‘Wasn’t that, like, the Bay of Pigs thing?’

[Octafish]

Dana Perino, White House press secretary, was stumped on NPR’s “Wait Wait... Don’t Tell Me” quiz show. She didn’t know the difference between the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

"Oh, Dana"

By Tim Grieve
Salon.com
Monday, Dec. 10, 2007 12:18 EST

At a White House press briefing on Oct. 26, a reporter asked Dana Perino about Vladimir Putin’s suggestion that a U.S. plan to base parts of a missile shield in Europe was similar to the events that led to the Cuban missile crisis.

Perino’s response: “Well, I think that the historical comparison is not -- does not exactly work. What I can say is what President Putin went on to say, which is that the president and President Putin have said that we can work together on this.”

SNIP...

Appearing on NPR’s “Wait, Wait ... Don’t Tell Me” over the weekend, Perino said she “panicked” when she got the Cuban missile crisis question because she wasn’t exactly sure what the Cuban missile crisis was. “I really know nothing about the Cuban missile crisis,” Perino said. “It had to do with Cuba and missiles, I’m pretty sure.”

Perino said she went home that night and asked her husband, “‘Wasn’t that, like, the Bay of Pigs thing?’ And he said, ‘Oh, Dana.’“

― Tim Grieve

SOURCE

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html

Hear her on Crooks and Liars.com:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/12/09/npr-dana-perino-dont-know-much-about-history/



Here’s the point of this post:

Bay of Pigs revisionism in the press

Often we hear and read people say: “Kennedy did not send in air support. That is why the invasion failed. Worst, he abandoned the freedom fighters on the beach.”

No. That is not the truth.

Before giving the invasion his approval, President Kennedy said that he would not – under any circumstances, provide any official U.S. government support, including air cover by the Navy or Air Force and he would not be landing the Marines or any other branch of the armed forces.

The CIA said, “No problem. We won’t need them.” Which was a lie. Dulles and Cabell and the rest of those in-the-know thought they could later pressure JFK into sending in the cavalry. For details, read “Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years” by David Talbot.

Dulles and the CIA were wrong. That didn’t stop them from blaming JFK, though, and spreading the word that he was a coward who abandoned the brave freedom fighters on the beaches.

Truly worst of all is the most important part of the history, which gets left out of the story whenever ABCNNBCBSFauxNoiseNutwork tell it: It is the fact the operation was compromised. The Cubans and the Soviets knew when and where the invasion was slated to take place. Let me repeat: THE CUBANS AND THE SOVIETS KNEW WHEN AND WHERE THE INVASION WAS SLATED TO TAKE PLACE.

The CIA didn’t tell JFK that inconvenient truth, though.

Soviets Knew Date of Cuba Attack

By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 29, 2000; A04

Shortly after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961, a top CIA
official told an investigative commission that the Soviet Union had
somehow learned the exact date of the amphibious landing in advance,
according to a newly declassified version of the commission's final report.

Moreover, the CIA apparently had known of the leak to the Soviets--and
went ahead with the invasion anyway.

CONTINUED…

http://www.jfklancer.com/jfk1bop.html

Now if Perino’s boss had been the occupant of the Oval Office in 1961, when the Bay of Pigs happened, or 1962, when the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred, the odds are history would have taken a very different course. I believe there is an extremely good possibility that Bush would’ve ordered the Marines to invade. In that case, there’s a good possibility that the invasion would escalate to problems in Berlin. And things easily could escalate to open war with the Soviets.



Knowing the itchy nook-yoo-ler trigger finger on monkey (like his Poppy and Ol' Unka Tricky Dick and Grampa Prescott), it’s a good bet he’d have unleashed the whole arsenal on the Soviet Union. And that would have spelled the end of civilization.



That is speculation. Now here are some more facts to ponder.

Perino described “The Bay of Pigs Thing.” According to H.R. “Bob” Haldeman, Nixon’s chief of staff, was how Nixon referred to the assassination of President Kennedy.

The Texans Bay of Pigs Thing

H. R. Haldeman, in his book, "The Ends of Power," cites several conversations where Nixon expressed concern about the Watergate affair becoming public knowledge and where this exposure might lead. Haldeman writes:

"In fact, I was puzzled when he told me, 'Tell Ehrlichman this whole group of Cubans is tied to the Bay of Pigs.' After a pause I said, 'The Bay of Pigs? What does that have to do with this ?' But Nixon merely said, 'Ehrlichman will know what I mean,' and dropped the subject."

Later in his book, Haldeman appears to answer his own question when he says, "It seems that in all of those Nixon references to the Bay of Pigs, he was actually referring to the Kennedy assassination."

In taped conversations with Haldeman, Nixon is obviously worried about what would happen if Hunt's involvement in the Watergate burglary came to light. Nixon says, "Of course, this Hunt, that will uncover a lot of things. You open that scab, there's a hell of a lot of things, and we feel that it would be very detrimental to have this thing go any further...But, you can say, this is sort of a comedy of errors, bizarre, without getting into it, the President believes that it is going to open the whole Bay of Pigs thing up again."

http://dirtypolitics.50megs.com/dirty.htm

And that’s the truth. If that’s not ironic, I don’t know what is. I seriously doubt Dana does.