10.01.2008 10:43 pm
Relative pans McCain’s visit to Truman Library
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Republican John McCain was in Independence, Mo. Wednesday, visiting the library of the Show-Me State’s most famous political son, former president Harry S Truman.
McCain at the Truman Library
The visit, though, was not well received by a kin of the original Mr. Buck Stops Here, grandnephew John Ross Truman, who led a Democratic response rally under the Truman statue at the Independence courthouse.
“There’s a grave a couple of miles away and I think somebody is spinning in it right now,” John Truman said, according to the local NBC affiliate. “Sen. McCain is trying to use superficial similarities to camouflage his totally opposite policies.” Said Truman.
My grandfather, Robert E Hannegan, ran the 1944 Democratic Convention and helped get an “unqualified” Truman to be FDR’s VP:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/presidents/video/truman_09_wm.html#v166
I think the pro-abortion policies advocated by Obama and Biden would sicken both Harry Truman and my grandfather.
Ole Harry’s spinning alright - but it is because of the policies of democrats today. He wouldn’t recognize “his” party.
My grandfather and Harry Truman were friends and political partners for many years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Hannegan
I think I can speak for my grandfather in saying that John McCain is more like Harry Truman than either Barack Obama or Joe Biden.
Furthermore, Sarah Palin reminds me of Harry Truman in the scorn she has faced from social elites as an ill-spoken, unqualified upstart in her VP nomination in this current presidential race.
http://keepstlouisfree.blogspot.com/2008/09/sarah-palin-and-harry-truman.html
To Bill Hannegan,
What ever their reactions would be, the democrats are not the same party as they were in the 1950s. Those were the days of the Korean Conflict, Cold War rhetoric, and Jim Crow laws. The domocrats, thankfully, have evolved from the days of Jim Crow and now are recognized as the best choice for equality and freedom. And yet again you assert that the one and only issue which concerns you is abortion. I seriously doubt the cultural changes experienced since then would have been so terribly overlooked by someone as intelligent as Harry Truman. Furthermore, it is an insult to your own intelligence to neglect noticing them as well. Please consider the bigger picture for a change… I think Harry Truman would say the same.
Truman would be spinning… as well as John F. Kennedy, LBJ, Scoop Jackson, & Hubert Humphrey. They’d all be spinning over what’s become of today’s Democrat Party (and it’s absence of common sense)
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mlgb, fair enough. But I think Harry Truman would very much respect John McCain. John Truman’s statement is just wrong!
Uh- Does anyone else see the utter hipocrisy in Hannegan claiming he has more authority to speak for his grandfather than Truman has to speak for his? I know, I know, republican hipocrisy is a cheap commodity but still deserves notice. How ’bout this Hannegan, when the democrats all descend on your ancestral stomping grounds, you can say anything that you feel is appropriate. For instance, you could pepper your speech with a few quotes from your gramps and Truman on the evils of recognizing the right of a woman to make decisions regarding her own bodily integrity.
Penelope, John Truman and I both have a right to speak as best we can for our dead relatives. And like John Truman, I will never be a Republican. Like they say, “Baptized Catholic, but conceived Democrat.” But I do think the Democratic Party has very much lost its way.
It’s always amusing to see the Repub hacks cling to the ghosts of dead Dems. These are the same people who know exactly how the founders would feel about every issue that comes up in our political world today.
They have psychic powers, you know.