The "intervention" at Dallas?

[stubtoe]

Did anyone else catch McCain referring to Kennedy's assassination as "the intervention - (corrects himself) tragedy - at Dallas" in the early part of the debate last night?

I usually think of the act of "intervention" as purposeful. It's unsettling to hear this from a Republican about the assassination of a Democratic president.

Tinfoil on :tinfoilhat:

[shadowknows69]

1. I honestly missed it but I'll take your word for it

And if true it just proves a couple things. That the Kennedy(s) was/were hits from within and the McCain is TOO FUCKING OLD AND CRAZY.

[soleft]

2. Is there a transcript anywhere of the debate. I think this is creepy

and kind of big.

[screembloodymurder]

7. Me too. I'd like an explanation from McCain.

It better make sense.

[soleft]

13. Well, no one asked him to explain my fellow prisoners, so....

[formercia]

35. McCain needs to be call out on this

and made to publicly explain what he meant by the use of the word 'intervention.'

I have a pretty good idea what he meant. JFK was assassinated by right-wing reactionaries because he didn't play along with their program. That's what he meant by 'intervention.'

[snappyturtle]

3. NO, I didn't hear that! But, I did hear mcsame same he is proud of his

supporters and that was troubling enough and now this?

[Richard D]

4. Same reaction here.

That was one of the weirdest things of the night, maybe of the year.

[WritersBlock]

5. Not according to the transcript at the IHT

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/16/america/16debate-transcript.php?page=6

When Senator Obama was first asked, he said, "Any place, any time," the way Barry Goldwater and Jack Kennedy agreed to do, before the intervention of the tragedy at Dallas. So I think the tone of this campaign could have been very different.

We taped the debate, though, and will be watching it again. McCain said a couple of things that just didn't sound quite right last night.

Edit to say, and I seem to remember a hesitation there, too.

[soleft]

10. Here's how someone on Randi Rhodes blog saw it

About 25 minutes into the debate McCain (in reference to townhall meetings) said, "The way Barry Goldwater and Jack Kennedy agreed to do before the intervention (touches nose & corrects himself)... the tragedy at Dallas."

The point is he said - intervention, then mumbled and changed it to tragedy.

I think this is probably a term he uses a lot when talking amongst friends.

[stubtoe]

15. Thanks for finding this

It sure sounded like he was correcting himself to me.

[TornadoTN]

16. That was my take on it too and I'm not a tinfoil hatter

It really struck me as odd and out of place. There are a lot of people who were threatened by Kennedy's rise to power and it certainly could be classified as an intervention from their point of view.

[soleft]

17. It might even be a sick joke amongst his buddies

[heliarc]

25. If by "odd and out of place"...

you mean message encoded and delivered.

[formercia]

34. Exactly

All it takes is one 'code word' from the right person to set off a chain of events.

[rainbow4321]

32. Yep...caught that. Like putting his hand to his face would muffle the

words he had just spewed out.

[stubtoe]

12. Thank you for looking this up

I'm glad you taped the debate. What I heard (and wrote down because it was so weird) is not "the intervention of the tragedy".

[scarface2004]

6. he s setting his followers up to do an intervention!

on obama. he is one sick pud!

[scarface2004]

8. he s setting his followers up to do an intervention!

on obama. he is one sick pud!

[woodsprite]

9. I heard it and thought "He couldn't be meaning JFK's assassination."

My daughter and I both heard it and were like "What did he just say?"

[Selatius]

11. An intervention did happen that day. JFK pissed off a lot of powerful people.

I bet a bunch of people in high places were privately cheering on news JFK was finally dead.

[notaboutus]

14. I heard it too, this was no accident

all of you please go check your history the nose touching is a known racist sign.
"You can't conquer what you won't confront" The rallies, the guilt by association, none of it is an accident.

[screembloodymurder]

19. Nose touching is a sign of doubt or rejection of one's true belief.

As in: no, I didn't mean to say that (even though he really did).

[chalky]

21. Yes. I remember centuries...er, years ago watching a segment on a news show that

showed some body language "tells" and what they signalled. The nose touching one stuck with me and I've watched for it ever since.

[davekriss]

18. He called his audience "fellow prisoners" in one speech

Strange things slip through his mouth.

[hootinholler]

20. Yeah, I did...

Here's the exact quote, downthread.

-Hoot

[Arugula Latte]

22. Things that make you go "hmmmm."

[Hell Hath No Fury]

23. I was with a roomfull of people...

and we all heard it and went, "Whaaaaat?!?" when he said it -- we even rolled back the DVR to make sure we had heard what we heard. Unbelieveable.

[derby378]

24. Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shots, but who paid for the bullets?

Methinks McCain knows a hell of a lot more about the JFK assassination than he's letting on.

[musette_sf]

26. do he and Poppy go back that far?

On November 22, 1963 Mr. GEORGE H.W. BUSH, 5525 Briar, Houston, Texas, telephonically advised that he wanted to relate some hear say that he had heard in recent weeks, date and source unknown. He advised that one JAMES PARROTT had been talking of killing the President when he comes to Houston.

PARROTT is possibly a student at the University of Houston and is active in politics in the Houston area.

According to related FBI documentation, "a check with Secret Service at Houston, Texas revealed that agency had a report that PARROTT stated in 1961 he would kill President Kennedy if he got near him." Here Bush is described as "a reputable businessman." FBI agents were sent to interrogate Parrott's mother, and later James Milton Parrott himself. Parrott had been discharged from the US Air Force for psychiatric reasons in 1959. Parrott had an alibi for the time of the Dallas shootings; he had been in the company of another Republican activist. According to press accounts, Parrott was a member of the right-wing faction of the Houston GOP which was oriented towards the John Birch Society and which opposed Bush's chairmanship. 19 According to the San Francisco Examiner, Bush's press office in August, 1988 first said that Bush had not made any such call, and challenged the authenticity of the FBI documents. Several days later Bush's spokesman said that the candidate "does not recall" placing the call.

http://www.tarpley.net/bush8b.htm

:tinfoilhat:

[Kitty Herder]

27. Here's a youtube clip of that part of the debate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBAsHTSbkXs

I don't know what to make of it.

[quiet.american]

29. It's clear he forgot for a moment that he wasn't just among his "base."

The more I see of this man, the more I ask myself why do I "owe him my thanks," and why is he deserving of the title, "hero."

[Kitty Herder]

30. Same here.

I get disgusted with everyone from journalists to Obama constantly reminding me that I'm supposed to revere this man as a "hero." (I don't hold it against Obama; he pretty much has to do that. I just get tired of it.) As far as I'm concerned, McCain has sold his soul to the demons of the Bush/Cheney Republican party and no longer has any honor, no longer deserves my respect.

[PufPuf23]

39. Like a cat with a mouse

Obama is playing with McCain and they both know it.

There is no contest.

How the election may come out is another matter.

Just putting in time until the election and inaugeration hoping nothing major happens and there turns out to be a Dem supermajority in House and Senate and an Obama / Biden administration with loads of work.

But we face the largest financial crisis since depression and more than enough ongoing, covert, or potential miltary adventures.

McCain milked his last drop of hero card with his interogation remark on Letterman last night.

Obama is much better to restore or calm relations with allies and foreign policy in general.

[formercia]

41. It's pretty clear to me

He tried to catch himself but the word was out there.

Intervention:

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/intervention
the action of intervening; interfering in some course of events


Like preventing someone from becoming President.

[Kitty Herder]

52. It does seem pretty clear.

I'm trying to give McCain the benefit of the doubt on this. But it's hard to do. He could have meant that the assassination intervened in the planned Kennedy-Goldwater debates. But it's a suspicious choice of words in that context. Highly suspicious. Why would a person use the word intervention when referring to an assassination if they didn't, at least subconsciously, see the assassination as an intervention? It's creepy.

[Beam Me Up]

28. Yeah, I caught that, too. Looks like many didn't. n/t

[Shanti Mama]

31. just when I get to the point of putting away my tin foil

out comes something to make me really think about EVERYTHING in the context of 20th century American history. I wonder wonder wonder, and will likely never know.

I wasn't paying too much attention during McCain's answer to this. The initial reference to town hall meetings was so stupid that I tuned out. But now I'm thinking again. Damn!

[pirate_satellite]

33. I heard it but interpreted it quite differently

I heard it as "before the intervention of the tragedy at Dallas", in other words, the assassination intervened on their previously arranged debate plans.

[OneGrassRoot]

38. Ahhhh, that makes sense. Thanks. :) n/t

[Frank Cannon]

40. In retrospect, I assume that's what he meant

Seemed strange at the time, but given the context, it does make sense.

[tomp]

42. prior to november of '63 kennedy and goldwater were making debate plans?

wouldn't that have been a bit premature?

[nichomachus]

44. That would have been way beyond premature - ridiculous, in fact

Another McCain lie or just more evidence of being a doddering old man.

At the beginning of the 1964 primaries, there were 11 GOP candidates and Goldwater was way way down in the pack. The leader was Henry Cabot Lodge who took a few early states and then decided he'd rather sit on Beacon Hill and clip coupons. Then, Nelson Rockefeller went to the front of the line and nosedived when his new wife (who he divorced his old wife to marry) had a baby in an unfortunate time-frame -- not having nine months between the marriage and the birth was so unacceptable back then.

Goldwater then squeaked out a primary victory with about 38 percent of the GOP vote.

So, there is no way in hell that JFK would have been making debate plans with him in the Fall of 1963.

[pirate_satellite]

46. I agree it seems strange but

I ran across a letter the McCain camp presumably sent the Obama camp suggesting a series of town-hall debates in the manner envisioned by Kennedy and Goldwater in 1963. Presuming that letter is real (perhaps I presume too much, it being the internet), it seems unlikely that McCain would invent such a backstory out of thin air and not be called on it by somebody (Obama during the debate, or the media). When you read the letter it it apparent that McCain was clumsily restating the contents of it in the third debate.

link to the letter: http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/6/4/141524/7893

msnbc suggests the source for all this is an interview with Goldwater 25 years later... and as you might expect, McCain's assertion that Kennedy "agreed" to any such thing sounds like quite a stretch: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/06/04/1110876.aspx

[nichomachus]

49. Still sounds goofy to me

Goldwater was just a tiny blip on the GOP radar at that point. There were more mainstream heavy hitters in front of him for the nomination, not only in November of 1963 but for months after.

It would be strange to be making plans for the GE campaign at that point.

UNLESS -- it was just two guys talking. "Hey, Barry, tell you what. You get yourself nominated and we'll fly all over the country together having meetings." More interpersonal camaraderie than serious campaign-to-campaign negotiation. JFK probably figured Barry would never get nominated -- since no one else did either. Either Lodge or Rockefeller could have walked away with it -- at that point in 1963.

[nichomachus]

43. I'd like to hear the tape

The transcription might not be totally accurate -- very often when people stumble over words, the transcribers put in what sounds right to them.

I know because I do a lot of work editing transcripts and spend time listening to the recording and reading what transcribers interpret things as. It's painstaking, because there are numerous errors in transcription when people misspeak and correct themselves mid-sentence, which people often do.

In this case, he might have said "the intervention of the tragedy" as written. or' he might have said "the intervention - uh - the tragedy."


I'll give McC the benefit of the doubt on this -- mainly because I don't think they'd bring a loose cannon like him into the loop on whatever occurred in Dallas. That's a closely held secret of the Bush Crime Family. He may have just told the truth inadvertently.

[pirate_satellite]

47. In the video

his hand goes to his mouth as he's saying the word(s) between 'intervention' and 'tragedy' (I believe he rubs his nose at that exact moment), which obscures his voice somewhat from the microphone, thus making it impossible to transcribe with certainty what he said.

[nichomachus]

48. Yeah -- I saw it

And I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. As I said elsewhere -- mostly because I believe that a loose cannon like McCain wouldn't have been let in on the details of Dallas.

[heliarc]

51. Watch it...

He did NOT say "of the" ... it was "Intervention ... tragedy"

[rcrush]

36. Military intervened and took out the president cause they hated him

Probably.

[Fuzz]

37. Youtube link

About 5:30 in

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g9-zCcrR0c

[Blue Belle]

45. Yes. I heard that... and thought two things were strange:

1) How could JFK's assassination be equated to an intervention?

2) How can refusing to do town hall meetings justify the scurrilous attack ads on Obama?

I'm sure linking the fact that JFK being a relative minority (Catholic) and agent of hope, and the new era of change Obama evokes is not lost on inside power brokers. It seems like McCain is a walking generator of oddly turned phrases and whenever he speaks the ghosts of "Old Boys" Washington slip out. I do not doubt that there are a lot more unsettling and unscrupulous things in McCain's past that we will never know about. I just can't believe that I ever respected McCain prior to 2003.

[madfloridian]

50. I just replayed it. 1:03:50 in....he does say the "intervention".

He then changes it to tragedy.

That's shameful.