What America and the world lost when we lost John Glenn: A genuinely heroic man of unquestioned bravery, character and integrity -who thought his wife was the real hero.

                                 
What America and the world lost when we lost John Glenn: A genuinely heroic man of unquestioned bravery, character and integrity -who thought his wife, Annie, was the real hero.

One of the highlights of my 15 years living and working in the Washington, D.C. area from 1988-2003 were those handful of opportunities, usually outside on Capitol Hill between the Supreme Court and the Senate Office buildings to the north, to speak one-on-one for a few minutes with one of the bravest and most-famous Americans then-alive, Senator John Glenn of Ohio.

@AmyKinLA John Glenn: Genuinely heroic man of unquestioned character/integrity -who thought his wife was real hero! https://t.co/em7p0bBcw3

— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) December 12, 2016

“We tend to think of heroes as being those who are well known,” he wrote, “but America is made up of a whole nation of heroes who face problems that are very difficult, and their courage remains largely unsung. Millions of individuals are heroes in their own right.”

http://myhero.com/hero.asp?hero=Annie_Glenn_bk06

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/12/09/to-john-glenn-the-real-hero-was-his-wife-annie-conqueror-of-disability/

Today, @Astro_Kimbrough and @AstroPeggy from space paid tribute to John Glenn, fellow astronaut and American legend: https://t.co/S56vgeBFnz pic.twitter.com/4Kj9KPRfjA

— NASA (@NASA) December 9, 2016

But anyone who lives to be 95 years old doesn't do so without some mis-steps along the way, and certainly John Glenn wasn't immune to this fact, since he was not without his ideological blind spots.

As best-selling historian Victor Davis Hanson noted in a 2005 column on the then-current parlor game in Washington and other urban areas of the U.S. among many prominent members of the Democratic Party and its friends in the news media of comparing President George W. Bush to Hitler because of his administration's policy of keeping Guantanamo open  -instead of closing it and moving the prisoners to the U.S., which would have been against the POV of the majority of the American people- Glenn claimed "It's the old Hitler business"

Jewish World Review 

Hitler, Hitler, everywhere 

By Victor Davis Hanson

June 23, 2005

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0605/hanson062305.php3

Then again, even at age 89, he still had the power to speak for many Americans upset at a diminished space exploration program when he openly criticized President George W. Bush's policy of ending the U.S. shuttle program, and instead, paying Russia to launch American astronauts to the International Space Station. 

"Operating Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavour until successors are ready might end up being cheaper than buying seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft, the retired senator said. Flying the shuttles beyond their planned retirement may also be the best way to maximize return on taxpayer investment."

This is but the tip of the iceberg in a fact-filled defense of keeping faith with the origins of the U.S. space program.

Statement of Senator John Glenn (ret.) Regarding NASA Manned Space Flight

• Posted Monday, June 21, 2010

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1406

I wrote an oped about John Glenn for the @washingtonpost https://t.co/gbYPmgsii2

— Buzz Aldrin (@TheRealBuzz) December 15, 2016

See photos from the early days of @NASA's Project Mercury: http://t.co/SQSj2D31dj pic.twitter.com/0V41o9oyFV

— LIFE (@LIFE) October 7, 2015

I never liked Condi Rice as Sec. of State, and I like her even less now. When will she finally admit HER personal culpability for policy mistakes?

Condoleeza Rice is NOT Dwight Eisenhower.

Condi Rice: A speed bump of history that looms even smaller with every passing year.

Not that you asked, but I never liked self-serving Condoleeza Rice when she was Bush 43's Secretary of State, even though I voted for him, and I like HER even less now.
When will she finally admit HER personal culpability for policy mistakes?
Ever?

A short open letter to the one-time Secretary of State on the occasion of her new book and the absurd over-the-top kid-gloves treatment that she will get from the MSM for the next few months, as excuses are made for her by the very people who were quiet at the time.

Dwight Eisenhower is STILL dead and was an anomaly as a candidate who'd never been elected to any office before becoming President.
History is not about to repeat itself anytime soon.

Given your longstanding distaste for enduring public criticism, even constructive criticism, the fact that Beltway reporters of the caliber and reputation of the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler persist in public speculation that you may run for high public office is both alarming for him, and preposterous for you.

You have repeatedly shown your unwillingness to do the one fundamental thing required in American electoral politics: to listen to average American citizens.

In your particular case, you have avoided listening and responding with candor to Americans of either the Right or the Left -or the Right-Center like me- with an insulated, above-the-fray attitude that may serve you well when you are being paid to make speeches overseas to the comfortable elite stating the obvious, but not so much with average Americans, for whom you were and are an enigma.

But now, an enigma we no longer are curious about, despite what your publisher has told you.

It's too late for you to attempt to change the public narrative now, and you also can't change the fact that your track record comes largely from dealing with people for whom you were superior to in the organization, easily pushed-around self-important academic types at Stanford, or corporate glad-handers and apologists who paid you for being around or giving speeches, even while you were on Board of Directors for large American companies.

Simply put, you lack the 'common touch,' one that Bill Clinton, for all of his flaws, was born with and then honed for years while putting himself before the very American people that you have largely been sheltered away from in your self-selecting cocoon for YEARS.

In that regard, you share that with your predecessor, Colin Powell, for whom we personally feel similarly cold towards, having personally seen up-close in Washington that same MSM news media fawning machine when he was hawking his books and "leaving the door open."

You and Powell both seem to have been born with the same imperious, self-serving gene that so many actual South Florida politicians the community would be better off without, actually possess, like Debby Eisinger, Stacy Ritter and Joy Cooper.
It's NOT attractive.
In fact, it actually repels.

We not only DONT need you, Miss Rice, there is zero chance there will ever be a Draft Condi boomlet for any electoral office, except maybe something in Cali that is thought either largely inconsequential, or, 'for show.'

No matter how many times you subtly-yet-calculatingly insinuate to reporters and columnists that you're leaving the door open for future elective office, there will always be people like myself who are standing there, happy to shut that door on you with a simple recitation of the true facts of your chosen career and your above-it-all personality.
Nope, we are closing THAT door with you on the other side.
You can keep knocking, but we're NOT answering.

We also DON'T want you to have anything to do with the NFL, either, and are tired of THAT particular line of self-serving talk almost as much as anything else about you.
No thanks!
The NFL is doing fine without you.

------

The Washington Post
Rice meets with Obama, then defends his administration's approach
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 15, 2010; 10:43 PM

Not many authors on a book tour manage to snag a visit with the president of the United States.

But Condoleezza Rice is no ordinary book author. The former secretary of state and onetime national security adviser met one-on-one with President Obama at the White House on Friday afternoon, after a week of television appearances promoting "Extraordinary, Ordinary People," her memoir about her parents. The White House said Obama wanted to discuss a range of foreign policy issues with her.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/15/AR2010101506018.html

Reader comments at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/15/AR2010101506018_Comments.html