To the anonymous commenters who claim that the FDR button shown below is a fake, please explain that to the folks at the World War II Museum, where the button was found (click on Peral Harbor and scroll down to find the button).
Then tell me how it is “fairly well established that the button is a fake. “
Dean
This is in addition to a number of campaign buttons from 1944 showing FDR and the “V for Victory” logo.
FYI: “V for Victory” was not referring to campaign politics, but rather, the idea of winning World War II.
Kimmitt
Did you read the caption?
“Americans expressed their feelings about Pearl Harbor with an unprecedented expression of sentiment.”
Someone wrote that down on a portrait of FDR.
Here is a list of various FDR pins and paraphernalia. Nothing like that pin in style or tone is displayed.
I know you want to think the worst of Democrats, but google is just too easy to use for this line of argument to be anything but intellectually lazy.
Brian A.
Perhaps the vendor just “forgot” to put the Pearl Habor campaign button up.
I’m sure all the 1944 campaign button experts here will straighten him or her out.
Tatterdemalian
Got to add that my father, who was actually around during the 1944 campaign, said that nobody would have even dreamed about being so gauche as to use Pearl Harbor as a campaign issue of any kind. He went on to say that FDR actually tried to bury the issue as much as possible, because it could potentially be used to attack FDR for his failure to protect the naval base.
Ricky
Maybe my memory’s fading, but didn’t FDR launch a campaign from Pearl Harbor?
Emperor Misha I
I have to admit that I’m more and more impressed with my countrymen, the more I learn of our history.
Take the “Remember Pearl Harbor, Buy US Defense Bonds” sign in the same section, for instance. I would’ve been willing to SWEAR that it was made by the Treasury, but now, thanks to Kimmitt, I know that it was just a spontaneous outpouring of support from the American people.
Some toothless old grandpa must’ve spent a LOT of hours bent over the workbench churning those out, “expressing his feelings about Pearl Harbor with an unprecedented expression of sentiment”.
TM Lutas
From the page that Kimmit linked to:
“We Are Going to Win This War & Win the Peace That Follows”
V for Victory campaign button
Roosevelt – For Humanity
I think it’s pretty obvious that these are all buttons that, if redone for President Bush would drive Democrats to cry foul.
3 (2 if you don’t count the ‘for humanity’ one) out of 38 FDR campaign buttons is a small percentage of the buttons, 7.8% (5.2%) so the liberals aren’t wrong to say that it wasn’t a major theme in FDR’s campaign. But then again, the 9/11 parts of Bush’s commercials are not a major theme in his campaign either, supposedly measuring a couple of seconds in one of three spots showing for similar (even smaller) single digit percentages.
The bottom line is that 9/11 is as legitimate as Pearl Harbor, and should be used in as limited a way as skillfully as FDR did in 1944. Democrats won’t like it but its unfair to cry foul.
At the same time, elections are about the future and Bush should be concentrating on bringing his positives up and providing a full agenda for 2005 and beyond.
CadillaqJaq
It’s obvious to me that the only thing GWB could do that WOULDN’T upset the would-be Dems today is to announce his retirement and to sign an EO appointing John F’in Kerry as President.
And even that would draw some cries of foul… fuckin’ babies.
I grew up in a FDR era farm family, all solid hard working Democrats, and certainly nothing like the socialist crybaby freaks that inhabit the party today.
Robin Roberts
It is pretty hilarious to claim that the campaign button is fake. It shows an extraordinary ignorance of WWII. There were a lot of politics going on during WWII on both sides of the partisan divide – including the Pearl Harbor issue where the FDR administration had scapegoated Adm. Kimmel for their own errors.
smith
Check out this button and whine, Kimmitt:
punditmark.com/
the slogan reads “We are going to win this war, and win the peace that follows.” Right on. It sounds like Bush could steal that slogan as his own.
JPS
John Cole wrote,
“Then tell me how it is ‘fairly well established that the button is a fake. ‘”
Reminds me of something my Russian friends have told me: That back in the Soviet days, when Pravda was about to tell a particularly bald-faced lie, they would often introduce it with, “As is well-known,….”
CadillaqJaq
This is almost amusing: some of our leftist anti-Bush respondents wouldn’t understand what bull-shit was if their mouths were full of it…
Let Kerry utter a list of unsubstanitiated dreck and it’s accepted as the gospel truth.
Sorry-assed hypocrites.
Emperor Misha I
No, they’re not “sorry”.
They’re socialists.
They’re the enemy.
Emperor Misha I
To elaborate:
Not many people here understand that simple fact but, then again, not very many people in this country of ours have the foggiest idea what socialism is like.
Trust me on this one: You don’t want to find out.
Nick
Check out this article about how much the Democrats used WWII in the 1944 campaign: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48122-2004Mar10.html
The button (or plaque or whatever it is) is _nothing_.
Norma Lubeck
Good ol’ Rush, back at it laying out “entertainment” to get people to go for each others throats…That’s entertainment! Perhaps the “button” that has been offered at “real” according to the image posted at this site should be examined. Looking at it it is obvious that 1) the type style is totally inappropriate for the 1940’s 2) the “quote” intrudes on FDRs picture–this was not the style used in the “40’s campaign button 3) slogans were not set off by quotation marks in the ’40’s buttons by either party. Next, take a look an examples of campaign buttons from that era on ronwade.freesavers.com or any web site that sells REAL campaign memorabilia (can’t always get this guarantee at ebay sites) and you will get a good idea of what the button style of the 1940’s embodied, for ALL political campaigns and all political parties. So, before saying is it real or not, do the homework and look at REAL items for comparison and then make up your mind. BOTH parties have underhanded ways of attacking each other, and are not prototypical value-based institutions. Remember the Willie Horton strategy? So, before you start frothing at the mouth, take the time to dab your lips, swallow and look for the truth. We have much to be embarassed about on both sides. You, too, Rush since you are the most recent “titillator” of the bunch.