Cal Thomas On Jefferson And Ho Chi Minh

 

Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas offers his take on President Obama's comment that the late Communist leader of North Vietnam was influenced by Thomas Jefferson.

When it comes to Vietnam, I’m all for moving on, putting the past behind us, looking forward, letting bygones be bygones, but doing so requires honesty about the past, lest history be forgotten and the memory and honor tarnished of the 60,000 Americans who died in that war.

 

On his visit to Washington last week, President Truong Tan Sang of Vietnam told President Obama the late revolutionary Ho Chi Minh, was inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the words of Thomas Jefferson. In an ad in the Washington Post, President Sang even claimed Jefferson’s vision of liberty was the same as Ho’s.

 

Not exactly.

 

According to the U.S. State Department’s Vietnam 2012 Human Rights Report: “The Socialist Republic of Vietnam is an authoritarian state ruled by a single party, the Communist Party of Vietnam. … The most recent National Assembly elections, held in May 2011, were neither free nor fair. Security forces reported to civilian authorities. The most significant human rights problems in the country continued to be severe government restrictions on citizens’ political rights, particularly their right to change their government; increased measures to limit citizens’ civil liberties; and corruption in the judicial system and police.”

 

Does that sound Jeffersonian? 

 

You can read the rest of the column via the below link:

 

http://www.calthomas.com/index.php?news=4071 

 

You can also read an earlier post on Ho Chi Minh via the below link:

 

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/07/uh-ho-obama-says-vietnamese-dictator.html 

Uh Ho: Obama Says Vietnamese Dictator Inspired By American Founding Fathers

It was an insult to American Viet Nam War veterans, American-Vietnamese who fled Communist Viet Nam and those who wish for freedom under the Communist gun still living in Viet Nam, when President Obama noted that Communist dictator Ho Chi Minh was inspired by Thomas Jefferson.

We've heard this nonsense before - but never from a serving U.S. president - along with the silly idea that a hard-core Communist allied with Communist China and the Soviet Union might have actually become an American ally had only we reached out to him during the 1950s.

Chris Stirewalt at Foxnews.com offers a piece on Obama's silly and false words.

“...we discussed the fact that Ho Chi Minh was actually inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the words of Thomas Jefferson.”

-- President Obama talking to reporters alongside Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang.

It may come as some unwelcome news to the families of the nearly 60,000 Americans who died in the Vietnam War that the whole thing was just a misunderstanding.

That was the impression President Obama gave on Thursday when he spoke to the press after his meeting with Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang. Sang brought Obama a copy of a letter sent to President Harry Truman from Ho Chi Minh in which the communist dictator spoke hopefully of cooperation with the United States.

Obama, striking a wistful tone, observed that it may have taken 67 years, but the United States and Vietnam were finally enjoying the relationship that Ho once wrote of. After all, Obama said, Ho had been “inspired by the words of Thomas Jefferson.”

The message here was that if only we might have bridged our differences then – if only Ho and Truman could have done what Obama and Sang did this week, so much unpleasantness might have been avoided.

While Jefferson did get pretty fired up about “the blood of tyrants,” it’s hard to see how the Sage of Monticello inspired the murderous career of the Vietnamese dictator. Ho famously slaughtered his opponents, including the infamous butchery of peasant farmers who resisted his brutal taxation in the early days of Ho’s regime. Not particularly Jeffersonian.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/26/uh-ho-obama-says-vietnamese-dictator-inspired-by-founding-fathers/