We’re not sure why Newsweek decided to reprint an opinion piece by Washington Spectator correspondent Rick Perlstein calling for the taking down of the “racist” POW/MIA flag. Then again, this is the magazine that sold for $1 in 2010 “in exchange for absorbing Newsweek’s considerable financial liabilities,” so a little controversy can’t do any harm.
https://twitter.com/_icze4r/status/631187883353899008
It’s not just a follow-up to the Confederate flag controversy; Perlstein notes that even ultra-liberal presidential candidate Bernie Sanders posted an image of the flag on his Facebook page along with the message, “They are all heroes” after Donald Trump took a cheap shot at prisoner of war Sen. John McCain.
What’s Perlstein’s real beef with the flag? Because “Richard Nixon invented the cult of the ‘POW/MIA’ in order to justify the carnage in Vietnam in a way that rendered the United States as its sole victim” and to “paint the North Vietnamese as uniquely cruel and inhumane.”
“The moral confusion was abetted by the flag,” he continues: “the barbed-wire misery of that stark white figure, emblazoned in black.”
Rick Perlstein writes, "Nixon invented the cult of the POW/MIA in order to justify the carnage in Vietnam."
A Cult? https://t.co/IjWk1RyKGz
— Jessie Jane Duff (@JessieJaneDuff) August 11, 2015
https://twitter.com/martinjj1807/status/631174221452808192
@JessieJaneDuff @Newsweek I'd like to wrap this dude's head in a POW flag and punch it until it becomes part of his DNA and he hates himself
— Mental Enfilade (@mentalenfilade) August 11, 2015
@JessieJaneDuff Rick Perlstein is another libtard that would probably want to ban the American Flag also
— SgtMaj-USMC (@retireleo) August 11, 2015
@retireleo @JessieJaneDuff Wouldn't be surprised if that's on someone's radar already. Probably Obama's Bcuz it offends too many foreigners.
— PDP (@RIobserver) August 11, 2015
@JessieJaneDuff I will HAPPILY go to jail for felony assault if I witness a POW/MIA flag being tampered with. Happily.
— Biff Winnetka (@HypocriLib) August 11, 2015
@JessieJaneDuff Joan Shelton gave me this in 1985. Need to wear it more. pic.twitter.com/54bJrNTlKb
— Biff Winnetka (@HypocriLib) August 11, 2015
@HypocriLib @JessieJaneDuff Are these still available? This is the 1st Time I've seen one on a Decade or more.
— Terry J. Schultz (@Rolex16613) August 11, 2015
@JessieJaneDuff Shot down in ’65. Credible sightings into the 80’s. Not listed KIA until ’94.
— Biff Winnetka (@HypocriLib) August 11, 2015
@JessieJaneDuff Read about my good friend’s father, Col Charles Shelton and try not to be enraged.
http://t.co/3SH8XI7gl6— Biff Winnetka (@HypocriLib) August 11, 2015
https://twitter.com/vafordman/status/631177802776190977
My grandfather was shot down and recovered in Vietnam—many of his friends weren't. @rickperlstein you're illiterate. https://t.co/D69zeAmF6n
— Lyndsey Fifield (@lyndseyfifield) August 11, 2015
@rickperlstein tried way too hard to make far-fetched ideas into racism in this article https://t.co/Y56cspU581
— Tony (@Tony_Tickets) August 11, 2015
Rick Perlstein needs to see a shrink. https://t.co/bQA6nJPfNl
— ? – . – ? (@DoctorNoFI) August 11, 2015
Sure, Rick Perlstein wrote a stupid article for defunct newsmag. But more importantly, Rick Perlstein is a crap historian. Bad at his craft.
— The Nats Won The World Series (@EsotericCD) August 11, 2015
Have you ever read "Nixonland" or 'Invisible Bridge?" Don't. Terrible works, full of historical howlers, misquotes, bungled chronology, etc.
— The Nats Won The World Series (@EsotericCD) August 11, 2015
That's what makes Perlstein an embarrassment, not some dumb article designed to garner outrage-clicks. He's just not good at his profession.
— The Nats Won The World Series (@EsotericCD) August 11, 2015
Oh, and one last thing about Rick Perlstein – he's not only a poor historian, he's also a dead-to-rights plagiarist: http://t.co/rdyjnRvWio
— The Nats Won The World Series (@EsotericCD) August 11, 2015
National Review last year published a piece on Perlstein entitled, “Possible Plagiarist, Definite Jerk.” “For what it’s worth,” wrote Tim Cavanaugh, “fellow leftists seem to find him insufferable as well.”
https://twitter.com/Me_In_Jersey/status/631172179556761600