Oswald was a member of the pilgrim left
Reader comment on item: Lee Harvey Oswald's Malign Legacy

Submitted by Peter Herz (United States), Dec 7, 2007 at 09:14

The comments that followed the assassination of President Kennedy are exhibit A in any case proving the moral irresponsibility of the left. Lee Harvey Oswald was a former defector to the USSR and an admirer of Castro--a poster child of the pilgrim left; not an epitome of traditional American bigotires.

While not impugning the patriotism of men like FDR and HST, I nonetheless believe they did the country a lot of harm. FDR trained the nation to look to the official handout for relief; and his policies may well have prolonged the depression. His NRA's prosectution of the Schechter brothers (let's hear it for the courts that put a stop to it) was vicious in the extreme. Both FDR and HST trusted Harry Dexter White with the nation's money; yet he was a Soviet dupe to his fingertips.

As for the Kennedy crowd, they went into office thinking that Americans could do everything from abolishing poverty in Appalachia and India to nation-building in Southeast Asia; they left whining that Americans had done everything from teaching corruption to the heirs of a Confucian Mandarinate in Viet Nam to teaching torture to the heirs of the Spanish Inquisition in Latin America.

Yes, Oswald was a criminal and it's a pity he was not hanged after due process of law. However, let's not make Kennedy into more than what he was: an heir of a wrong-headed turn of the American body politic.

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