Dear Mr. President:
I have been following with great interest the course of developments in Viet-Nam, particularly since the conclusion of the conference at Geneva. The implications of the agreement concerning Viet-Nam have caused grave concern regarding the future of a country temporarily divided by an artificial military grouping, weakened by a long and exhausting war and faced with enemies without and by their subversive collaborations within. Your recent requests for aid to assist in the formidable project of the movement of several hundred thousand loyal Vietnamese citizens away from areas which are passing under a de facto rule and political ideology which they abhor, are being fulfilled. I am glad that the United States is able to assist in this humanitarian effort. We have been exploring ways and means to permit our aid to Viet-Nam to be more effective and to make a greater contribution to the welfare and stability of the government of Viet-Nam. I am, accordingly, instructing the American Ambassador to Viet-Nam to examine with you in your capacity as Chief of Government, how an intelligent program of American aid given directly to your government can serve to assist Viet-Nam in its present hour of trial, provided that your Government is prepared to give assurances as to the standards of performance it would be able to maintain in the event such aid were supplied. The purpose of this offer is to assist the Government of Viet-Nam in developing and maintaining a strong, viable state, capable of resisting attempted subversion or aggression through military means. The Government of the United States expects that this aid will be met by performance on the part of the Government of Viet-Nam in undertaking needed reforms. It hopes that such aid, combined with your own continuing efforts, will contribute effectively toward an independent Viet-Nam endowed with a strong government. Such a government would, I hope, be so responsive to the nationalist aspirations of its people, so enlightened in purpose and effective in performance, that it will be respected both at home and abroad and discourage any who might wish to impose a foreign ideology on your free people.

Sincerely,
Dwight D. Eisenhower

This, of course, follows the the SEATO treaty protocol, also signed by the government of Viet-Nam.

General rules are: All skirts no lower then [sic] two inches below the knee (unless it's for Church) --Travis Frey
[ Parent ]

General rules are: All skirts no lower then [sic] two inches below the knee (unless it's for Church) --Travis Frey
[ Parent ]

Foods that I don't like, I don't consider 'horrible'; just not tasty. Except mayonnaise, of course, which is a heinous crime against humanity in and of itself. Another area our definitions differ is that I don't believe in "evil"; there are only actions, and whether those actions are palatable to you or me is entirely a subjective function. For instance, James Huberty killed a number of people in a McDonalds in San Ysidro, CA, years and years ago. Many would say that taking a light machine gun into a fast food restaurant with armor piercing rounds and opening fire at civilians he didn't know was "evil", when, technically, the only thing anyone can prove was that Huberty, on the day in question, definitely performed a series of actions, and those series of actions resulted in what would largely be called "premature" deaths. Ultimately, though, everyone who died that day would have eventually died, anyway, and a thousand years from now, it will all be rendered completely irrelevant, as everyone who was directly affected by his actions would long since be gone.

That said, I'm not defending McCain here (don't think you thought I was); I'm simply saying that every single president this country has ever had was a selfish, "unqualified" twit, and that never stopped a single one of them from being president, so "not fit to be leader" strikes me as a non-universal, entirely subjective judgement call on your part, as opposed to anything resembling a factual representation of the individual's predicted competence.