University of Texas Journalism Prof. Connects the Tea Party to JFK’s Death
Here’s the best/worst aspect of this absurd piece of tripe… The Washington Post printed it.
Feast your eyes on Professor Bill Minutaglio’s amazing words.
Essay: Tea party has roots in the Dallas of 1963
Dallas was represented in Congress by an eloquent, Ivy League-educated ideologue regarded by some as the most extreme politician in Washington. Bruce Alger had cast the lone “no” vote against a federal program to provide free surplus milk to needy children. Even among his conservative peers, Alger was considered on the outer edge.
There was also Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker, the commander who had been hailed as a hero for breaking the grip of segregation in Arkansas’ capital; he led the bayonet-carrying troops who escorted African-American students to the doors of a Little Rock high school and kept order in the streets afterwards. Within four years, Walker had been relieved of his command by Kennedy’s defense secretary, Robert S. McNamara, after he was accused of trying to brainwash his troops with ultra-right-wing propaganda. The defrocked Walker moved to Dallas and was welcomed by the mayor in a grand public ceremony.
Walker promoted anti-federal agendas as well as what were once quaintly called “Southern traditions.” He made national headlines by instigating bloody riots against James Meredith’s brave attempts to integrate the University of Mississippi.
Many historians now agree that the blind absolutism of these powerful men of Dallas in the early 1960s has been discredited.
But here we are in 2013 and the echo is painfully clear:
The ad hominem attacks against a “socialist president.” The howling broadcasters. The mega-rich men from Texas funding the political action campaigns. There is even another charismatic, Ivy-educated ideologue: Sen. Ted Cruz would have been quite comfortable in Dallas 1963.
Comments
It comes as no surprise that a major fact has been ignored in this editorial. Minutaglio cites General Edwin Walker as an example of the hatemongers/anti-Kennedy faction.
But in April 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald tried to kill Walker. One night, after reconnoitering the scene, Oswald went to Walker’s home, and took a shot at Walker (who was in the kitchen at the time) with his Carcano rifle. The shot narrowly missed Walker – and the only reason it did so was that Walker was standing in front of a window, and when the bullet passed through the glass it was deflected.
SO, if Walker was part of the “hatred” group, why did Oswald attempt to kill Walker – who was, by Minutaglio’s logic, anti-Kennedy?
(The previous question is rhetorical……)