PS-McNamara worked for Democrats, starting with Kennedy.

J. Tullamore, you're welcome.

Erroll, the Democrats don't need that whistleblower. There is already sufficient evidence in the public domain to criminally charge the Bush admin.: they purposefully fabricated motivation to pre-emptively invade Iraq (like Hitler did) and they tortured detainees. The Democrats and the Republicans belong to the one and only party in the US, the BUSINESS party, and they don't bite the hand that feeds them, whether its the MIC, oil, health insurance co's, pharmaceuticals, Wall Street or Israel. WE, the PEOPLE, must find the "courage and good moral sense" to stand up to the corruption and injustice of power.

For a deep and thorough discussion of McNamara, visit Wisconsin Public Radio's July 7, 9:00 AM Ideas Network show hosted by Kathleen Dunn at http://www.wpr.org/ideas/programnotes.cfm

Description from the website:

After nine, Kathleen Dunn and her guests examine the legacy of former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, often referred to as the “architect” of the Vietnam War.

Guests:
- Robert. K. Brigham, Professor of History and International Relations, Vassar College. Co-author with Robert McNamara and James G. Blight, “Argument Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy.”
- Andrew A. Wiest, Professor and Director International Studies, University of Southern Mississippi. Author, “The Vietnam War, 1959-1975,” and “Vietnam's Forgotten Army: Heroism and Betrayal in the ARVN.”

Robert McNamara was to America what Albert Speer was to Germany--a man without basic decency, who consciously served evil out of self-interest and cowardice. His "remorse" was in the mold of Speer: softpedaling and distorting the truth of his true complicity, in the guise of expressing regret. Robert McNamara and the clot of war criminals around him were my first, major example as a young man growing up in America, of just how false and murderous "our" government could be.

Robert McNamara: burn in napalm hell.

---------------------------------

I would rather vote for what I want and not get it, than vote for what I don't want and get that. -- Eugene V. Debs

Though it is admittedly small consolation, at least McNamara did admit some contrition for what he had done. Contrast that with the self-righteousness of a Rumsfeld or a Cheney or a Bush who, one can be sure, will never admit that what they did was wrong and immoral. The only sliver of hope is that one day a whistleblower will come forward and announce how those in the Bush administration helped orchestrate the attacks that took place on Sept. 11, 2001. But if that happens will the Democrats have the courage and good moral sense to throw those bastards in jail for their misdeeds?

Jethro Tullamore and beartown beatnick: check out Alexander Cockburn's piece on McNamara on his site: www.counterpunch.org. "May he rest in darkness."

Didn't someone encounter Rumsfeld at a D.C. public bus stop recently? Heckled him?

I remember when McNamara's book came out and he was hustling it. He went through a description of how he and his family suffered. I think it was the Denver airport, he said, when returning from a holiday, that some anti war types said some nasty things to him that upset his family. Just terrible. On the day in 1966 when this happened I remembered that I was in a federal prison for draft resistance. Hundreds of thousands of conscripted Americans were sitting in the mud in Vietnam killing and being killed. Millions of Asians were dying. And the man largely responsible complained of his suffering because someone said something nasty about it to him and his family as they returned from holiday. What a morally obtuse individual. How does Harvard produce these geniuses?

I keep reading that McNamara got some measure of "redemption" when he admitted Nam was wrong. So I guess if Pol Pot said he'd been wrong, we'd forget the 3 million deaths attributed to him, too, eh?

McNamara was an evil son-of-a-bitch, and now he's a dead evil son-of-a-bitch.

When Lyndon Bloodthirsty Johnson and Richard Deathouse Nixon arrived in Hell it was no surprise. They were kind of expecting it (especially Nixon) and both men figured the fun they'd had as president was worth the ultimate fate. McNamara was different. He'd spent the last ten years of his bleached life thinking he had successfully repented for murdering millions and was about to escape, scot free, any reckoning for the ruthlessness and brutality of his crimes. What a surprise for that soulless MoFo.

Step One: Robert Dead McNamara is forced to lie, face up and naked, on the ground. His skinny, hairless body is the very antithesis of the warrior. His mouth is forced open and kept open by a dental device. One by one, those he murdered walk by and defecate in his mouth. Several million are waiting their turn. When that's over, Robert Dead McNamara will have completed his first full day in Hell.

I was in Army basic training when we were all called together
and the Company Commander announced, "We are at war"! Being a little more adventurous, I asked "Where"? When we were informed that it was Viet Nam,we were clueless as to where it was. Most of us would learn where it was in the next few years. That day was only a day after the Tonkin Gulf Incident in which some North Vietnamese torpedo boats attempted to attack a US Navy destroyer. A couple years ago the CIA historian released an excellent record of what really happened that day and the next night. It shows that one US Destroyer blindly fired over 250 rounds of five inch shells at large waves, thinking they were PT boats. That part was hyped even more to justify rushing large amounts of troops to Viet Bam. We were properly endoctrinated to believe that we were there to save the world from the Commies and the "domino theory". I came back psychologically calloused and with a permanent limp, but I was alive.
This is why I get so angry when I see the neo-cons and the Zionists of the US and Israel putting out the BS about the need to attack Iran. In Viet Nam, we were going to save them from the Commies! "We are fighting them there so we don't have to fight them in San Diego". In Iran we are trying to bring them "democracy" and make certain to attack them over the nukes that God told the Israelis must be there somewhere. A lot of people could die if our President doesn't get his head on right and stop listening to the lobbyists from Israel and the oil Industry.

Great story about the ferry ride, sounds like Code Pink taken to the next level.

I notice that the posters have omitted any criticism of Obama and his team. I see history and the condemnation of McNamara and the Bush-Cheney group. What do we have today? About the same. The future is now. The deceit, violence and thievery of Obama is about the same - - the deceit, violence and thievery are not new; they are just current. The reality is there to see. In ten or twenty or thirty years we will be upset about these times and write about them with much rancor, much self satisfied indignation. I wish someone would tell me, I mean this, why is it that Obama and the current Democrats don't get any criticism? Is the public persuaded that Afgan war is a good, necessary war, that Obama is a nice guy, that the Democrats want to help us, that bankers need financial assistance? It is all very strange to me.

Is the ferry boat detail true?

How did it come to light?

I have a friend who, like the artist on the ferry, was presented with an opportunity to off McNamara.He was cross country skiing in Colorado in the late sixties, and came across a guy on skis standing at the edge of a cliff, admiring the view. The guy turned out to be McNamara, and my friend, noting that there was no one else around,thought for a moment about pushing the bastard off the cliff. It would have been easy, he said, but unlike the artist on the ferry,he couldn't bring himself to make the attempt.The sorry thing, of course, is that McNamara got away with all his crimes, lived to the age of 93, and died peacefully in his bed.Kissinger and a few others are headed down that same road, and the millions they killed are still dead.

As much as the tally sheet on Mcnamara calls for balance - be very careful about the juices of retrospective retribution. Our task is to get these vessels of cosmic distortion to die to their very way of thinking before they hit the grave. This man did begin to see the light shortly before he died.

This is the value of truth and reconcilliation commissions - when you get well informed, highly focused PUBLIC review, the disinformation - the lack of freedom of information, the frauds, the murder the insanity is made public. This to me is the meaning of "the truth will set you free".

Great reminiscence of the evil and strange McNamara. Hats off to the hippy who threw the bastard off the ferry. We need more around today with balls like that. I'm sure there are over a billion people who'd love to toss Bush, Cheney, Rummy and several dozen of their minions overboard. Cheney should be thrown from the top window of the Washington monument.

We won't be seeing war criminals like Rummy on a ferry boat.

He and his partners in evil, the Big Dick and the Decider will live out their days behind locked gates and in the shadowy shelters of corporate enclaves. They will only be seen occasionally spewing their vile slime on Fox.

When I was looking for something to read one day I picked up "Success" by Michael Korda as a joke but he nailed McNamara and used him as an example of someone who was a well credentialed idiot that had a fecal touch but was "successful" because he would see a disaster just soon enough to jump ship and avoid getting caught holding the bag.

McNamara was an Executive at Ford Motors when the Edsel was launched, he then went to Viet Nam as Sec of Defense, then presided over the World Bank during a period of mega projects that were every bit as successful as the Edsel.

He was the prototype for the likes of George W. Bush, Bill Kristol and David Brooks who all are "well-educated" but do nothing but perpetuate bankrupt, self-serving ideas that were proven disastrous a long time ago.

My joy will be complete when Kissinger joins him.

Opinion poll question: did McNamara do more harm at the World Bank or as SecDef?

That's awesome, that's the kind of stories my favorite history professor would tell us.