April 22, 2007

What if?

Filed under: Uncategorized — Jim @ 7:00 pm

June 9, 1944

President Franklin D. Roosevelt
The White House
Washington, D.C.

Dear President Roosevelt:

I have been following the grim news of the invasion of France. From what I have read, the airborne assault was a disaster scattering men all over the French countryside, the bombing in advance of the amphibious assault was too far inland to do any good, the naval bombardment left the German gun emplacements intact, and most of the tanks never made it to the beach, all resulting in massive numbers of American casualties (estimates are 1,400 dead and 3,200 wounded).

In short, this is yet another example of the gross mismanagement of this war.

When one considers the losses this country has already suffered in Bataan, Guadalcanal, Anzio and Tarawa, I think it is safe to say that the war is lost.

This is to advise you that I will be meeting with my colleagues in the Senate and conferring with the leadership in the House of Representatives to formulate measures we will take to put an end to this horrible misadventure.

Very truly yours,

Harry Reid
Majority Leader, United States Senate

8 Comments »

  1. Sad is an understatement, but it’s all I’ve got right now. When did it become politically incorrect to have a pair?

    Comment by RedNeck — April 22, 2007 @ 8:16 pm

  2. Yep – that pretty much says it all.

    Comment by Teresa — April 22, 2007 @ 10:52 pm

  3. “…leadership in the House of Representatives…” They have that?

    Had Harry Reid been around back then, there’s a very excellent chance that I would not be around today.

    Comment by Erica — April 22, 2007 @ 11:06 pm

  4. Yes, Harry Reid might have composed such a letter were he in Washington DC in 1944, not as a congressmen for they did have leadership back then & people were patriotic. Most likely he would be in town to march in a parade for support of the American Communist Party.

    Comment by dudley1 — April 23, 2007 @ 9:10 am

  5. BUT JIM. JIM. JIM.

    Today is so different. First of all, in FDR’s time, Americans believed in “enemies.” Talk about your naive bumpkinoids. How quaint.

    Another key change: People back then didn’t have DAILY Casualty Stats (“over ### killed so far in this war, and they don’t even want us there”) like WE get from our 24/7 media. People in FDR’s time didn’t have these stats like we do so they couldn’t make their own clever, super-informed, professional evaluations as to the overall success of a Presidential Wartime Strategy. Like we can.

    To put it bluntly, Americans back then were basically friggin’ dolts. They saw only a small piece of the war picture. Whereas we — well, we know so much more (thanks to the Daily Casualty Stats and USA Today Pie Charts and pics of Anderson Cooper posing with Jeeps — and some movies we’ve seen). We can easily tell when the Presidential Wartime Strategy has run way the hell off course. We know when the President should be impeached or at least heavily ridiculed.

    Comment by dogette — April 23, 2007 @ 9:33 am

  6. Actually, I believe letters like that one really were written.

    Comment by dick — April 23, 2007 @ 12:28 pm

  7. Let’s face it, WWII is lost.

    Comment by Jack Bog — April 23, 2007 @ 9:52 pm

  8. I brought the sentiment of this post up to one of my journalism students after we both sat in on a presentation by a Holocaust survivor, today. It made her think. 🙂

    Comment by RT — April 24, 2007 @ 8:19 pm

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