Posted on 12/26/2010 3:37:22 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
OF the many notable Americans we lost in 2010, three leap out as paragons of a certain optimistic American spirit that we also seemed to lose this year. Two you know: Theodore Sorensen, the speechwriter present at the creation of J.F.K.’s clarion call to “ask what you can do for your country,” and Richard Holbrooke, the diplomat who brought peace to the killing fields of Bosnia in the 1990s. Holbrooke, who was my friend, came of age in the Kennedy years and exemplified its can-do idealism. He gave his life to the proposition that there was nothing an American couldn’t accomplish if he marshaled his energy and talents. His premature death — while heroically bearing the crushing burdens of Afghanistan and Pakistan — is tragic in more ways than many Americans yet realize.
But a third representative American optimist who died this year, at age 91, is a Connecticut man who was not a player in great events and whom I’d never heard of until I read his Times obituary: Robbins Barstow, an amateur filmmaker who for decades recorded his family’s doings in home movies of such novelty and quality that one of them, the 30-minute “Disneyland Dream,” was admitted to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress two years ago. That rare honor elevates Barstow’s filmmaking to a pantheon otherwise restricted mostly to Hollywood classics, from “Citizen Kane” to “Star Wars.”
“Disneyland Dream” was made in the summer of 1956, shortly before the dawn of the Kennedy era. You can watch it on line at archive.org or on YouTube. Its narrative is simple. The young Barstow family of Wethersfield, Conn. — Robbins; his wife, Meg; and their three children aged 4 to 11 — enter a nationwide contest to win a free trip to Disneyland.....
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Frank Rich always did tend to run off at the mouth. And he has a high image of what his thoughts are worth.
This quote from Papa Joe sums up the Kennedy clan best.
“We’re going to sell Jack like soap flakes.”
Robert Kennedy: His Life
By Evan Thomas
“His premature death — while heroically bearing the crushing burdens of Afghanistan and Pakistan — is tragic in more ways than many Americans yet realize.”
Sorry Frankie, that burden falls on our brave servicemen and women.
George W. Bush's multi-trillion dollar "Nation Building" adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan during what should have been a peace-time economy totally screwed us. 0bama has merely just continued that cluster****.
And why again is 0bama the President to begin with? Look again to that Globalist Son of a Globalist, GW Bush.
Yes, there's no doubt 0bama is a Leftist-Elite POS bent in destroying America "as we know it," but all the misery we're now experiencing is a die that was cast by a GOP neocon Administration.
Opposite sides of the same d@mn coin - Globalist elites and Leftists who decided "America" should take in as much Third World riff-raff as possible, "redistributing the wealth," while dismantling our western Judeo-Christian values and ethics and sovereignty.
IOW, the target was always the US Middle Class.
Well, Frank, what's your alternative?
Economics and finance suck because you can never, for certain, be absolutely positive what will work. It's not mechanical engineering.
But it does appear that planned economies and socialism in general tend to "look like a good idea at the time" rather than in the long run. Ask the Greeks. Or not, because I'm not sure they all "get it" yet.
“...but all the misery we’re now experiencing is a die that was cast by a GOP neocon Administration. “
So 9/11 should have been treated like a crime a la Clinton. Is that what you are saying?
Who killed the dream? Vietnam war, war on poverty, Jimmy Carter, Ted Kennedy, income redistribution, Affirmative Action, abortion, welfare society, single females with children, public sector unions, Bill Clinton, sub prime loans, George Soros.
Liberals killed America.
I totally agree about the Globalists/NWO Bush family, but that Club also includes the Arkansas mafia boy, Bubba Clinton. The whole Bosnia-Serb-Kosovo mess was something the US should never have been involved in - No doubt we were totally on the wrong side. We sold out to the lying deceitful Muslims of that region (later helped out by Al-Qaida) — the rest is history. You’ll never read/hear about that in the MSM.
Gee..are you lost? Huff Po is that away ====>
Are you THAT naive? Care to refute ANY on my claims? What? No?? Geez, don’t bother. BOT.
What I am saying is that you recite left wing talking points very well, complete with the obligatory Jewish conspiracy hate.
If you think that you are a right winger, you’re a poor specimen.
What I am saying is that you recite left wing talking points very well, complete with the obligatory Jewish conspiracy hate.
If you think that you are a right winger, you’re a poor specimen.
And eight years of GW Bush and a GOP plurality in the House and Senate in 2004 did WHAT to reverse all that??
What did "Nation Building" Iraq do to benefit/protect the USA? Guarding Poppy Fields? Can you tell me what the mission is in Af-Stan? What has Reichland Security done to protect us with the borders WIDE open since 9/12? Why did GW Bush support Amnesty? What good is the TSA?
WAKE UP!
Now I'm calling you a damn LIAR.
W’s response to 9/11 to go on the offense against terrorism and its nation sponsor, the Taliban, as well as preemptively prevent Saddam from supplying WMD to al Qaeda was a sound strategy. W prevented another domestic 9/11 on his watch.
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