As I watched Softball's convention coverage last night there were two things that Joe Scarborough said that pissed me off. The first one was this:

I would not put Jimmy Carter out there to talk about missteps in foreign policy. He would be the last politician I‘d put up there.

Now, Jimmy Carter did have some errors in foreign policy. He also had some successes. If it were not for the hostage situation and the failed rescue attempt he would not be looked on in that way. Not to mention if it was not for the traitorous October Surprise by the Reagan camping during the 1980 campaign, Carter would have had the hostages home by the election and been reelected. He was instrumental in getting The Camp David Accords signed. A lasting peace agreement in the Middle East. I'm not trying to minimize the impact the hostage crisis has had on Carter's legacy but that was not all that was done in Carter's presidency and I believe he has enough credibility to speak on foreign policy.

The next thing that pissed me off that Mr. Scarborough said was when he referred to the Nixon landslide of 1972. Many people, when talking about Presidential elections, will refer to this. Here is Joe again:

But what war went worse, though, obviously, than Vietnam? We had of course the worst anti-Vietnam protests, 1971, 1972. College campuses were in flames. Of course, Cambodia caused so much hell.

Police cards were overturned. It was anarchy, anarchy.

Richard Nixon, 1972, in a much more moderate America, carries 49 states. I think John Kerry remembers that. I think a lot of people that worked on the ‘72 campaign remember that, that, sure, Americans are concerned about what is going on in Iraq, a lot less concerned, though, than they were about what was going on in Vietnam in 1972.

I do not dispute the fact that Nixon won 49 states and I'm not saying that it wasn't a landslide. But whenever someone mentions this they never seem to point out that Nixon's dirty tricks were the reason that he won by such a huge margin. They always speak of Nixon's landslide like it happened because he ran a great campaign and that the Democrats didn't. In reality Nixon was a crook and ran a dirty campaign that allowed him to win like by a landslide. So when a talking head refers to the Nixon landslide they are showing their ignorance, or bias, about that election.
- posted by Mom/Dad @ 1:25 PM