"The score is four / And next time more”

This news broke yesterday, and it is big ...

I mean BIG!

Here's the background, in the event you were born after the 1970's;

The Kent State shootings – also known as the May 4 massacre or Kent State massacre – [2][3][4] occurred at Kent State University in the city of Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of unarmed college students by members of the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970. The guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.[5]

Some of the students who were shot had been protesting against the American invasion of Cambodia, which President Richard Nixon announced in a television address on April 30. Other students who were shot had been walking nearby or observing the protest from a distance.[6][7]

Now, here's the blockbuster news;

New analysis of 40-year-old recording of Kent State shootings reveals that Ohio Guard was given an order to prepare to fire

The Ohio National Guardsmen who fired on students and antiwar protesters at Kent State University on May 4, 1970 were given an order to prepare to shoot, according to a new analysis of a 40-year-old audio tape of the event.

"Guard!" says a male voice on the recording, which two forensic audio experts enhanced and evaluated at the request of The Plain Dealer. Several seconds pass. Then, "All right, prepare to fire!"

"Get down!" someone shouts urgently, presumably in the crowd. Finally, "Guard! . . . " followed two seconds later by a long, booming volley of gunshots. The entire spoken sequence lasts 17 seconds.

Why is this a big deal?

The previously undetected command could begin to explain the central mystery of the Kent State tragedy - why 28 Guardsmen pivoted in unison atop Blanket Hill, raised their rifles and pistols and fired 67 times, killing four students and wounding nine others in an act that galvanized sentiment against the Vietnam War.

The order indicates that the gunshots were not spontaneous, or in response to sniper fire, as some have suggested over the years.

I was not-yet 15-years-old when this went down, the tipping point, after the blizzard of nightly news footage of the carnage in Viet Nam, and the handful of older guys from the neighborhood that came home in body bags.

Now, our government was shooting at us.

For, merely, expressing our 1st Amendment rights.



Digby, on her blog Hullabaloo, has a great post up, in which she quotes from the book 'Nixonland', showing, chillingly, the parallels between the red-faced, crew-cut conservatives, the ones who bought, at retail price, the tainted American Dream, the ones who in the aftermath of the Kent State shootings chanted "The score is four / And next time more”, and today's political climate;

The country eventually disengaged from Vietnam. But that was only one skirmish in our ongoing tribal struggle --- it still rages today. History can now record what really happened that day at Kent State. But I think we can assume from the Nixonland excerpt that whether or not the Guardsmen shot under orders was never really the issue anyway.

The funny thing is that the same Real Americans who believed the protesters deserved it would join the tea parties today and complain mightily about government overreach. In fact, many of them probably have.

(Susie Madrak, over on Crooks and Liars, has a post with video, and audio)



And, there is still pain;

In Pittsburgh, Doris Krause has been waiting 40 years to find out who killed her daughter Allison, and why. Now 84 and widowed, she said Friday the presence of the prepare-to-fire order doesn't surprise her.

"It had to be," she said. "There's no other way they could have turned in unison without a command. There's no other way they could fire at the same time."

She is frustrated, though, that the recording can't identify the person who gave the order. "I wish there was better proof," Krause said. "We have to find a man with enough courage to admit what happened.

"I'm an old lady," she said, "and before I leave this earth, I'd like to find out who said what is on that tape."

"Courage to admit what happened ..."

Hopefully, it won't take another 40-years to find that out.


Crosby Stills Nash Young Teach Your Children - Iraq

McCain Waves The POW Flag

Since you are the odds-on favorite at this point, to win the nomination, all I have to say is Watch Out, Barack Obama!

You start hitting Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain too hard, or with facts, or just strong opinion and he's going to go to his ace-in-the-hole ...

His POW status.

He'll whip that POW Flag out and start waving it in your face!

Today, on ABC's 'This Week with George Stephanopoulos' (you remember him, don't you? ... From the debate the other evening...), Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain wasn't getting all love pies from Little Georgie.

And it seemed, at times, early on in the interview, that Little Georgie had to hold back, pull his punches, when they were discussing SB John's lunatic Tax Plans... It's seemed like Little Georgie just wanted to shout back at him "You're absolutely a mad man, these plans are impossible!", or worse, smack him around.

So it wasn't smooth sailing when Little Georgie brought the conversation around to healthcare, and brought up Elizabeth Edward's criticism of SB John's plans.

Since we couldn't find the ABC transcripts, we give a nod to Crooks and Liars, for their "This Week: Bringing Up McCain’s Life-Long, Federally-Provided Health Care Is “A Cheap Shot”;

STEPHANOPOULOS: What’s wrong with government — what’s wrong with government-run health care?

McCAIN: And we continue to have these debates — what’s wrong with it? Go to Canada. Go to England and you can find out what’s wrong with it. Governments don’t make the right decisions. Families make the right decisions.

STEPHANOPOULOS: One of the points Mrs. Edwards made in the Wall Street Journal, she said that your whole life, you had government health care. You were the son of a Naval officer, a Naval officer, now a member of Congress. And her point is, why shouldn’t every American be able to get the kind of health care that members of Congress get or members of the military get?

McCAIN: It’s a cheap shot, but I did have a period of time where I didn’t have very good government health care. I had it from another government. (LAUGHTER) So, look, I know what it’s like in America not to have health care. We know that Americans are hurting there as well. We’ve got to make health care affordable and available. The difference, again, between myself and the Democrats, and with all due respect, Mrs. Edwards, I want the families to make the choices. They want the government to make the choices. That’s a fundamental difference, and we will continue to debate that issue.

Did you catch that?

"It’s a cheap shot, but I did have a period of time where I didn’t have very good government health care. I had it from another government. (LAUGHTER)"

It was an awkward laugh SB John let out with ... Like he expected everyone in the studio to fall over in hysterics, and when they didn't, he awkwardly continued with his answer.

So, that's how you're going to play there, hey, SB John?

When it gets too tough, when the questions get to hard, or (and you better get used to this), when people throw your plans back at you as idiotic, you're gonna wave the POW flag?

Are you trying to establish, that since you were a POW, you don't have to explain yourself, your policies, should the entire country go into brain freeze and actually elect you?

When Barack Obama, either on the stump, or in a debate, starts calling you out, running down your statements, punching holes in your policies, are you just going to respond in some glib, chippy manner, as you did today, and wave your POW flag?

Yeah, you got a bad deal in Vietnam - as did hundreds-of-thousands of other kids that got forced into going there ... Not to mention the 50,000-plus that didn't come home.

No doubt, you, and the RNC are going to exploit it six-ways-from-Sunday in the general election campaign, deafeningly echoed by the Right Wing Freak Show, in a blizzard of Flag Lapel Pins, but don't you dare start hiding behind it during this campaign, when it comes time to explain your policies and positions.

And we haven't even brought up that you - dismissively - called the questions of a woman suffering from incurable cancer a "cheap shot"?

Way to go there, SB John, that shows a lot of class ...


More Madcap McCain Riffs

Steve Benen: Senator Hothead

Washington Post: McCain: A Question of Temperament

Nicole Bell/C&L: Notice Anything? John McCain doesn’t wear an American flag pin on THIS WEEK

Melissa McEwan/Shakesville: McCain: At Least He Doesn't Throw Punches!

Perrin On McCain, Clinton and Pornographic Ringtones

John Amato/C&L: McCain bashes Obama on Ayers but stands by his association with anti-Catholic pastor Hagee