Re: OT: sponge burning!

[cothrige <cothrige@bellsouth.net>]

* Paul Johnson (baloo@ursine.ca) wrote:
>  
> He was a full-fledged supporter of McCarthyism, never saw a war he didn't
> like, was very much anti-labor-rights, and verbally abused Eisenhower for
> having a moral compass on those issues.  His only saving grace is he turned
> libertarian in retirement and became rather socially progressive after his
> political career ended.  The fact the revelation came after his retirement
> makes it about as empty and meaningless as Strom Thurmond apologizing for
> being a racist bigot for the first 99 years of his life.
> 

I must state, at the outset, that I am no Goldwater expert, but there
are phrases here which cause me to be dubious of this approach.
Statements like "anti-labor-rights" immediately gives me pause, as
such are so often trotted out as labels without substance.  An example
was the charge that Bob Dole was "anti-elderly" because he didn't
support Medicare.  The fact that he may have felt that this very act
was not pro-elderly does not enter the picture.  And I have seen many
called "anti-labor" when in fact they were merely anti-socialist, a
position very associated with many "labor rights" movements.

I am moderately familiar with the tensions between Goldwater and
Eisenhower, and I am just not too sure it could be called "verbal abuse."
Goldwater was definitely critical of the Eisenhower White House,
comparing it to the New Deal IFIRC, but abusive?  That, again, sounds
like a rather loaded term which may say more of the critic of
Goldwater than it does of Goldwater himself.

I have little doubt that if I went over every detail of the man's positions I
would have much to criticize, but this above just doesn't seem
terribly convincing.  And I certainly wouldn't put him in the current camp
of anti-conservatives which your previous post seemed to imply, though
I may have read into that.

Patrick