Former Sen. Eugene McCarthy, 89, Dies

AP - Yahoo ^ | December 10, 2005 | Frederic J. Frommer

[Stultis]

The WABC radio presentation just said that the North Vietnamese scored a military victory in Tet '68.

The MSM: Still seditionist after all these years.

[Tribune7]

Don't be ashamed of it. Gene had character unlike LBJ.

And he wound up supporting Reagan.

[rcocean]

RIP.

Struck me as a smarter George McGovern.

Misguided - but well intentioned.

[socal_parrot]

The WABC radio presentation just said that the North Vietnamese scored a military victory in Tet '68.

American military victory. Walter Cronkite and his ilk used it to turn American political opinion against it. McCarthy begat Kerry and those like him. Millions died because of their "peace" initiatives.

[lindor]

America was the worse for his existence.

Are you including the time he spent serving our country as a Bomber pilot in Europe during WWII?

[Bean Counter]

And another Liberal Icon assumes room temperature...

[Jim Noble]

My first campaign. I learned an awful lot.

And I will never regret turning out LBJ.

RIP, Gene.

[x]

McCarthy was an admirable guy and an American original, or perhaps a survival of an older America. As one who came of age in the 1930s, he wasn't much of a fan of capitalism as an ideal, but he also didn't lose much love on government and bureaucracy.

He was something of an agrarian localist with roots in Old World Catholicism and Middle Western Populism. At the same time, his education led him to represent the best, rather than the worst of those tendencies.

When McCarthy came to Washington he had a rather cavalier attitude towards markets and corporations. It was a result of his academic and idealistic background. But as time went on and he saw how government worked -- and didn't work -- he became very skeptical about government programs.

Gene was a strange candidate for the Democratic nomination in 1968. Those days were the highwater mark of Democrats celebration and promotion of big government, but McCarthy didn't have the programatic and "progressivist" attitude of so many in his party and questioned the value of big government and large scale planning.

[fabriclady]

"I hate to admit it, but I voted for Gene."

Well, I can do better than that,
I voted for Carter.
My dad never let me live that one down.

I never liked McCarthy, then I heard him discuss the pain of watching his daughter slowly kill herself with alcohol.
From that day, I see a different man. He told how he would search for her at night, and his fear she would die on the street and be so cold. He relived the good times and what a sweet girl she was, how much he loved her.
This touched me, feeling a fathers pain and with the emotion made him just like the neighbor next door with an adult son on addicted to alcohol.
Not long after that, I heard his daughter was found dead.

[Congressman Billybob]

He was my friend, and client. My first Supreme Court win was on behalf of Gene in 1976, getting an emergency order forcing McCarthy's name on the Texas ballot for President in that year. Whatever my agreement or disagreement with his various political views, I never doubted that he was an honest man who put his life on the line for his beliefs.

R.I.P., Eugene J. McCarthy.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column: "Ben Franklin's Greatest Invention"

[Dog Gone]

I met him once during law school and he was very gracious during the few minutes we were together. That probably was because I didn't tell him what I thought of his politics and he didn't tell me what he thought of my haircut.

[OldPossum]

I guess that I'm supposed to say that I regret his passing, but I don't feel that way. This man, with his opposition to a war that whether you agreed with it or or was well underway and protests by the like of McCarthy only made it possible for our good men and women in uniform to face a fortified enemy. Many of them (58,000) died.

No, I'm not sorry and I will feel the same way about the eventual passing of Jane Fonda, John Kerry, George McGovern, and others in their camp. I do, on the other hand, regret the suffering that their passing imposes on their loved ones.

[Pusterfuss]

Well, I can do better than that, I voted for Carter.

Well, ahem, (looks at shoes) I did that, too. Thank God for Ronald Reagan, when I finally got it right.

[Congressman Billybob]

Gene never was, never could have been, merely a "Liberal icon." I knew him well, and worked with him. Go to any library and read a copy of "A Political Bestiary," co-authored by James Kilpatrick and McCarthy, with illustrations by Jeff McNelly. You'll see that your dismissal of Gene's career is grossly simplified, and wrong.

John / Billybob

[cynicom]

He did his duty in WW2 but was a loser since that time, rest in socialist peace.

[fabriclady]

Welcome, happy to know one more vote for Carter.
Boy, do I regret that vote.

[ncountylee]

The nicest thing I can say is RIP, Gene.

[norton]

"Now that he has passed over he can say hello to the 3,000,000 Cambodians his party doomed."

That's the 3 million Cambodians he made it possible for his party to doom.

I'll second the motion for the honors cited at post 11.

[Democratshavenobrains]

Anyone think that without McCarthy, LBJ would have beat Nixon in 68?

[Pusterfuss]

Boy, do I regret that vote.

Oh yeah!