Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about
Re: What happens when you think Fox News is what free and independent media is all about
I wasn't referring to what Hitler had on his mind in November '44. I was thinking more about what Americans had on their minds in, say, March, April, and May of '44 (leading up to D-Day). The last thing anyone on OUR side needed at that point would have been uncertainty about US politics.
The second thing that you misinterpreted was my point about career aspirations, which was aimed at the journalists of the day, not Roosevelt who clearly neither had nor needed career aspirations. A reporter certainly could have tried to make a name for himself by reporting the "scoop" on Roosevelt's health, but none apparently did. Since you don't seem to think that had anything to do with patriotism, what exactly do you suppose kept hundreds of journalists silent for many months? I'd love to hear your theory.
Finally, I have absolutely no hero-worship of Roosevelt, the man. I'm a small government conservative who intensely dislikes the ball that the New Deal got rolling. But I'm not so partisan that I'm blinded by that ideology, so I stand by my assessment that it was a good thing for the US that he ran and that his health problems were not widely reported. It really doesn't matter to me who was president at that time. The US did not need uncertainty about its leaders, particularly in the early parts of 1944, so it was better for the country that the incumbent (no matter the name or party affiliation) was seen to be well in command at that time.
Somehow I think that your protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, that there might be some circumstances where the media colluding to keep the truth about the health of the president or a candidate for the job from the American people wouldn't automatically meet with your approval. And to argue to the contrary because of the "uniqueness of the situation" is to suggest that the ends DO justify the means. I think not.
You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but whether or not FDR ran for a fourth term wouldn't have made the slightest difference in the outcome of the war. And there would have been no "uncertainty" whatsoever regarding our policy in the war. "Unconditional surrender, period." Remember poor Harry Truman sitting in the oval and some dude comes in asking for a decision on whether or not to use the bomb on Japan and he's thinking: "what the bleep is the bomb?"
I think, collectively, the media just weren't interested in "going there" regarding Roosevelt's health. In the same way they looked the other way for his extra-martital activities. And intentionally or not downplayed his handicap. That's just the prevailing attitude of the day. An attitude which extended into the Kennedy administration. There's no overarching principle at work here, IMHO. But I really doubt "patriotism" was much on their mind. If it was, they were wrong-headed. Since when is it "patriotic" to collude and lie to the American people? And since when is it a good idea for alleged reporters to subsitute their own judgement in these matters and stick to the party line? That was the way that club footed rat faced little bastiche viewed things in Berlin, but we supposedly do things differently here.
The difference, it seems to me, is not the fact that some media just didn't want to know what was up, it was that, looking at his face, they didn't ask themselves: What IS up with him, he looks terrible? Remember, people's view of the news was limited almost entirely to weekly "newsreels" in the movies, not day after day of live coverage, cable, c-span, internet. A desperately ill man like FDR simply wouldn't be able to hide it today the way he and his enablers were able to hide it then.
At the end of the day it didn't make any difference, FDR won, then died, and Harry Truman (who was a total cipher to the vast majority of Americans) became president and took us to the end of the war with no problem. The same thing would have happened if FDR had stood down. Our system is greater than any one man. After Nixon resigned to get out of town ahead of the sheriff, at the height of an unpopular war with as much domestic unrest as I've seen in my lifetime, what happened? Nothing. The unelected vice president took the oath and appointed an unelected vice president. And I think there was at least as much uncertainty then as there was in '44. Then we had 18 or 19 million people in uniform and we were going to win this thing, period. We were pretty focused. We didn't have movie stars visiting Berlin or Tokyo to lobby for the Axis. And by January of '44 the outcome was no longer in doubt.
So our disagreement boils down to whether and how much "uncertainty" there would be and what, if any, effect it would have had on our war effort. No one will ever know.
