Posted on 04/20/2013 7:55:55 PM PDT by MNDude
There are probably many people in history who have received more credit than they deserved. Excluding any US Presidents in the past century (that would be too easy), what three historic figures do you think are the most overrated?
You are forgetting MacArthur’s conduct of the 1941 Phillippines campaign. He should have been court martialed for it.
-He blithely assumed his enemy would not attack until the Spring of 1942.
-He failed to follow prewar plans and stockpile supplies on Bataan and Corrigedor. For that matter he did not move supplies in earnest until the Japanese were almost to Manila!
-His inaction in the hours after learning of Pearl Harbor contributed to the loss of over half his Air Force.
-He truly earned the name “Dougout Doug” by staying on Corrigedor and only visiting Bataan ONCE.
Had MacArthur been hit by a bus in the summer of 1941 and Wainwright been in charge, the Philippine-American forces could have held out longer and done more damage to the Japanese. This would have helped the allies by disrupting the Dutch East Indies and subsequent campaigns.
Don’t get me started on his getting ambushed in Korea by forces he already knew we’re there!
I would tend to disagree.
The probable result of FDR refusing to accomodate the Soviets would most likely have been a hot war in the 1940s rather than a Col War lasting 45 years.
While the Cold War and the subjugation of eastern Europe were Bad Things, they were not necessarily worse than a real World War III fought across the corpse of western Europe.
You just damn them
I might too had I been classic radioed to death my whole life
I came up right as they peaked....I'm 55
Yes they lifted riffs....very few have not
My point was that being original purist doesn't guarantee greatness
I did feel they got stale after HOTH
what you missed is how unique they were for their time....hard rock...bluesy....tolkienish...Cotswalds feeling
I feel lacking with say Supertramp or Styx or Chicago. Like u do Zep
My kids love Zep but they like ACDC better....which to them is same era but to me quite different
I first heard whole lotta love at 12 years old 7th grade....late 1969
No one had ever done anything like it
Yes black blues was one root but they did not create their Rolling Fork sound....um from that area btw.....from thin air and all those Brit white boys sure transformed it way beyond Son....Patton ...Robert ....Broonzy.....Lemon. etc
Its PC today to bash the white boys
Its a matter of perspective
Plenty black bluesmen had electric guitars by the 50s.....only one u can think of who took old blues to true electric heights was Freddy King
The rest just played louder basic blues...and I love Albert King
Read his withdrawl from Bataan to Corregidor. Considering the Homma, the Japanese commander, thought he had MacArthur's army cut off due to a series of pincher moves, MacArhur outfoxed the Japaneses Army that were supreme in numbers and resources.
He wanted to stockpile weapons and munitions for Bataan and Corrigedor but was not given any help from Washington. They assured him that supplies were on their way. They never came.
Stones lifted Richard too
And he and Jerry Lee lifted one another
I like Zappa too as does my 13 year old.....
Very talented
Brillo likely one if few traditional melidies
Wifey finds him Dina mo. Hum vulgar
Cause dismissing Jefferson is stupid and likely politically correct
Though I do not recognize you from south bashing ranks here
Reggie Jackson
I’m with you there. I’ve got two grown kids who couldn’t name a single Beatles song. The Beatles are as removed from my children’s culture as the Glenn Miller Orchestra was to my generation’s culture when I was growing up in the 1970s.
I can honestly say Powell was never a hero of mine. In the 1996 goofy sci-fi comedy film “Mars Attacks”, there’s a character clearly based upon him. It’s not a very flattering portrait and it summed up my opinion of him both then and now.
If Leonard Bernstein or Aaron Copland or Adlai Stevenson or Albert Schweitzer or Dag Hammarskjöld or Sinclar Lewis or Carl Sandburg or Henry Steele Commager or Thomas Hart Benton was overrated a half-century ago, people around today have trouble placing their names.
John Steinbeck is still remembered -- largely as an example of someone who was overrated by an earlier generation. Maybe Picasso's name endures in a similar way.
My answer: I was going to say Walter Cronkite, who pretty much has been forgotten already, but maybe Edward R. Murrow is a better choice.
Murrow was one of those people whose reality never matched the myth that grew up around the name. Murrow was part and parcel of the commercial system but somehow got a reputation for saintly disinterest.
“We merely need to look at the worship status people bestow on the likes of the Kennedys, Clintons, Presley, Beatles, etc. Too often it is the reporting or image making that is in overdrive that blurs the reality of what is.”
Agreed.
bttt
Well, I neither dismiss Jefferson nor bash the South. I was born in Virginia and raised as a military brat, so I wasn’t immersed in liberalism.
I think a great deal of southerners, especially since so many of our accomplished military men came from the South. Granted, I did learn that the Civil War wasn’t completely over when I joined the military, but that didn’t mean that I had to take up arms against them because I was living in the north...:)
Just to be clear, I don’t dismiss Jefferson. He was one of our Founders. But I don’t have to like certain aspects of the way he did things, and the way he treated Washington behind his back later in his administration (in his efforts to undermine Hamilton) was uncalled for, disrespectful, and disloyal.
Even with that said, I don’t dismiss Jefferson. He was a brilliant man and contributed to the birth of this great country.
Note that I did not join the ranks of those calling him “overrated” here. FDR, Wilson and every Democrat president of the 20th century is overrated, but Jefferson deserves his place.
Now, I visited Madison’s place last year, and I must admit, the more I learned about him, the odder he sounded to me. But I don’t deny that he had talent and did much to steer the debates on the Constitution.
I couldn’t agree more. I have long been troubled by the use of the adjective “hero” in this country.
Many people tend to confuse “hero” with “celebrity”. And I have never subscribed to the concept of treating people who died as a result of crime, terrorism or any number of things as “heroes”, but then I am one of those people who gets pissed every time they lower the flag to half-staff when anyone dies.
I think it is not a good or positive thing to constantly be flying our flag at half-staff. Do I think it was appropriate for 9-11? Yes. Do I think it is appropriate for this bombing up here in Boston? No, I don’t. I’ sure there are people who consider me some kind of uncaring neanderthal, but it doesn’t mean I don’t have sorrow for those killed and wounded.
I just think it is a BAD thing to constantly have our flags at half-staff. It conveys a sense of weakness and vulnerability that I think is both unhealthy and dangerous.
Walter Cronkite is someone who would have gladly surrendered our sovereignty to the UN. Gladly and without reservation.
As far as I am concerned, this country is a far better place with him not being able to advocate his viewpoints any more. There were a lot of people who respected, trusted and looked up to him, but they had no idea of his crackpot new world order points of view.
To paraphrase Richard Nixon’s opinion about Alger Hiss, if the American people really knew how “Uncle Walt” really felt, they would have boiled him in oil.
If we fly the flag at half staff for every little thing, soon it becomes an everyday thing and loses its significance.
Sigh. You should see the looks of horror I get when I voice THAT opinion to some people...
Personally, I don’t think FDR was a traitor in the sense that someone like Harry Dexter White or Alger Hiss were traitors.
I have always felt FDR was an ignorant, arrogant liberal SOB who planted the seeds of our financial and social destruction years later through his erroneous and flawed views of what role government should have in the personal lives of the electorate.
That he surrounded himself with liberals socialists and communists (the New Dealers were often all three) is just another strike against him in my book.
F Scott Fitzgerald. People buy his class envy whining without even thinking that he was rich at one time. Wiped out in the Crash of 29. I don’t know if he heard these warnings directly but Charlie Chaplin was telling everybody he knew to get the heck out of the market just before the crash.
Sylvia Plath. She did do us one service. Any woman who quotes Plath or frequently mentions her is a person to be avoided at all costs.
Obviously, you never slept with her.
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