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Jon Stewart: Truman Was a War Criminal, Too
Weekly Standard ^ | 4/30/2009 | Michael Goldfarb

Posted on 04/30/2009 1:13:32 PM PDT by mojito

It comes at about the 5:50 mark. Cliff May asks Stewart whether Truman's use of the atomic bomb was a war crime, Stewart ruminates and then responds with an unequivocal "yes." He's certainly not the only American who would take that view, but it's a useful reminder that the most vocal and popular criticism of the Bush administration's war on terror policies comes from people who, if they were being as honest as Stewart, would also judge Lincoln (suspension of habeas), FDR (internment), and Truman (use of nuclear weapons) as war criminals or tyrants or worse.

Stewart repeats the charge again later in the interview, but you have to wonder whether this was one of the rare times that he just got outmaneuvered on his own show. Serious people have debated Truman's decision for 60 years, but even those who disagree with that decision rarely describe it as "criminal." And if it was criminal, whatever crimes the left alleges of President Bush seem pretty trivial in comparison.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Government; Politics/Elections; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: atomicbomb; jonstewart; revisionisthistory; truman; usefulidiot; war; warcrimes; wwii
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To: mojito

“We thank God that it (the atomic bomb) has come to us, instead of to our enemies; and we pray that HE may guide us to use it in HIS ways and for HIS purpose.” President Truman

LOL!!!

Imagine if W. has spoken like this. The left would have an absolute ATOMIC cow. :)


21 posted on 04/30/2009 1:23:41 PM PDT by allmendream ("Wealth is EARNED not distributed, so how could it be redistributed?")
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To: NMEwithin
John Stewart is a comedian...John Stewart is a comedian...John Stewart is a comedian...

I agree with you, but I can't tell you how many liberals I know who believe they are politically literate because they watch Jon Stewart every night.

His show is completely formulaic and lame. When discussing any issue, he recites the most sympathetic and logical sounding liberal talking points, then takes some out-of-context quote from someone on the right that doesn't make any sense out of context, then he makes a "can you believe it face?" then concludes with a lame punchline. And the twenty-somethings in the crowd go nuts.

Rinse lather repeat. Night after night after night.

22 posted on 04/30/2009 1:24:10 PM PDT by dead (I've got my eye out for Mullah Omar.)
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To: jakerobins

>>vAlthough if Hitler had won I guess you would be asking

he wouldn’t have been asking squat. He’s Jewish.


23 posted on 04/30/2009 1:24:11 PM PDT by swarthyguy ("We may be crazy in Pakistan, but not completely out of our minds," ISI Gen. Ahmed Shujaa Pasha)
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To: jakerobins
Yes Jon you should thank your lucky stars for these “War Criminals”.

It's always easy to sit back and say, "I coulda done it better." Now think about any project you've engaged in, say a home improvement project. When does anything go as planned? It doesn't, and the best project managers are those that can anticipate problems and plan for them. In a hypothetical situation, however, you can imagine that everything goes a smooth as s**t through a goose and you end up the hero at the end with the chick. It's all a grand movie, Hollywood style, to these people. A wink of the eye and a flash of the pearly whites is all that's needed to turn the bad guys into a pool of blubbering goo, not "torture". At least that's what worked in the last movie they saw.

24 posted on 04/30/2009 1:24:53 PM PDT by randog (Tap into America!)
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To: astounded

>>to read some history

We’re Americans, we don’t “do” history.

Just feelings.


25 posted on 04/30/2009 1:25:37 PM PDT by swarthyguy ("We may be crazy in Pakistan, but not completely out of our minds," ISI Gen. Ahmed Shujaa Pasha)
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To: swarthyguy

My bad I don’t keep up with libtards like Jon Stewart.....
Well Jon why don’t you ask someone who survived a death camp how they feel about torture?


26 posted on 04/30/2009 1:26:05 PM PDT by jakerobins
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To: mojito
I guess Sherman and Grant and Patton and MacArthur were war criminals too.

I guess you haven't spent much time in the FR Civil War threads. There's a solid contingent of Freepers who will tell you in no uncertain terms that the first two on your list were undoubtedly war criminals.

27 posted on 04/30/2009 1:26:46 PM PDT by Bubba Ho-Tep ("More weight!"--Giles Corey)
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To: NMEwithin

Jon Stewart (not his real name) is a metrosexual.


28 posted on 04/30/2009 1:27:31 PM PDT by a fool in paradise (IRONY - we know more about the First Dog's historical papers than we do of President Barack.)
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To: jakerobins

Cliff May shoulda retorted, if Truman had dropped it on Germany, how would that grabya.

I’ve sporadically tuned in to him since the Inauguration; without BushCheneyRumsfeld as foils, the show is lame.


29 posted on 04/30/2009 1:28:43 PM PDT by swarthyguy ("We may be crazy in Pakistan, but not completely out of our minds," ISI Gen. Ahmed Shujaa Pasha)
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To: mojito

Jon Stewart is a not very funny idiot comedian!!!


30 posted on 04/30/2009 1:29:33 PM PDT by ontap (Just another backstabbing conservative)
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To: a fool in paradise
"Jon Stewart (not his real name) is a metrosexual."

HA!!
Or worse.

But that'd be missing the point.
Jon's just bashed a leftist and an old one at that, so he's done his patriotic duty.

Now he can get back to the business of lying about America's righwing.

31 posted on 04/30/2009 1:30:42 PM PDT by Landru (Arghh, Liberals are trapped in my colon like spackle or paste.)
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To: mojito

It is about time somebody asks that snide little prick about his positions. He won’t look so clever if he continues to pop off like this.


32 posted on 04/30/2009 1:30:48 PM PDT by Anti-Bubba182
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To: mojito

Truman represents the old dead Democrat party of white guys who stood up to communism and supported Israel. It’s quite politically correct to denegrate him.


33 posted on 04/30/2009 1:31:47 PM PDT by NativeNewYorker (Freepin' Jew Boy)
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To: keep your powder dry

Stewart should be prosecuted for crimes against sanity..


34 posted on 04/30/2009 1:34:20 PM PDT by sheik yerbouty ( Make America and the world a jihad free zone!)
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To: mojito

Maybe it’s a genetic remnant from the Cossack who raped his great grandmother back in the Shtetl. Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz.


35 posted on 04/30/2009 1:36:35 PM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy
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To: mojito

Coming from a measly little anti-american twerp like Jon Stewart one would consider his comments a compliment. Funny he makes no comment about Stalin, Mussolini or Pol Pot.


36 posted on 04/30/2009 1:40:36 PM PDT by kenmcg (cOMMBYAH)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

***My late father’s life, and millions of others, were spared because President Truman had the stones to do the right thing.***

My dad served in Europe with Patton’s army. After VE day he was sent to the US to train for the invasion of Japan. Truman did the right thing!

Back in 1966 at the Roswell (NM) public library, there was a book on WWII. At the page where the first Atomic Bombs were used someone had written in ink, THUMAN—MURDERER!

Underneath it was another hand written paragraph from another person explaining just why Truman authorized the dropping of the bombs.


37 posted on 04/30/2009 1:42:46 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (14. Guns only have two enemies: rust and politicians.)
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To: mojito

Considering how many Americans would have been killed in an invasion of Japan, NOT using the Atom Bomb would have been a war crime. We killed more Japanese with firebombing than with the atom bomb, but Stewart probably hasn’t read enough history to even be aware of it.


38 posted on 04/30/2009 1:43:52 PM PDT by yazoo (was)
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To: yazoo
We killed more Japanese with firebombing than with the atom bomb, but Stewart probably hasn’t read enough history to even be aware of it.

The atom bomb in the end saved even more Japanese lives than American lives, according to the estimates of casualties from a land invasion of Japan.

39 posted on 04/30/2009 1:44:55 PM PDT by dfwgator (1996 2006 2008 - Good Things Come in Threes)
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To: mojito

Jon Stewart is an idiot!


40 posted on 04/30/2009 1:46:44 PM PDT by lonestar (Obama is turning Bush's "mess" into a catastrophe.)
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