* 1968 -- Minority Plank defeated at Democratic Convention calls for withdrawal from Vietnam.
*
1971 -- A young John Kerry testifies to the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee that "we cannot fight Communism all over the world, and I
think we should have learned that lesson by now." He goes on to accuse
his fellow soldiers of a long list of "war crimes."
* 1972 -- Senator George McGovern proposes unilateral withdrawal from Vietnam.
*
1975 -- Democratic Congress ends funding of Vietnam War, American
troops leave Southeast Asia. Years later Yale University's Cambodian
Genocide Program reports that between 1975-1979 1.7 million people were
murdered, 21% of the Cambodian population. A Senate Committee headed by
Democrat Frank Church of Idaho investigates the CIA, an investigation
described by then-President Gerald Ford as "sensational and
irresponsible." Others charge Church with crippling the agency.
*
1977 -- President Jimmy Carter, safely elected after campaigning as an
Annapolis graduate/Navy officer, tells America it has an "inordinate
fear of communism." While the Cambodian genocide proceeds, the Soviets
invade Afghanistan and set up a puppet regime in Nicaragua. American
hostages are held in Iran for over a year. Carter cuts the defense
budget so badly that Reagan's incoming Secretary of Defense Caspar
Weinberger recalled not being "entirely over [the] shock at the
weaknesses in our own military capability" Carter had left behind.
*1983
-- New York Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro joins the Democratic chorus
opposing President Ronald Reagan's decision to send troops to Grenada.
In spite of Reagan's rescue of American medical students and halting a
Communist takeover, she charges, according to the New York Times,
that it was "an inappropriate and precipitous use of military force." A
year later Ms. Ferraro becomes the Democratic nominee for
Vice-President. Her chief foreign policy adviser, according to the Times, is future Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
*
1983 -- Senator Edward Kennedy leads Democrats in disparaging Reagan's
idea of shooting down nuclear tipped missiles from space as "Star Wars"
-- fighting a system that only this year was invoked as a way to save
the West Coast of the United States from a North Korean missile attack.
*1984
-- Walter Mondale campaigns for president on the idea that America
should have a "nuclear freeze" with the Soviets. He vows to stop the
"illegal war" in Nicaragua "in my first hundred days," accuses Reagan
of wanting to "turn the heavens into a battleground," and ginning up an
"arms race" with the Soviets. Dismissing Soviet aggression in
Afghanistan, Central America and Communist treatment of Jewish
dissidents, Mondale pleads for arms control. The concept of victory and
ending the Cold War is never discussed.
* 1985 -- Reykjavik
Summit: When Reagan walks away from a bad deal he is sharply criticized
by Democratic Congressman Ed Markey for giving up "a chance to cash in
on Star Wars" by refusing to trade away the entire SDI program. Later,
it is this refusal that is credited with winning the Cold War.
*1988
-- Michael Dukakis runs for president opposing efforts to defeat the
Communist government of Nicaragua, saying his election would not be
about "overthrowing governments in Central America."
* 1991 --
By a five-vote margin the Democratic-controlled Senate votes to force
Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait after he invaded the country. The majority
of Democrats vote no. This includes now-Senator John Kerry, who said
the U.S. was "once again willing to risk people dying from a mistake."
For
five decades now, beginning with that hot August Chicago night in 1968,
the modern Democratic Party has adopted the attitude, philosophy,
policy and practices of appeasement. All of this -- and much more --
was well before Bill Clinton even got near the Oval Office. An office
he won only when Americans understood the Cold War was finally over,
believing that there were no serious threats on the horizon. Only then
did a modern Democrat once again live in the White House.
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