The Other Half of History Daily Blog
Thoughts on modern politics from a historical perspective.
Republican Disenfranchises Eric Holder
James O’Keefe has out-done himself this time. A few weeks ago volunteers for O’Keefe’s Project Veritas demonstrated how easy it is for dead voters to get ballots in New Hampshire. Now a Project Veritas volunteer has visited the polling place in Eric Holder’s district in Washington, DC. The volunteer, who is young and white, simply asked for Eric Holder’s ballot, and the poll worker handed it over.
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Commies are Losers, but Much-Admired Losers
It really is unfair that Ozzie Guillen got in trouble for saying he loves Fidel Castro. Admiration for Communism and affection for Communist dictators are considered normal in many sectors of American society, even if Cuban-American baseball fans are not one of those sectors.
In the opening scene of the move Patton, General George Patton (portrayed brilliantly by George C. Scott) growls that “Americans love a winner, and they will not tolerate a loser!” The General must not have been talking about American liberals when he said that.
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Friday Links & Notes April 13
The Daily Caller had a good article on Wednesday about how the Obama IRS targets Tea Partiers for persecution.
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More on Guillen and Castro
As baseball manager Ozzie Guillen serves out his five day suspension for saying nice things about Fidel Castro, I took a look today at what college history textbooks have to say about the Cuban dictator. One thing they don’t say about him is the word “dictator.” That word is reserved for the many Castro overthrew, Fulgencio Batista.
I’ve just been looking through the college freshman history textbooks that I critique in the Columns section of this website, and not one of them uses the “D” word in regard to Castro, while all of them use that word, often proceeded by “corrupt,” to describe Batista.
Praising Fidel Castro is Bad?
On Tuesday Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen apologized for saying that he loves and respects Fidel Castro. His team has suspended him for five games, but Cuban immigrants in Florida are not satisfied. Anger at Guillen is so widespread and so passionate that the team is under pressure to fire him.
Poor Guillen has a rhetorical tightrope to walk now. If he tries to placate Cuban-Americans by saying anything negative about Castro, he’ll probably face just as much rage from liberals in Massachusetts and California (and just about every college faculty in the nation) as he currently faces in Florida.
