Charlie Rose

doodah  03/12/2011 08:23 AM Report

Jeepers Creepers, John. You're supposed to 'Marinate', NOT 'Stew' .

JohnGelles  03/11/2011 08:26 AM Report

Jeff Greenfield and Charlie Rose -- TV celebrities who challenge America in their way.

"America Held Hostage", that put Greenfield and Night Line in our face, helped elect Ronald Reagan and convince a lot of Americans they could govern without government.

Counter-factual daydreams have each got to be judged on the merits. But in general they don't add up to much.

Perhaps all criticism that has no effect deserves it fate. I have some at the moment:

.

AFRAID OF OUR OWN SHADOW,

FALSE TO OUR OWN BELIEF, AND IMPOTENT

--TO DELIVER THE PROMISES IN THE PREAMBLE--

AS A MATTER OF FACT

.

I have no right to say it. It's even over the top. But enough of it sticks to spell it out.

We have been at war for ten years to democratize nations with the lion's share of oil underground and terrorist political ambition on the surface.

Unexpectedly, people we had overlooked went into the streets and demanded democracy and prosperity.

They now need what Lafayette, the French Navy and Army and the King of France gave us in 1781--decisive military action to achieve democracy in the New World.

We hesitate to deliver the goods as promised after Nine-eleven.

Perhaps it is because we cannot deliver to our own people the full liberty, justice, union and welfare they have earned many times over.

doodah  03/10/2011 05:15 PM Report

What if Fran Tarkenton didn't get his leg broken by Jack Youngblood in the middle of a game where he had thrown 18 complete passes for 18 attempts? How many more records would he have broken? What if What if What if What if the damn receiver didn't drop that ball?

What if Marion Berry were born white? And if Ronald Reagan was a negro? .. I think I'll write a book, called, 'What If? What if General Grant was a rebel and General Lee was Yankee? What if ????????????????????????????????????????

REMant  03/10/2011 11:02 AM Report

These counterfactual things sell well. At least it isn't about Nazis. To do them tho you have to be a good historian in the first place, otherwise you won't have a clue what the effect different event, just like a different hypothesis, would have. History is about constructing a consistent narrative as much as retailing "facts." I think Bobbie was nowhere near popular enough to have won the election, or perhaps even the nomination, because the great McCarthy washed considered him an interloper, so he might well have been treated the same as The Happy Warrior. I'm not sure Jack Kennedy's assassination made any difference at all to the situation in 1968, except perhaps that the Civil Rights Act might not have passed, and the South remained Democratic. Gerald Ford, with his WIN buttons, never stood a snowball's chance of getting re-elected. If Carter had not appointed a Volcker, I doubt Reagan would have, and we would likely have had a quite different financial as well as foreign policy history as a result.