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| George McGovern shaped by prairie upbringing - USA TODAY Posted: 21 Oct 2012 09:23 AM PDT 12:20PM EDT October 21. 2012 - In 1980, on a Saturday morning a few days before an election he had to know in his bones he was losing to Jim Abdnor, George McGovern stormed into the Associated Press office in Sioux Falls, S.D., where my wife, Sandy Johnson, then a 24-year-old rookie, was working the desk. The usually even-keeled McGovern was mightily upset about a story the wire service had run, and he let her know it. The way she told it, an angry George McGovern was quite a sight. A George McGovern gesturing angrily with an unlit cigar was even more out of character, and it is something I still have trouble getting my head around. They agreed to disagree and parted ways. A few days later, Sandy got a handwritten apology from the senator. And forever after, almost every time my path crossed with McGovern's, he would ask about her before he said anything else. Often, he'd offer regrets about blowing his top years and years before. This was my first memory when the news of McGovern's failing health came across the AP and into the Internet chatter chamber. McGovern was not an angry man in anyone's definition, but he was tough and he cared and he could admit when he was wrong. And this memory, more than any in our long acquaintance, defined those cores of his character. McGOVERN: Nixon foe, 3-term senator, long-time activist Rarely was a politician so shaped by the geography of his upbringing. It is why, I think, after he left public office that he took a largely untrodden path back to South Dakota to live part-time. A lot of politicians never come home once they've left public office. The allure of Mitchell was never something he was ashamed of, even when other politicians or the pressies covering him would crack jokes about the Corn Palace. McGovern and I had a few conversations over the years about our mutual upbringings in the wide skies of the Dakotas, where fence rows and ghost towns can often seem like the only thing between you and infinity. It was there, growing up in the dust and the suffering of the Great Depression, that this son of a Methodist minister was grounded in the knowledge that there are many things bigger than you in this great big world, but that knowledge is never an excuse for not trying to make that world better. To many Americans, McGovern will go down as that Vietnam War dove who lost in a landslide to Richard Nixon in the Watergate year of 1972. But he was a hawk at 22, pilot of a B-24 Liberator who flew 35 missions over Europe, was nearly killed by shrapnel on one, and crash-landed on another. He won the Distinguished Flying Cross but rarely ever talked about it. McGovern told me years later he never had doubts about fighting World War II, which he saw as a just war. He was equally certain that Vietnam was unjust and unnecessary, and that drove his passions against the war. One of his biggest regrets, he once told me, was not saying that more clearly in the '72 race against Nixon. He was of that generation where true war heroes did not talk about it. "I should have said that one of the reasons I am speaking out against the war in Vietnam was that I know firsthand what war does," McGovern told Timothy Naftali, the former director of Nixon's presidential library, in 2009. In his twilight, he and Bob Dole, another prairie politician, joined together to push expansion of U.S. food aid to countries around the globe. It is a classic three-fer crusade: It delivers thousands of free lunches to hungry kids around the globe each day; it entices children, especially girls, to come to school to get fed; and it sops up American farmers' perpetual abundance. What Dole and McGovern both knew from their roots in wheat and corn country was that a box of food with "United States of America" stamped on it was unsurpassed where it counted most: in the minds and hearts and stomachs of vulnerable kids. These two politicians came to another twilight understanding: that it didn't make a hill of beans' difference if you were a Democrat or a Republican if you believed together in a cause. |
| Slain official's funeral ends in Beirut violence - Reuters Posted: 21 Oct 2012 09:11 AM PDT  BEIRUT | (Reuters) - The state funeral in Beirut of an assassinated Lebanese intelligence chief ended in violence on Sunday as angry mourners broke away and tried to storm the offices of Prime Minister Najib Mikati, prompting security forces to shoot in the air and fire tear gas to repulse them. The clashes fed into a growing political crisis in Lebanon linked to the civil war in neighboring Syria. Opposition leaders and their supporters accuse Syria of being behind the car bombing that killed Brigadier General Wissam al-Hassan on Friday and say Mikati is too close to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Lebanese ally Hezbollah, which is part of Mikati's government. Thousands turned out in downtown Beirut's Martyrs' Square for Hassan's funeral, which also served as a political rally. The violence erupted after an opposition leader demanded that Mikati step down to pave the way for talks on the crisis. A group marched to the prime minister's office, then overturned barriers, pulled apart barbed wire coils and threw stones, steel rods and bottle at soldiers and police. Security forces responded by shooting into air and firing teargas, forcing the protesters to scatter. There were no immediate reports of casualties but the violence was nonetheless shocking to Lebanese who fear the Syrian conflict will spread to their country. Opposition leader Saad al-Hariri urged supporters to refrain from any more violence. "We want peace, the government should fall but we want that in a peaceful way. I call on all those who are in the streets to pull back," Hariri told supporters after the attack, speaking on the Future Television channel. However as night fell groups of youths blocked the road to the international airport with piles of burning tires. The highway south to Sidon was also cut. The killing of Hassan and the subsequent events have highlighted how the 19-month-old uprising against Assad in Syria has exacerbated deep-seated sectarian tensions in Lebanon, which is still scarred from its 1975-90 civil war. Sunni-led rebels are fighting to overthrow Assad, who is from the Alawite minority, which has its roots in Shi'ite Islam. Lebanon's religious communities are divided between those that support Assad and those that back the rebels. A HERO'S FUNERAL Hassan, 47, was a Sunni Muslim and senior intelligence official who had helped uncover a bomb plot that led to the arrest and indictment in August of a pro-Assad former Lebanese minister. He also led an investigation that implicated Syria and the Shi'ite Hezbollah in the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri in 2005. Mourners at Martyrs' Square accused Syria of involvement in the killing and called for Mikati to quit. One banner read "Go, go Najib" echoing the slogans of the Arab Spring. The violence broke out after Fouad al-Siniora, a former prime minister, said the opposition rejected any dialogue to overcome the political crisis caused by Hassan's killing unless the government first resigned. "No talks before the government leaves, no dialogue over the blood of our martyrs," Siniora said to roars of approval from the crowd. At the start of the funeral, senior politicians and the military and security top brass turned out at the Internal Security Force headquarters for a ceremony held with full military honours and broadcast live on national television. Hassan's wife and two sons, the youngest weeping, listened as he was eulogized by the head of police, Ashraf Rifi, and President Michel Suleiman. Suleiman said the government and people must work "shoulder to shoulder" to overcome the challenges posed by the killing. "I tell the judiciary do not hesitate, the people are with you, and I tell the security be firm, the people are with you, with you. And I tell the politicians and the government do not provide cover to the perpetrator." In keeping with custom for state funerals, church bells pealed as police officers carried the flag-draped coffins of Hassan and his bodyguard to the mosque on Martyrs' Square through chanting crowds. Moslem prayers were broadcast by loudspeaker from the mosque. "We blame Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria," said Assmaa Diab, 14, from the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, Hassan's home town. She was in the square with her sister and father. "He is responsible for everything - in the past, now, and if we don't stand up to him, the future," she said. The prime minister was also a focus of their anger. "We are here to tell Mikati we don't need him any more and to tell Hezbollah we don't want any more of their games," said Hamza Akhrass, a 22-year-old student who from south Lebanon. "Mikati takes too much pressure for Syria." Mikati said on Saturday he had offered to resign to make way for a government of national unity but he had accepted a request by President Michel Suleiman to stay in office to allow time for talks on a way out of the political crisis. Mikati sought in vain to insulate the country from turmoil in its larger neighbor, which has long played a role in Lebanese politics. He himself said he suspected Hassan's assassination was linked to his role in uncovering Syrian involvement in the August bomb plot. (Additional reporting by Dominic Evans, Leila Bassam and Samia Nakhoul,; Editing by Giles Elgood) |
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