Reply #37: it is REALLY wierd to me

[frogcycle]

because in my youth I was a (gasp) republican.

I hated LBJ with a passion, for promising "ah won't send uhmuricun boahs to faht in some ayzhun woah" while Goldwater was pilloried as out to exterminate old people, and then once elected ramping up as fast as he could, telling the generals 'ah'll give you yo' woah"

LBJ was like ghouliani - an opportunist grabbing the country's sympathy over a tragedy and using it for personal gain, with deceit and chicanery that might even rival bush's.

So against that backdrop, I bought Nixon's "secret plan to end the war" bullshit. I actually liked him for a long time. I thought he was more of a straight talker than LBJ. I liked Humphrey, but was so turned off by LBJ that, had I then been in Chicago, there might have been a "Chicago 9."

So I was then what the diehard bushies are now. I tried to tell myself Watergate was "just" overzealous political chicanery - that the perps were caught and now lets move on. I WANTED my guy not to be a crook. I remember taking a walk with a coworker in October, '72; we had just passed the White House, were crossing the Ellipse toward the Washington Monument. The election came up; I said I supported Nixon; he said he was voting for McGovern - that he thought "there is more to this Watergate thing than meets the eye." That conversation haunted me for a long time. I worked in a company that was largely very right-wing types. That this engineer (also a conservative demographic) was thinking this way caused me to do some soul-searching. I opened my eyes and ears a bit, started actually thinking, rather than just reacting to the slogans, stereotypes, and prejudices. I was pretty devastated when Nixon resigned - oh, by that time I knew he was the amoral crook he had turned out to be - that the Presidency had been so degraded. I voted for Ford in 76, then for John Anderson in '80 (my transitional year) and for Democrats ever since then.

Looking back, I can't believe I failed to cast votes for McGovern and Carter. I now understand how right they both were.

What we need more than anything is to lower the voices and do what people like Waxman, Conyers, Leahy are doing. Shine the light on things. Get even more of the diehards to have that epiphany I had, starting with that walk across the ellipse. If we can reduce the combativeness and get more people to think - to use reason - then making wholesale change will be a whole lot easier.