealing votes in 1960: LBJ was a well-known vote stealer, particularly in the predominantly Hispanic southern tip of Texas, where votes were regularly bought wholesale. Robert Caro discusses this in one of his books about LBJ. In one election a candidate who had bought the votes would win 9-1 in these counties. In the next election, he'd lose 9-1 in these counties. Obviously, his opponent had put in a higher bid...

As for Nixon stealing in California, well... would you put anything past Nixon?

[garthranzz]

29. Then Palast is referring to those states

And either a probable suppression of Black votes or some other type of fraud as discussed in his book. I wish he had been more specific. Maybe I'll see if I can post the question on his website.

[dave123williams]

26. Curtis LeMay and Robert McNamara, dude.

They invented modern saturation bombing; the application of stats and science to killing other human beings more effeciently by improving bombing technique.

You know; undiluted evil. Don't touch it! It's EVIL!

Go get a movie called 'The Fog of War'. It's McNamara's 'mea culpa' to what he did with his life, and it's fucking gripping.

[Liberal In Texas]

27. Sure. Got it. Cold War.

I lived in Omaha in the 60s. I got it.

We were told we were ground zero if the Sovs attacked. We would be toast.

BTW. Remember where AF1 first landed after "Pet Goat"? I saw it 'cause I was there. The only jetliner making final south of my mom's house. My good friend driving to a teaching job south of Omaha, looked up and saw AF1 close enough to count the rivits as it flew over his car, way lower than the normal approach of other STRATCOM aircraft.

Offutt AFB, or as it is now called, STRATCOM.
In Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove" most of the action is centered around Offutt's underground bunker. The same bunker that Jr. fled to on 9/11. Then to Louisana. Then picking up F-15s in his flight back to D.C.

G2 was hiding. I firmly belive that. I think he was running. There were no fighter escorts into Omaha.

On that strange day, the other people at Offutt, or STRAtTCOM or whatever, Omaha Nebraska of all places, were:
Warren Buffett (his impromptu golf tournament ((at Offutt?))) Rush Limbaugh and some very influential people who officed in the upper stories of the Twin Towers. People who flew out of NY for Buffett's golf thing. The day before.



There are WAY many strange things that happened that day.

And no one is asking questions.

...Anyway, LeMay was a huge hawk. I grew up with this guy, kind of. My father was retired army and I was frequently at OAB. There were so many generals around, if you didn't have at least 3 stars, you were nothing.

KC117s and B52s grazed the tops of our house. Sonic booms weren't unheard of as supersonic fighters did a low final. I've picked up trash that fell from these planes marked "Secret" as a toy while playing in the back yard.

I hid under school desks. All that nonsense. We were told that the commies would kill us in our beds. The preacher in my church said that I might have to stand up one day and either say I was a xTian, or a Communinist, and if I said the right thing, I would die and got to heaven. What a terrible time.

This group is nothing but an extention of what Eisenhower warned us about. And this group is the new McCarthites. The neo-faschists.

And I go back to V!



We must resist them.

I resisted in the 60s, and I'll do it again.

Hi AGENT MIKE!.. See you at the airport on Thursday.

[indepat]

33. My first day in the Pentagon as an Ensign, saw a bevy of one- and two-

star generals shooting the breeze in the passageway, but snap to smart attention when a 3-star general came up. I ventured then (1957) that if you didn't have 3 stars, you were nothing there.

[LiviaOlivia]

30. LeMay "....bomb them into the stone age".

Curtis LeMay quotes:

"My solution to the problem would be to tell the North Vietnamese Communists frankly that they've got to drawn in their horns and stop their aggression or we're going to bomb them into the stone age."


"I think there are many times when it would be most efficient to use nuclear weapons. However, the public opinion in this country and throughout the world throw up their hands in horror when you mention nuclear weapons, just because of the propaganda that's been fed to them."

more from General Jack D. Ripper at:
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/curtis_e_lemay.html

[Liberal In Texas]

32. ...and that worked so well...

[T Town Jake]

35. JFK made him Air Force Chief of Staff, TWICE...

...and Olbermann's linking of him with the likes of Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon is quite a stretch.

For starters, LeMay, for all his faults, never had the power to implement his ideology like Nixon and McCarthy did. And despite all the "Seven Days in May" chatter, LeMay never once disobeyed an order from his superior officers, including the Commander-In-Chief who APPOINTED HIM AIR FORCE CHIEF OF STAFF IN THE FIRST PLACE: John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Others in this thread are chattering about the firebombing of Tokyo, but that policy was explicitly approved by two Democratic heroes: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Harry S. Truman.

General LeMay also saved countless thousands of lives with his leadership during the Berlin Airlift.

Though he was doubtless a far right-winger, he never let his politics affect his military service or obligations to his Commanders-In-Chiefs, almost all of whom were Democrats. Olbermann was wrong to include him in the same breath with the seamy likes of McCarthy, or the darkness that was Richard Nixon.

Period.