Friday, July 26, 2013

OBJECTIVE-FACT-ABOUT-LONG-DECEASED-ENEMY-GATE!!!

Here comes the latest right-wing freakout:
Uh Ho: Obama Says Vietnamese Dictator Inspired by Founding Fathers

"...we discussed the fact that Ho Chi Minh was actually inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the words of Thomas Jefferson."
-- President Obama talking to reporters alongside Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang.

It may come as some unwelcome news to the families of the nearly 60,000 Americans who died in the Vietnam War that the whole thing was just a misunderstanding.

That was the impression President Obama gave on Thursday when he spoke to the press after his meeting with Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang. Sang brought Obama a copy of a letter sent to President Harry Truman from Ho Chi Minh in which the communist dictator spoke hopefully of cooperation with the United States.

Obama, striking a wistful tone, observed that it may have taken 67 years, but the United States and Vietnam were finally enjoying the relationship that Ho once wrote of. After all, Obama said, Ho had been "inspired by the words of Thomas Jefferson." ...
That's from FoxNews.com. The freakout extends to PJ Media, The Blaze, Drudge, Gateway Pundit, etc., etc.

But where did Obama get this notion from?

Um ... I assume he got it from Ho Chi Minh's own Vietnamese Declaration of Independence, written in 1945, which begins as follows:
"All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776. In a broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and free.

The Declaration of the French Revolution made in 1791 on the Rights of Man and the Citizen also states: "All men are born free and with equal rights, and must always remain free and have equal rights."

Those are undeniable truths....
So the fact Obama made reference to is, in fact, a fact.

Also: we normalization relations with Vietnam eighteen years ago this month. The trade embargo ended a year earlier, in part through the efforts of former prisoner of the Vietcong John McCain, working in concert with John Kerry. If the right had a problem with the fact that the U.S. has normal relations with Vietnam, it had an eight-year Republican presidency to raise those objections.

I heard nothing. I've heard nothing even from the current crop of right-wing loons in the House.

So shut the hell up, right-wing media.

9 comments:

: smintheus :: said...

Predictably, Jim Hoft has the stupidest of all right-wing reactions...even to the point of making Ho responsible for the Killing Fields in Cambodia.

Tom Hilton said...

I love it when the President just flat-out trolls the wingnuts. "Hey, why don't I cause a massive right-wing freakout about a war that ended before most Americans were born and nobody really cares about anymore? That would be hilarious!"

The New York Crank said...

Don't shut them up. Let them keep ranting until most of the public realizes that their diee=t of fried batshit has addled their brains.
'
Very crankily yours,
The New York Crank

The New York Crank said...

Sorry for the typo. That should haave read, "their diet of friend batshit has addled their brains."

Still cranky,
The New York Crank

Steve J. said...

Thanx for the link to the source!

Kevin Hayden said...

Great coverage, great op-ed, Steve. Really. Well-done.

Victor said...

Jayzoos!

Just wait until they find out that the Cold War is over, and we're openly trading with Russia and China.

And that thanks to W, their childlike boy-Preznit, and his profligate ways, we borrowed a lot of money from the latter!

rickstersherpa@msn.com said...

Right wing media drumming up its core demographic (white early boomers and silent generation types who remember the Vietnam War (now ended over 40 years ago.

Philo Vaihinger said...

A ridiculous propaganda move popular with fellow-travelers and liberals looking for bad reasons to oppose American rejection of Ho.

Obama's remarks are absurd and mendacious.