(Deja-vu all over again)

An interesting panel discussion between Senators Estes Kefauver (D-Tennessee), Margaret Chase Smith (R-Main), Blair Moody (D-Michigan) and Harry P. Cain (R-Washington) on the subject "How Can We Get Integrity In Government?" in 1952. I'm struck by the civility of everyone for about the first half before it goes slightly south.

Funny, in almost 60 years the argument is the same, so is the hand-wringing and finger pointing. The other side is always the culprit and everything would be solved if there was a new party running things.

Sadly, no.

I hate to sound cynical, but in 60 years the corruption and lobbying has only gotten worse. Certainly the hypocrisy has.

But I just have the feeling our "trusted public servants" in 1952 weren't going MIA for jaunts to Buenos Aires - or maybe they were and they were more discreet.

At least this bunch doing the panel in 1952 pretended to be.

In 1952 the issues surrounding the Presidential election of that year were a bit different, only because we had the all-pervasive Cold War hanging over America's collective head.

But aside from that, not much has changed. In 1952 we were stuck in Korea, an undeclared war that, as of March 1952 had already claimed some 103,000 lives. A Foreign Policy that was woefully short-sighted. Corruption in Government, and an Internal Security System that many felt left us ripe for "enemy takeover".

In 1952 we were hot in the midst of a Cold War and everyone employed by the Government was under suspicion of taking orders from The Kremlin. It was disclosed that over 16,7000 Federal employees were under investigation by the FBI and the list of "undesirables" was growing.

And of course, the argument was this never would have happened if there was a Republican in the White House. All the country's ills were laid solidly at the foot of Harry Truman and his Commie invested Administration on Capitol Hil.

At least that's the way Republican Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois put it. Countering the partisan blast was and Oklahoma Senator Robert Kerr, a Democrat who casually reminded listeners that the Republicans were a notoriously backward thinking party and that their hearts were solidly in the 19th Century (some things never change).

The irony was that Everett Dirksen sought to paint the Republicans as a party of Peace, saying that in the previous 90 years (from 1952 which meant roughly 1870), not one single American had died as the result of war fought during a Republican Administration. Oh. Well, I guess the Spanish-American War of 1898 during Republican William McKinley's tenure wasn't actually a war and the sea battle in Manila Bay which lead to U.S. control over the Philippines had nothing to do with war either. Or the land-grab wars involving all the tribes of our indigenous folk during Republican Ulysses S. Grant's Administration in the 1870's wasn't really considered anything remotely war-like. No. Those must've been peace missions gone awry.

At any rate - the arguments are the same and on this episode of American Forum Of The Air, which was broadcast on March 3, 1952, it makes it abundantly clear Politics and the two party system don't really veer much off course, no matter what. We just don't have Joe Stalin and the Kremlin to deal with anymore - they've been traded in for the Taliban and airport security.

The faces and names change. The rhetoric may be a bit more off-the-wall now than it was in 1952, but then consider what people were used to then and it may be the insanity is the same then as it ever was.

That's what politics and looked and sounded like in 1952.

(Buron Fitts - the sort of DA Mickey Spillane would write about)

I guess every large metropolitan area has its fair share of historic corruption and Los Angeles is no different. If you live in Los Angeles you may hear the name Clifford Clinton from time to time and be reminded of Clifton's Cafeteria, something of a legendary landmark and famous for it's credo of "pay what you can" during the depression years.

But Clinton was also something of a firebrand muckraker in the 1930's which seems to have gone unnoticed over time. Clinton was adamantly opposed to the corrupt political machine that ran Los Angeles in the 1920's and had woven itself into the fabric of L.A. - Clinton hosted a daily radio show, heard on KFAC from the late 1930's to 1940's and spent his fifteen allotted minutes digging up dirt and exposing corruption within the city four times a day.

Clifford Clinton: “ In one of our visits to persons whose help we thought would assist in the exposure of vice and the racket payoff system in Los Angeles, we stepped into a well laid trap. A Dictatophone that was set out to find our exact intentions. When those intentions were discovered, Los Angeles was soon to learn once more, that those who profited by the millions annually as a result of protected law violations in Los Angeles would not stop at murder to protect those illicit profits”.

It certainly didn't endear him to the power structure that was Los Angeles at the time. In fact, he was the intended victim of a house bombing in 1937, carried out by the LAPD who were in the pocket of the Mayor, Frank Shaw who would later be thrown out of office on his own set of corruption charges.

This broadcast, from August 13, 1940 takes aim at District Attorney Buron Fitts, who was part of the Shaw machine. Since it was an election year, Clinton was supporting Reform candidate John Dockweiler (yes Angelenos, the namesake of that beach near El Segundo), who Fitts was actively smearing as a draft dodger during World War 1 (remember, when they say "The World War" they mean the first one as the second one hadn't started yet). Dockweiler's brother takes part in an interview with Clinton to answer the smears and take his own shots at the DA.

Buron Fitts would lose the election and Frank Shaw had already been thrown out in 1938. But Los Angeles was by no means done with corruption.

Just in case you were wondering . . .

(Sgt. Donald Duncan - there were signs early on Vietnam wouldn't work)

Sgt. Donald Duncan was the first U.S. soldier decorated with the Legion of Merit Medal in the Vietnam War. He had credibility and he was acknowledged as a hero. When he started voicing his doubts that our involvement in Vietnam was anything but disastrous, it raised eyebrows. So the war hero was quickly dismissed and his warnings gone largely unheeded. Sounds familiar.

In 1966, shortly after Ramparts Magazine published his piece "Dying For A Lie", in which he exposed the hypocrisy of our Vietnam excursion for what it was, he went on the talk show circuit, including this one, From The Capitol for ABC Radio.

George Watson (ABC News): “Sgt. Duncan, you say, and I quote; ‘our men are dying for a lie in Vietnam and corrupting the very word democracy’. What do you mean by that?”

Sgt. Donald Duncan: “Our administration is being continually pointing out, not only to the public but to the soldiers going over to Vietnam that we’re going there to preserve freedom, or to introduce freedom and democratic institutions. Just the opposite is true of course. There are fewer democratic institutions within South Vietnam now than there was, let’s say, in 1954. When you ask people to fight for freedom and fight for democracy then hopefully you are doing exactly that which of course we’re not.”

He was not warmly received by the mainstream media, but his message sent up a warning signal that Vietnam was not the noble war we were told it was. He would later testify before the International War Crimes Tribunal regarding the use of torture in Vietnam by Special Forces Green Berets (of which he was one).

All the warning signs were there. One of the issues it painfully brought up, and one which still holds true today in our present circumstances, is that the U.S. is very good at waging war, but completely inept at waging peace. It failed in Vietnam and it is rapidly failing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It's that thing about learning from mistakes . . . or not.

(Drew Pearson - blowing whistles, making enemies)

The name Drew Pearson is probably not remembered at all these days, but in the 1950's, when the Red Scare and the Joe McCarthy witch hunts were going full speed ahead, Pearson was one of the few commentators (Murrow probably being the most noteworthy in history) to take McCarthy to task for creating mass paranoia. His daily radio broadcast and newspaper column Washington Merry Go Round did much to expose the underlying corruption and hypocrisy on Capitol Hill. His methods were a little questionable and, like many "commentators" today, made things up at times. But the bottom line was, he shed light on areas of political life that were often conveniently ignored by the rest of mainstream media.

Of course it didn't endear him to a lot of people. Even his allies at times were taken aback by his allegations. Eventually, pressure was put on ABC Radio, his network outlet via his advertisers, to drop his daily show. And on March 29, 1953 he aired his last broadcast for a radio network.

Drew Pearson: “When Senator Nixon, now the vice-President, used a private fund for his expenses he apparently started a trend. For Homer Jameson, a Fresno sawmill operator is raising another so-called Nixon Fund for Congressman Allen Hunter of California, also a Republican. Jameson has collected over $2,000 to help pay Hunter’s political expenses. He assured my office that he is not accepting more than ten dollars from any single contributor. However, other Congressmen still think this private fund idea is bad. For a Congressman must represent his entire district, not just the people who put up a private fund for him.”

Although his show went into syndication for a while, he spent more time on his column which was eventually taken over by Jack Anderson, a Pearson protege who took over after Pearson's death in 1969.

But muckraking on the radio was alive and well and kicking in 1953.

(In a word - No)

I'm not entirely sure enough time has passed to warrant a "look back" at the Bush presidency without stirring up a goodly amount of revulsion, anger, bitterness and pain on the parts of a lot of people. Maybe this is something to do a few years down the road. But since the recent campaign of billboards have sprung up asking if we've missed that particular dark spot on our history, I thought I would toss out a few things that may have missed the scrutiny of the day as a reminder of how things got bad and just how deep it went.

First off is a documentary that ran on BBC Radio 4 in November of 2006 asking the question what became of the billions of dollars earmarked for Iraqi aid and infrastructure rebuilding in the days following "mission accomplished".

David Oliver (Head of Finance – Iraqi Coalition) (when asked where the missing money went): “I have no idea. I can’t tell you whether the money went to the right things or didn’t. Nor do I actually think its important.”

BBC Interviewer: “Not important?”

Oliver: “No. The Coalition, I think it was between three hundred and six hundred people; civilians. And you want to bring in three thousand auditors to make sure the money’s being spent? I thought that I would accept the British trained auditors they had.”

BBC Interviewer: “Yes, but the fact is that Billions of dollars have disappeared without trace . . .”

Oliver: “Their money. Billions of dollars of their money. Yeah, I’m saying, what difference does it make?”

Their money, which we wound up replacing with our money and the reason why our little excursion into Nation Building has been hopelessly inept from the get-go. Face it - we know how to wage war, but we are up shits creek when it comes to waging peace.

Just another reminder why "the good old days" aren't missed and despite the smokescreens, diversions and baiting to the contrary it's important to stay focused on what the issues are.

Or it could be 2006 all over again.

(The Shoes of Billy Sol Estes - no doubt the Alligator had other plans.)

(Note: A repost from 2009 because Corruption, Fraud and Bribery are just so damned timeless)

What had to be one of the biggest scandals of the 1960's centered around one Billy Sol Estes whose influence and fraud wandered through many high places in Washington, allegedly all the way up to the office of Lyndon Johnson. Estes was the subject of a Senate Sub-committee investigation on political corruption which led to a startling number of discoveries and an even more startling number of "suicides" in the process. Although Estes was convicted of fraud and corruption charges and sentenced to prison, his conviction was overturned by a Supreme Court decision that ruled the massive amount of publicity the investigation garnered made a fair trial impossible.

Still, the allegations were serious enough about LBJ to force Kennedy to consider dropping him as running mate in 1964. And he probably would have, had fate not intervened.

On July 2, 1962, at the height of the investigation, ABC's long-running Sunday talk show Issues and Answers featured a dialogue between Texas Attorney General Will Wilson and Senator Edmund Muskie, who was a member of the Senate Subcommittee investigating the Estes scandal.

(Sen. Sam Irvin (left) - Bill Sol Estes (right))