(Korea: Police Action - swore up and down we'd be there a few weeks)

Note: This is a repost from last November, but the misfires linger on.

Our legacy of Foreign Policy misfires is long and involved and certainly not the exclusive property of the last twenty or so years. Although it does make you wonder how long we've been screwing up and has it always been this bad.

There was that matter of Korea and the Domino Theory of Communist takeovers in the Far East put forth by the Eisenhower Administration. There was also the matter of the Red Scare and how the Marshall Plan was a dismal failure guaranteed to make the U.S. a weaker superpower. There was the blame game where the United Nations was a dismal failure, also guaranteed to make the U.S. a weaker superpower and how we needed to divest ourselves of that body.

But nowhere in all the arguments, even going back to 1950, was there an alternative to what we were doing and doing badly.

Everybody agreed something was wrong and something needed to change drastically over how we were dealing with the rest of the world and both sides of the political aisle varied wildly over what the solution was. This exchange between Senators William Benton (D-Connecticut) and George Malone (R-Nevada) offer ample proof. The program was The American Forum Of The Air, broadcast on July 9, 1950 - the subject: "Do We Need A New Foreign Policy?". The ensuing shouting match said it all.

Sen. George Malone: “We have not yet had a definite Foreign Policy. I note that your subject today, do we need a new foreign policy? I say definitely we do, because we have never yet said and the President has not said in Korea whether or not the integrity of Korea is important to our ultimate safety. He (President Truman) has said he has got us in it on account of the United Nations and half of the world is not with us in the United Nations. Eastern Europe, Russia, Communist China. We better make up our minds just what our foreign policy is and let the American people know it and let the other nations know it. So we can come out. Now if he has any ideas at all, if he has any ideas, I say he ought to let us know what they are.”

60 years later and the arguing doesn't look like it's ending anytime soon. Meanwhile, there's the body bags . . .

Help keep this thing going. Newstalgia, Crooks and Liars, Late Night Music Club - everybody depends on you. So . .

(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.