Posted on 10/20/2008 5:57:31 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
When I think of Lindbergh he usually appears in my mind as Jimmy Stewart, from the biopic I have seen so many times. So I have tended to give him the benefit of the doubt as a sincere but misguided seeker of peace in his relations with the Nazis. That attitude becomes more difficult to sustain when I read this story in the context of the events we have covered over the last month and going back to March.
I think Lindbergh was basically a geek who was in way over his head on politics. He was an early case of “shut up and sing.” Hitler used him and his reputation was permanently tarnished if not ruined.
Celebrities, doing the work we “little people” won’t!
You're being pretty charitable. Lindbergh was very vocal in his political views, which were very much to the liking of the America Firsters as well as Mr. Hitler. Consider this speech, from 9/11 1941. (There are others ... I just grabbed the first one I found.)
Given the circumstances at that late date, Lindbergh's views can't be viewed as anything less than ... well, today they're the same sortof spew that Pat Buchanan and Daily Kos put forth.
The best face one can put on Lindbergh's activities is that he liked attention, and he assumed that his knowledge of flying was sufficient to give him authority on political topics. That, too, is not an uncommon phenomenon today -- I think of Cindy Sheehan, who apparently believes that her son's death gives her political abilities that are unavailable to the rest of us.
Thanks. I’m listening to it now.
Once the war started, Lindy volunteered to fly against the Japanese, but FDR wouldn’t let him. Despite that, he still flew on fifty bombing missions against the Japs in an unofficial capacity.
Also, his relations with Germany, allowed him to gain valuable intelligence on the state of the German Luftwaffe.
Yes, he was misguided, and even anti-semitic, but back then anti-semitism was much more acceptable in this country, than it is now.
And he was pro-Germany, in much the same way that certain Americans today are pro-Castro or pro-Chavez. He was not alone in this -- the isolationist movement was politically quite influential.
What Lindbergh did, was to give them a famous face to put to their political position.
In many ways, America's isolationists were the other side of a coin bearing Neville Chamberlain's portrait.
..I’ve been told that Henry Ford was also in that camp ...
A lot of commies were also in that camp once the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact was signed. Adolf then was the Commies' newest, bestest buddy.
Actually when putting Jimmy Stewart into the frame of reference they were on opposite poles entirely. The only similarity was that they both were fliers.
Lindberg was an apologist for the Nazi’s and just wholesale appeasment/isolationist oriented.
Stewart was an honorable bomber pilot who took the fight to Charlie’s buddies over there in the Thrid Reich.
I think he saw him as Jimmy Stewart, because Stewart portrayed Lindbergh in “The Spirit of St Louis.”
Good point. It’s kind of like when I think what God might look like I always see George Burns.
Funny how that works. Along with what I said in post 14 there are others that I have the same thing happen (i.e Ed Harris / John Glenn)
The most obviously case is George C. Scott/Patton. You see real life newsreels of Patton, and my reaction is always, “Wait a minute, that’s not Patton!”
I saw the movie Patton before I'd ever seen a photo of the real Patton, and was disappointed.
But now I think the real truth is, the real Patton was a far more interesting character than George C. Scott's caricature could ever hope to be.
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