From “Dirty Harry” to “J. Edgar”
Memo to Clint Eastwood: This admirer of your mature work is going to pass on the new Hoover movie. Even public monsters have inner lives, but some are beyond my capacity to care about, such as those of a man who built a self-glorifying empire by blackmail in Washington, ruining reputations, holding Presidents hostage in a personal police state and relentlessly hounding the century’s greatest exemplar of human decency, Martin Luther King.
J. Edgar Hoover invented and promoted the image of tommy-gun toting G-men in the 1930s, with the help of compliant Hollywood producers, and went on to keep files after the war on anyone who might be “soft on Communism,” right up to and including the White House.
From the 1950s on, his hatred was directed at Dr. King. He had agents bug his hotel rooms and send him anonymous threatening letters, urging him to commit suicide.
“King,” read one of them, “there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is…You better take it before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation.”
In Hoover’s files, there were angry scrawls on Dr. King’s press clippings. On a story about King receiving the St. Francis peace medal from the Catholic Church, he wrote “this is disgusting.”
MORE.
4 Responses to “From “Dirty Harry” to “J. Edgar””
Gee Mr. Johnson… That’s your third “rip into the author” in a row. You sound like you developed your blogging ‘skills’ [sic] at RedState or Townhall.
I would suggest… Oh, never mind, it’s obvious from your previous comments that you aren’t open to suggestions.
John J. this is not going to happen here at TMV. The area is for commenters to discuss topics, not each other, not the writer. Follow the commenters rules at the top of the page and all will be well. If not, last warning. This space will remain civil and focused on topics of articles.
thanks
archangel/ dr.e
WHOA!
Mr. Stein I am shocked!
Dirty Harry is an American icon that certainly had positive influence on American history. Hoover, not so much.
the commenter’s rules are what are utilized to keep this site civil. Read them. If not, be edited, removed or banned, as the TMV rules lay out cogently. Rules for TMV will not be changed for those who think the rules are not reasonable or dont want to follow them. It has been stated several times on comments this week that there is no attacking writers or other commenters. Some have decided those rules do not apply to them.
So, this is the end of it. It is clear and simple, the rules here are easy to follow. Easy. If a commenter wants to create an atmosphere of incivility on any thread or spew their daily bad mood: there are millions of sites where one can go do so.
Here is the place for debate and discussion and teaching, and most all our commenters do well at it. The rules stand for good reason. And will continue to stand. Our readers and commenters read comments not to see highjacking of threads into personal pique and screed toward writers and commenters and what a bad site this is and on and on, but to know what others think about the topics, to share and argue facts about the topics, not about what commenters think about each others’ mental states, or what commenters think/project onto the writers.