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Re: Nabokov & President Johnson (fwd)
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From: rodney41@mindspring.com
"President Johnson wasn't so bad as presidents go - just think of some of his colleagues (Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and the Bushes!)."
(Your omissions speak volumes. There was an impeachment you seem to have overlooked -- is Denmark as free of newspapers as it is books of history?)
President Johnson was one of the most ethically and morally corrupt people to ever hold high office -- or, as he demonstrated throughout a career rife with vote-buying, vote-stealing, and smear campaigns -- any office whatsoever. His legacy is divided between extraordinary achievements in Civil Rights and domestic legislation and consistently lying to the American public about the country's involvement in Vietnam, a war which he privately knew (as subsequent tapes have shown) to be unwinnable -- a campaign of deceit so blatant that the term "credibility gap" was coined to describe it.
"Nabokov's support of any resistance against the threat of communism isn't synonymous with condoning atrocities comitted in the Vietnam War (the use of Agent Orange and napalm bombs, slaughter of civilians, etc.)."
I know of no people who condone those things, but Nabokov did, as you note, condone the broader aim of the war -- as did many Americans until the scales fell from their eyes.
"I do think Nabokov would fret over a president who supports the death penalty."
No more than he would have under any of the other presidents he lived under. And keep in mind -- Nabokov never voted.
"President Johnson wasn't so bad as presidents go - just think of some of his colleagues (Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and the Bushes!)."
(Your omissions speak volumes. There was an impeachment you seem to have overlooked -- is Denmark as free of newspapers as it is books of history?)
President Johnson was one of the most ethically and morally corrupt people to ever hold high office -- or, as he demonstrated throughout a career rife with vote-buying, vote-stealing, and smear campaigns -- any office whatsoever. His legacy is divided between extraordinary achievements in Civil Rights and domestic legislation and consistently lying to the American public about the country's involvement in Vietnam, a war which he privately knew (as subsequent tapes have shown) to be unwinnable -- a campaign of deceit so blatant that the term "credibility gap" was coined to describe it.
"Nabokov's support of any resistance against the threat of communism isn't synonymous with condoning atrocities comitted in the Vietnam War (the use of Agent Orange and napalm bombs, slaughter of civilians, etc.)."
I know of no people who condone those things, but Nabokov did, as you note, condone the broader aim of the war -- as did many Americans until the scales fell from their eyes.
"I do think Nabokov would fret over a president who supports the death penalty."
No more than he would have under any of the other presidents he lived under. And keep in mind -- Nabokov never voted.