Dick Cavett's Vietnam, a brief history of that fiasco traced through clips from The Dick Cavett Show, debuts tonight on PBS and reruns a lot throughout the week, at least on my PBS station. I haven't seen it but I recall Mr. Cavett's show hosting a lot of folks who criticized the handling of that war, followed by a lot of rebuttals from spokespersons who basically argued that to criticize the handling of that war was to hate America and our brave fighting men. During that military action, I started out on one side of the debate and slowly (perhaps too slowly) moved to the other side. On both sides, I saw a lot of folks who were incapable of making such a move in either direction, regardless of the facts. It was when I coined a phrase that has since popped up many times in things I've written about a wide range of topics…a reference to someone "who thinks never admitting you're wrong is the same thing as always being right."
I've set my TiVo for the Cavett show and for two companion telecasts where the same phrase may also be applicable. One, which precedes the Cavett program in my area, is called The Draft. I remember that horrible, impractical and cruel institution. I avoided (quite legally, via a high draft number) that horrible, impractical and cruel institution. And I recall people who supported it hysterically. If you'd gone up to one of them and said, "Here's how our military should get its soldiers" and you described the way it's worked for decades now with no one proposing we change it, they would have screamed at you, told you there was no chance in hell that would ever work and that it would unquestionably destroy the United States of America. In fact, some of those who said it would doom America to eliminate the draft were in the Nixon Administration which, before it ended, eliminated the draft. I'll be interested to see if this program notes that amazing (to me) reversal.
There's also a show called The Day the 60's Died which covers the Kent State Massacre — a tragedy which, I think, did a lot to turn swing voters against The War. Even a lot of people who supported the U.S. actions in Vietnam felt they were on the wrong side after that happened. Again, my TiVo is set. You might want to have yours be the same way.