right wing mythopoiesis: an example

Here we have a picture from "Fort Apache," starring Henry Fonda (left) and John Wayne (right). Both of these men played manly man roles in the movies, and both also had the opportunity to fight in World War II, being in their mid-thirties at the time.

One of these men, to quote Wikipedia, "enlisted in the Navy to fight in World War II, saying, "I don't want to be in a fake war in a studio."^[14] Previously, he and Stewart had helped raise funds for the defense of Britain.^[15] [He] served for three years, initially as a Quartermaster 3rd Class on the destroyer USS Satterlee. He was later commissioned as a Lieutenant Junior Grade in Air Combat Intelligence in the Central Pacific and was awarded a Presidential Citation and the Bronze Star."

The other one decided not to participate and never spent a day in the military, opting instead for a family deferral and said fake wars in studios. He later became a strong supporter of McCarthy's House Committee on Un-American Activities and even had producer Carl Foreman black-listed.

Can you guess which is which, and who is who?

Then again, since you're reading this post on my dirty f**king hippy blog, I suppose you can guess easily enough that John Wayne, uber-conservative Republican, famous Vietnam War supporter, and right wing folk-hero frequently cited as "an American patriot" was the second description, while liberal Democrat Henry Fonda chose to put his career on hold to fight the forces of fascism.

Fred Thompson: mole for the Nixon Administration

Unbelievable. From The Boston Globe (h/t Digby):

The day before Senate Watergate Committee minority counsel Fred Thompson made the inquiry that launched him into the national spotlight -- asking an aide to President Nixon whether there was a White House taping system -- he telephoned Nixon's lawyer.

Thompson tipped off the White House that the committee knew about the taping system and would be making the information public. In his all-but-forgotten Watergate memoir, "At That Point in Time," Thompson said he acted with "no authority" in divulging the committee's knowledge of the tapes, which provided the evidence that led to Nixon's resignation. It was one of many Thompson leaks to the Nixon team, according to a former investigator for Democrats on the committee, Scott Armstrong , who remains upset at Thompson's actions.

"Thompson was a mole for the White House," Armstrong said in an interview. "Fred was working hammer and tong to defeat the investigation of finding out what happened to authorize Watergate and find out what the role of the president was."

We've been wondered why the anti-Hollywood right swoons every time an actor decides to run for the GOP nod, but I'm now wondering about a different issue: how come these actor-turned-Republican presidential candidates always seem to have some history of being a mole for the bad guys?

Interesting fact: Among the members of HUAC during the period when Reagan provided them with lists of potential communists in the Screen Actors' Guild (of which he was president) was a California congressman named... Richard M. Nixon. And it all comes full circle.