Posted on 08/25/2021 10:44:35 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
For baby boomers, the minute it became apparent the United States would finally end its military involvement in Afghanistan, even as the Taliban rapidly took over the country, images from the shocking end of the Vietnam War — America’s longest before this one — came flooding back. They were certainly on the mind of the baby-boomer-in-chief when he spoke of the endgame in July:
Now that the images and the reality of two bitterly divisive and costly wars ending in the triumph of America’s adversaries are converging so dramatically, those mulling the political impact of the debacle in Kabul should take a look back at the events of April 1975. Did the calamitous end of the Vietnam War change hearts and minds in this country? For that matter, did the fall of Saigon play a material role in the premature end of Gerald Ford’s presidency in the 1976 election?
(Excerpt) Read more at nymag.com ...
Gerald Ford took decisive action with respect to the Mayaguez incident.
I remember those times. Few people blamed Ford for the fall of Saigon, even while it was happening. We knew his hands were tied and he had tried his best.
Can’t say the same about Bumbling Biden.
Ford, GWB and Biden have an IQ of 150 … COMBINED.
The fall of Tehran ended Jimmah Carter’s Presidency, though.
It wasn’t Ford who cut off funding to the ARVN.
I remember Carter’s political add.
It featured a picture of Nixon and the caption read
“ would you buy a used Ford from this man “?
Not remotely close to being analogous.
“It wasn’t Ford who cut off funding to the ARVN”
Nope. But it WAS Biden, who as a Senator at the time voted to screw South Vietnam.
I was just a wee tot in grammar school at the time, but my impression is people didn’t like him because nobody voted for him. For those younger than me, he was appointed to VP by Nixon after Agnew resigned, and after Nixon resigned he become POTUS.
I think after Agnew and then Nixon, the people just couldn’t come to accept Ford. Not really his fault, it was what it was.
The fall of Saigon started with the Easter Offensive in 1972. All downhill from there.
That’s kind of an apple to oranges comparison.
We did not have ground troops in VN. It was two years after we pulled out. The South Vietnamese put up a decent retreat.
While the last day was crazy, it was not a protracted mess. And we did not leave thousands there, holding their hand on their rear ends.
There was a lot that was different.
True but the whole operation was a fiasco.
But then he got clobbered by a weak, pathetic loser like Jimmy Carter in the next elections.
That Easter offensive was repulsed by ARVN forces with US air support. The Watergate scandal doomed South Vietnam.
“That’s kind of an apple to oranges comparison.”
Beat me to it. They are pulling out all the mental gymnastics to rescue Biden.
The irony of that will not be lost on history. Assuming that eventually honest history books will be written.
On Saigon...
There were not thousands of American citizen civilians on the ground there. Those that remained were evacuated first.
Enormous difference that the author fails to recognize.
I always attributed Gerald Ford’s failure as President to his lenient treatment of Richard Nixon.
Proclamation 4311 was a presidential proclamation issued by President of the United States Gerald Ford on September 8, 1974, granting a full and unconditional pardon to Richard Nixon, his predecessor, for any crimes that he might have committed against the United States as president. Therefore, the revenge of the Nixon-haters had to be postponed until such opportune time in the future they could take out their wrath on Gerald Ford.
And wrath aplenty they rained down upon Ford, a much better man and much better President in every way than Jimmy Carter, a hack politician from an insignificant state of the Old Confederacy.
“I think after Agnew and then Nixon, the people just couldn’t come to accept Ford. Not really his fault, it was what it was.”
There is much truth to that.
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