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Miltank posted:So I finished The Invisible Bridge, where can I read about what happens next?  e: Somewhat more seriously, I recommend Paul Slansky's The Clothes Have No Emperor FMguru fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Jan 30, 2015 |
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Jan 30, 2015 19:56
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Miltank posted:So I finished The Invisible Bridge, where can I read about what happens next? If you want to go back some to the '60's Rule and Ruin covers some of those events from another perspective. http://www.amazon.com/Rule-Ruin-Moderation-Destruction-Development/dp/0199975515
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Jan 30, 2015 22:47
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ToxicSlurpee posted:When one of Bush's top general informed the president that they'd need to double the total troops in Iraq to achieve their goals he was fired for "being negative." Not just double. Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff for the US Army in 2003, objected to the proposed 150,000 troops for Iraq by insisting they'd need a full 500,000. That cut directly against the 'fast and light' doctrine Rumsfeld was pushing at the Pentagon one passive-aggressive sticky note at a time, and so Shinseki was shitcanned. He was back in the news last year when he resigned as Secretary of Veterans' Affairs when all that VA malfeasance blew up.
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Jan 30, 2015 23:02
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I wasn't following D&D yet back in 2008, so I have to ask: what was Obama's VP selection process like? Was Biden always the frontrunner? Were there any other candidates, even just speculatively?
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Feb 1, 2015 00:49
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gradenko_2000 posted:I wasn't following D&D yet back in 2008, so I have to ask: what was Obama's VP selection process like? Was Biden always the frontrunner? Were there any other candidates, even just speculatively? People weren't really surprised because "White Guy" makes sense as a counterbalance on the ticket, I don't really remember who people were talking about though.
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Feb 1, 2015 01:00
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computer parts posted:People weren't really surprised because "White Guy" makes sense as a counterbalance on the ticket, I don't really remember who people were talking about though. I think there were 2 white women that kept getting talked about, but I can't remember who. I think Hillary Clinton was considered as well. John Kerry I wouldn't be surprised either. Obviously that's just what I seemed to remember, so take it with a grain of salt.
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Feb 1, 2015 01:02
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Pukestain Pal posted:I think there were 2 white women that kept getting talked about, but I can't remember who. I think Hillary Clinton was considered as well. John Kerry I wouldn't be surprised either. I found a post here (requires archives): quote:I started my season on intrade with $200, intending to lose all my money if Obama won. Repeatedly betting that Hillary 'wasn't dead yet' paid off, and I now have $535 in the bank. I've bought 100 shares of McCain, so I get a thousand bucks if he wins, so I can buy a gun to shoot myself with. (bolding mine)
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Feb 1, 2015 01:11
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zeal posted:Not just double. Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff for the US Army in 2003, objected to the proposed 150,000 troops for Iraq by insisting they'd need a full 500,000. That cut directly against the 'fast and light' doctrine Rumsfeld was pushing at the Pentagon one passive-aggressive sticky note at a time, and so Shinseki was shitcanned. He was back in the news last year when he resigned as Secretary of Veterans' Affairs when all that VA malfeasance blew up. The whole thing was a poo poo show of the highest order. They threw out all of the Clinton era plans for invading Iraq in favor of a business oriented military of getting the job done with as few people as possible, where it seems you can run a CVS with 4 people it turned out in fact you can't occupy a country on a skelton crew. Really if you haven't watched it, you have to watch Known Unknows with Rumsfeld. Like his response to the whole thing is the exact opposite of McNamara's in Fog of War, where he offers some defenses but I think you can tell he regretted the whole affair. Where as Ol'Rummy honestly thinks he did the best he could do and there wasn't anything he could have done to make it better. The beat part is when they go over how many memos he sent out looking for the exact definition of words. On top of that the plans for the actual occupation were pretty much formed over night after the invasion had pretty much taken Baghdad and was just done on the fly, its utter maddness. That the Republicans are known as the party of Defense is absurd.
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Feb 1, 2015 01:34
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computer parts posted:I found a post here (requires archives): Nunn would have been decent.
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Feb 1, 2015 02:35
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I remember a week or two before Biden was announced there were a lot of rumours that Obama was set on picking Evan Bayh, much to D&D's consternation. I think Biden was always one of the more credible possibilities and like computer parts said, when it was announced, people just nodded and agreed it made sense. I don't remember there being a lot of ink dedicated to this in Game Change, but it's a while since I read it.
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Feb 1, 2015 03:07
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Antti posted:I remember a week or two before Biden was announced there were a lot of rumours that Obama was set on picking Evan Bayh, much to D&D's consternation. I think Biden was always one of the more credible possibilities and like computer parts said, when it was announced, people just nodded and agreed it made sense. I don't remember there being a lot of ink dedicated to this in Game Change, but it's a while since I read it. Also, The Unknown Known is the exact opposite of The Fog of War when it comes to getting insight and perspective from a SOD. Watch it only if you want to hatewatch something and get really annoyed.
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Feb 1, 2015 05:08
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Echo Chamber posted:Also, The Unknown Known is the exact opposite of The Fog of War when it comes to getting insight and perspective from a SOD. Watch it only if you want to hatewatch something and get really annoyed. McNamara sort of tried, but Vietnam was a much bigger clusterfuck than Iraq, and McNamara was still quietly evasive about a lot of stuff (Diem, CIA activities more generally, war crimes). But he made contrite sounds, which is something.
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Feb 1, 2015 09:44
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Miltank posted:So I finished The Invisible Bridge, where can I read about what happens next? Age of Reagan by Sean Wilentz is an alright read, Restless Giant is boring. Kinda slim picking as far as I know as you get start getting into the 80;s, there just hasn't been enough time yet for there to be any really great scholarship, and writers are still walking on eggshells when they criticize Reagan because of how venerated he is by certain groups today. Invisible Bridge was refreshing in that sense. Instead of plowing forward, I'd recommend reading more about the 60s and 70s, someone mentioned "Rule and Ruin" which I'm going to read after I'm done with Gould's "The Republicans." If you haven't read Garry Wills "Nixon Agonistes," then do that, along with HST "Fear and Loathing On The Campaign Trail '72." You should also read something about Eisenhower, I'd recommend Jean Edward Smith's biography, just to see how much the party has changed. "Ike and Dick" is also a very entertaining and poignant dissection of the relationship between the General and his VP, as you can see the early insecurities and resentments in Nixon that would prove to be his downfall. I really think that understanding Nixon, both who he was as a person and how he managed to rise to the presidency, is essential to understanding current American politics.
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Feb 1, 2015 11:21
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The Haldeman Diaries used to be a stock read for the curious about the insider track on Nixon, if I recall correctly.
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Feb 1, 2015 11:36
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Disinterested posted:McNamara sort of tried, but Vietnam was a much bigger clusterfuck than Iraq, and McNamara was still quietly evasive about a lot of stuff (Diem, CIA activities more generally, war crimes). But he made contrite sounds, which is something. Yeah he was very dodgy about some topics but I wouldn't be surprised if that's because that's also stuff he knows that might still be classified. But with him in the Fog of War, I feel like he at least conveys the thought process that lead to all those mistakes, that in hindsight are am unreasonable disaster but at the time made logical sense. Where as Rumsfeld doesn't really say much of anything besides acting like nothing wrong happened, and his thought process still is still a mystery. Just, you can hear the tone on incredulity in the interviers voice when he responds to him. Like when Rumsfeld says he never read on the Torture Memos and that they didn't really come out of the Bush Administration they came out of the Department of Justice. Whereas in Fog of War at one point McNamara is asked if he regrets it, toward the end and he says he's rather not tali about that, but I got the impression just from everything that came before it you could that he did. And I really think he keeps his mouth shut about some topics because of the possible classification issue but maybe not to tar (anymore than some have been) reputation of those who aren't around anymore, which is fair when it comes to LBJ who did try and do a lot of really positive things and maybe not so much when it comes to LeMay, who's views on nuclear war were very similar to that I'd Castro's. As for books about the 80s, I would suggest David Sirota's Back to Our Future, which isn't by any means a rigorous academic treatment but is still an interesting read about how the 80s shaped today. As for books about the 70s, Dominic Sandbrook's Mad As Hell was interesting.
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Feb 1, 2015 14:35
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I think McNamara, like a lot of Kennedy people, tried to dump as little on JFK as possible and tried to load more blame on to LBJ. That's been a tendency with a lot of JFK insiders since the 60's. But yeah, he was obviously sorry and thought LeMay was a madman (if also brave and competent).
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Feb 1, 2015 18:57
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Not sure where else to put this but it's pretty cool.
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Feb 1, 2015 23:55
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Disinterested posted:I think McNamara, like a lot of Kennedy people, tried to dump as little on JFK as possible and tried to load more blame on to LBJ. That's been a tendency with a lot of JFK insiders since the 60's. I think it's a weak point in American politics that people don't won't to criticize Kennedy cause he was murdered in office. The constant insistence that if it had been JFK and not LBJ we wouldn't have gotten involved in Vietnam is also an argument I've never really found convincing
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Feb 2, 2015 01:47
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PittTheElder posted:Just change the name to Canadian Thanksgiving. Heh, Don glover was in that skit. edit: i dont know why i went back to some point in the thread like 5 months prior, i blame mobile browsing esto es malo fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Feb 2, 2015 |
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Feb 2, 2015 02:05
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Something I'm wondering, what were the alternative policy positions for the Executive branch for dealing with Ethiopia during the whole Farmaid campaign?
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Feb 2, 2015 02:07
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KomradeX posted:Yeah he was very dodgy about some topics but I wouldn't be surprised if that's because that's also stuff he knows that might still be classified. But with him in the Fog of War, I feel like he at least conveys the thought process that lead to all those mistakes, that in hindsight are am unreasonable disaster but at the time made logical sense. I got the distinct impression McNamara really wanted people to understand how the decisions were made, and what they were thinking (and why) as they were making them, so that people could avoid the same mistakes in the future. The really killer part of that interview was when he was talking about when he found out years later at a conference that there were nukes already there on Cuba during the crisis, and how close we came to a no-poo poo nuclear war. Castro apparently wanted to use them during the crisis, but they were under Russian control.
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Feb 2, 2015 02:29
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Pervis posted:I got the distinct impression McNamara really wanted people to understand how the decisions were made, and what they were thinking (and why) as they were making them, so that people could avoid the same mistakes in the future. The really killer part of that interview was when he was talking about when he found out years later at a conference that there were nukes already there on Cuba during the crisis, and how close we came to a no-poo poo nuclear war. Castro apparently wanted to use them during the crisis, but they were under Russian control. Although this fact had been outed a while before by a few people, including former Cuban intelligence servicemen (who were baffled the US didn't know the missiles were there).
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Feb 2, 2015 02:32
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I watched John Frankenheimer's Path to War with Michael Gambon as LBJ and was very moved, although I did feel like it tried to humanize McNamara too much. I'm currently working my way through Oliver Stone's Nixon and I also have "Our Nixon" after that. Any significant misrepresentations I should keep in mind?
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Feb 4, 2015 12:50
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gradenko_2000 posted:I'm currently working my way through Oliver Stone's Nixon and I also have "Our Nixon" after that. Any significant misrepresentations I should keep in mind? No fictional depiction of Nixon has ever made him look as bad as he really was, I guess because they want to demonstrate why people found him likeable enough to elect.
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Feb 4, 2015 12:58
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A lot of new information about Nixon has come to light only in recent years, and most of the books covering the newest material aren't even out in paperback yet.
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Feb 4, 2015 13:17
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