The Limits to Loyalty
Former Senator George MCGOVERN: I have to tell you something I've never said before publicly. I voted for him in 1976.
Larry KING: What?
MCGOVERN: When he -- yes, I did. And at Thanksgiving dinner that year, I never said anything about this to Eleanor or to her five children. But I told them at Thanksgiving time I had voted for President Ford, even though he lost. And I told them why, because I thought he had come in at a difficult time. I didn't know President Carter very well then. And I just felt more comfortable somehow with Gerry Ford. Whereupon my wife Eleanor said, so did I vote for him.
We went around that table -- this is hard to believe -- all five of my kids voted for him. So they get seven votes out of the McGovern family for President Ford and Senator Dole, my long-time Republican friend.
I voted for Carter again in 1980. So with my brand of political luck, I voted against Carter when he won, I voted for him when he lost. But I can justify both of those votes.
KING: What a great story. Thank you, George McGovern, on the occasion of the passing of Gerald Ford.
MCGOVERN: Could I also add one -- could I add one thing?
KING: Yes.
MCGOVERN: Larry, I supported the pardon for President Nixon. I suppose I was the person that suffered more from the cover-up of Watergate while I was running against Mr. Nixon than anyone else. But I supported that idea of a pardon even before President Ford granted it.
I called Barry Goldwater and asked him, at 6:00 one morning in the summer of '74, what would you think of you and I on a bipartisan basis calling for a pardon for President Nixon? He wasn't enthusiastic about it.
– Larry King Live, January 2, 2007
Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. – Former President Gerald R. Ford, in an interview with Washington Post Reporter Bob Woodward
"I haven't made any decisions. I just haven't even thought about where my place is," (Former Rhode Island Senator Lincoln) Chafee said at a news conference Thursday when asked whether he would stick with the Republican Party or switch to be an independent or Democrat.
When asked if his comments meant he thought he might not belong in the Republican Party, he replied: "That's fair."
– Chafee unsure of staying with GOP after losing election
After allegations of sexual misconduct, current California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show with his wife Maria Shriver during the California state recall election in 2003. Shriver and Winfrey are old friends. beginning in the 1970s when both were reporters in Baltimore. Winfrey has not openly discussed her party affiliation, but it is difficult to imagine that she would be a conservative, or a supporter of President Bush. And, of course, Shriver is a member of the Kennedy clan, a paramount symbol of the Democratic Party in America. Yet, here both women were supporting Schwarzenegger, a huge supporter (at the time) of President Bush.
And thus, family and friends trump principle. Even though John Kerry won California in the 2004 Presidential election, every so-called moderate voice such as Schwarzenegger’s helped Bush win. So, it is possible to hypothesize that Maria Shriver and other members of her clan (and the word “clan” is meant in the most primitive way) and Oprah Winfrey indirectly helped George Bush win a second term.
The few remaining Republican moderates in the Senate, Lincoln Chafee, Arlen Specter, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, through their continued membership in the Republican Party, enabled the most extreme elements in American politics to control the Senate. Similarly, House GOP moderates such as Christopher Shays enabled the extreme politics of Tom DeLay. In each case these moderates went against their principles, first by ensuring that the Republican caucuses held majorities in each chamber thereby providing radical conservatives with committee chairmanships, which reduced oversight and increased corruption, and by voting with their party on party-line votes, with certain exceptions, notably Lincoln Chafee’s vote against the Iraq War authorization.
Perhaps these moderate GOP politicians thought that the pendulum would swing back, that their actions were necessary for the survival of their kind. But since the first President Bush’s apostasy – renouncing choice, and reversal on the concept that supply-side economics was “voodoo economics” – the moderate faction of the GOP has been on an inexorable decline, and is now nearly extinct. The reason for this is precisely that the GOP moderates did not stand up for moderate principles, making it more and more likely that moderate Democrats and independents would not vote for them. Lincoln Chafee, with more than a 60% approval rating, lost for this very reason, along with the knowledge that any Republican, even a liberal, could still provide the GOP caucus a majority, giving conservatives status as the majority party and important committee chairmanships.
On the other side of the aisle, liberal Democrats must be aghast at former Senator and presidential candidate George McGovern’s admission that he voted for Republican Gerald Ford in the Presidential election of 1976. McGovern, the hero (along with Eugene McCarthy) of the anti-war movement in the Vietnam War Era, voting for the man who pardoned Richard Nixon. The man who had the most reason to never vote for the Republican Party, did, putting his principles above simple party loyalty.
Perhaps the late, former President Gerald Ford could have taken a lesson from McGovern, and instead of requiring that Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, and others, wait for his death to publish interviews expressing his serious reservations on the war in Iraq, had put those views out into the public realm when it might have made a difference. It is unfortunate that even such a good man would put loyalty to his party above loyalty to his country.
Larry KING: What?
MCGOVERN: When he -- yes, I did. And at Thanksgiving dinner that year, I never said anything about this to Eleanor or to her five children. But I told them at Thanksgiving time I had voted for President Ford, even though he lost. And I told them why, because I thought he had come in at a difficult time. I didn't know President Carter very well then. And I just felt more comfortable somehow with Gerry Ford. Whereupon my wife Eleanor said, so did I vote for him.
We went around that table -- this is hard to believe -- all five of my kids voted for him. So they get seven votes out of the McGovern family for President Ford and Senator Dole, my long-time Republican friend.
I voted for Carter again in 1980. So with my brand of political luck, I voted against Carter when he won, I voted for him when he lost. But I can justify both of those votes.
KING: What a great story. Thank you, George McGovern, on the occasion of the passing of Gerald Ford.
MCGOVERN: Could I also add one -- could I add one thing?
KING: Yes.
MCGOVERN: Larry, I supported the pardon for President Nixon. I suppose I was the person that suffered more from the cover-up of Watergate while I was running against Mr. Nixon than anyone else. But I supported that idea of a pardon even before President Ford granted it.
I called Barry Goldwater and asked him, at 6:00 one morning in the summer of '74, what would you think of you and I on a bipartisan basis calling for a pardon for President Nixon? He wasn't enthusiastic about it.
– Larry King Live, January 2, 2007
Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. – Former President Gerald R. Ford, in an interview with Washington Post Reporter Bob Woodward
"I haven't made any decisions. I just haven't even thought about where my place is," (Former Rhode Island Senator Lincoln) Chafee said at a news conference Thursday when asked whether he would stick with the Republican Party or switch to be an independent or Democrat.
When asked if his comments meant he thought he might not belong in the Republican Party, he replied: "That's fair."
– Chafee unsure of staying with GOP after losing election
After allegations of sexual misconduct, current California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show with his wife Maria Shriver during the California state recall election in 2003. Shriver and Winfrey are old friends. beginning in the 1970s when both were reporters in Baltimore. Winfrey has not openly discussed her party affiliation, but it is difficult to imagine that she would be a conservative, or a supporter of President Bush. And, of course, Shriver is a member of the Kennedy clan, a paramount symbol of the Democratic Party in America. Yet, here both women were supporting Schwarzenegger, a huge supporter (at the time) of President Bush.
And thus, family and friends trump principle. Even though John Kerry won California in the 2004 Presidential election, every so-called moderate voice such as Schwarzenegger’s helped Bush win. So, it is possible to hypothesize that Maria Shriver and other members of her clan (and the word “clan” is meant in the most primitive way) and Oprah Winfrey indirectly helped George Bush win a second term.
The few remaining Republican moderates in the Senate, Lincoln Chafee, Arlen Specter, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, through their continued membership in the Republican Party, enabled the most extreme elements in American politics to control the Senate. Similarly, House GOP moderates such as Christopher Shays enabled the extreme politics of Tom DeLay. In each case these moderates went against their principles, first by ensuring that the Republican caucuses held majorities in each chamber thereby providing radical conservatives with committee chairmanships, which reduced oversight and increased corruption, and by voting with their party on party-line votes, with certain exceptions, notably Lincoln Chafee’s vote against the Iraq War authorization.
Perhaps these moderate GOP politicians thought that the pendulum would swing back, that their actions were necessary for the survival of their kind. But since the first President Bush’s apostasy – renouncing choice, and reversal on the concept that supply-side economics was “voodoo economics” – the moderate faction of the GOP has been on an inexorable decline, and is now nearly extinct. The reason for this is precisely that the GOP moderates did not stand up for moderate principles, making it more and more likely that moderate Democrats and independents would not vote for them. Lincoln Chafee, with more than a 60% approval rating, lost for this very reason, along with the knowledge that any Republican, even a liberal, could still provide the GOP caucus a majority, giving conservatives status as the majority party and important committee chairmanships.
On the other side of the aisle, liberal Democrats must be aghast at former Senator and presidential candidate George McGovern’s admission that he voted for Republican Gerald Ford in the Presidential election of 1976. McGovern, the hero (along with Eugene McCarthy) of the anti-war movement in the Vietnam War Era, voting for the man who pardoned Richard Nixon. The man who had the most reason to never vote for the Republican Party, did, putting his principles above simple party loyalty.
Perhaps the late, former President Gerald Ford could have taken a lesson from McGovern, and instead of requiring that Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, and others, wait for his death to publish interviews expressing his serious reservations on the war in Iraq, had put those views out into the public realm when it might have made a difference. It is unfortunate that even such a good man would put loyalty to his party above loyalty to his country.
posted by balto at 1:50 AM
1 Comments:
Damn Reagan and his "11th Commandment".
The Republican moderates have no one to blame but themselves for the downfall of the Republican Party. Guys like Chafee, Spector and a few others were so afraid of losing their place in the pecking order that they sold their souls to guys like Tom DeLay and Bill Frist. They towed the line and never spoke unless spoken to first, and they turned a blind eye to the corruption and greed and allowed the Constitution to be torn apart by Bush & Cheney.
As for McGovern, he is a more forgiving man than I am. The pardon of Richard Nixon set a dangerous precedent in the White House - the idea that no matter what you do, you will receive absolution if you are caught.
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