The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Robert McNamara, RIP

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Robert McNamara, RIP

By Matthew Vadum on 7.6.09 @ 9:32AM

Robert McNamara, the wunderkind who fascinated President John F. Kennedy with his intellectual gymnastics while serving as his secretary of defense, has died at the age of 93.

McNamara, who also went on to serve President Lyndon Johnson, was a key architect of the Vietnam War.

He was brilliant, the quintessential liberal do-gooder who sincerely believed he was doing the right thing but whose efforts almost invariably led to disaster.

His horrendous "Project 100,000" program was aimed at getting more black Americans serving in the military but was savaged as an attempt to use minorities as cannon fodder. Much like another liberal idealist a decade later, Jimmy Carter, the harder McNamara worked, the more he seemed to fail.

McNamara was a very interesting, tragic historical figure who in later life came to recognize the error of his ways.

We can learn from his mistakes.

View all comments (8) | Leave a comment

Tim| 7.6.09 @ 9:56AM

"We can learn from his mistakes."

Those of us who didn't pay for them with our lives.
If McNamara was brilliant maybe we need a new definition of the term.

Walter Ronten| 7.6.09 @ 11:45AM

If you have not seen it, get the DVD "Fog of War", a lengthy interview with RMN. Much better than his memoirs, which boil down to; " We did not know what we were doing in Vietnam. Sorry about that."

Missy| 7.6.09 @ 11:47AM

Will liberals ever learn from his do-gooder mistakes?

Aaron| 7.6.09 @ 11:50AM

May he have to face every single man who died because of his failures. I will never see McNamara as a brilliant man. I'm sorry, but the way I see it the more he failed the harder he worked to fail. He never learned from his previous mistakes, ever.

Aaron| 7.6.09 @ 11:59AM

One more thing... God bless the men who died in the Mayaguez rescue, I hope they get to greet him. They had to finish what he started. May THEY rest in peace.

Liberal Reader| 7.6.09 @ 2:21PM

I think there's a confusion between the "liberal do-gooders," who were PROTESTING the Viet Nam war, and the old-line liberal commie-haters (a group which included Kennedy, Johnson, and -- yes -- Jimmie Carter).

Come on, guys. I know you all are high on Joe the Plumber and rodeo-clown Glenn Beck, but a little recognition of actual American history wouldn't kill you.

USNret| 7.6.09 @ 4:13PM

Robert McNamara doll - wind him up and watch him screw the enlisted man.
McNamara's 100,000 - put those up for cannon fodder who are too mentally impaired to pass the standard enlistment test.
I recognize him for what he was - an incompetent, bean counter, loser who mishandled the military, as well as the Vietnam war.