Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Hanoi Jane turns 70...still sucks.

this past week saw Atlanta roll out the red carpet for a huge 70th birthday gala for Jane Fonda. in attendence were lovely people like Ted Turner, Eve Ensler, and Rosie O'Donnell (who dragged along that poor woman she's partnered up with...shudder...

among the adoring remarks made on Fonda's behalf were these by a drunk (as usual) Turner:
"One of the things that attracted Jane to me...[audience laughter]...Sorry, i didn't write anything down...I've had a glass of wine. What I meant was, what attracted me to her is her incredible courage. Jane has more courage than just about anybody i've ever met. During the Vietnam War, i kept my mouth shut. I learned early on that you don't get in trouble if you keep your mouth shut. Jane never learned that."
i'm sorry...but wasn't Turner formerly known as "THE MOUTH OF THE SOUTH"??

not everyone, of course, considered her actions during the Vietnam war "courageous". one vet took issue in a guest column for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Media glow on Fonda ignores her treason"...

i like his take...he's more pissed at the media for fawning over Fonda all of these year than he his at Fonda herself. but, since he accuses the media of "looking the other way", he reminds the people of Fonda's stated embracing of the enemy through her speeches (she wasn't just an "anti-war" activist...she literally was pulling for the other side!) and the historical facts of her trip to Vietnam:
What she actually did matters far more, of course, than what she thought or said as a young woman long ago. When Fonda took a camera crew to North Vietnam late in the war, her actions easily crossed the line of "aid and comfort to the enemy."

While in Hanoi, Fonda delighted our enemy by cavorting for cameras on an anti-aircraft gun, pretending to shoot at U.S. aircraft. Under pressure in recent years, Fonda said that was bad judgment, but her other actions were far worse.

She made speeches and recorded propaganda radio broadcasts in Hanoi expressing solidarity against " . . . our common enemy - U.S. imperialism." She called our troops, our POWs and our president war criminals and begged U.S. troops to disobey orders from their officers.

Fonda returned to the U.S. and reported our POWs were well treated. When the POWs later came home to tell stories of their sustained starvation diet, maltreatment and torture - real torture, not the kindergarten variety we now debate - she called them liars.
this story would make one helluva movie.


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