Reading Bill Kauffman. The election of 1972

K quotes with approval the remark of a specialist historian that McGovern in 1972 was the only nominee of either major party since WW2 "who did not accept the assumptions of the Cold War."

In particular, he rejected containment and bitterly opposed the war in Vietnam.

On that he was to me by far the better man.

But a candidate is more than an agenda and one has to have confidence the fellow is up to the job and won't make a horrific mess of things.

McGovern wasn't up to the job even of presidential candidate.

He was inept and appeared to be in well over his head.

That was the first presidential election I was able to vote in, so I wasn't going to sit it out.

I voted for Nixon, as did nearly everyone.

Reading Bill Kauffman. They do not deserve our thanks

Living veterans of any of America's wars of this and the last century.

Nor the dead, for that matter.

Yes, they fought at their country's behest.

But for all that they did not do us Americans a bit of good, whatever good they sometimes did for others.

Those who went under coercion deserve an apology from those who sent them, whether in the days of Wilson, FDR, Truman, JFK, LBJ, Bush I, Bush II, or Obama.

I am one of millions owed, along with my father, my uncles, and my maternal grandfather.

Not thanks,  but an apology.

Come to that, an apology is owed as well to those who refused to go, whether they resisted or evaded service, including deserters.

I am not holding my breath.

Remember this, come November 11.

Reading Bill Kauffman

Right off the bat, Bill Kauffman reminds us the US Constitution does not empower the federal government to acquire new territory.

And that suggests the constitutional congressional power to govern "the territories" really does extend only to The Northwest Territories.

Interesting.