Mike Spence at RedCounty and the Flash Report had his panties in a bunch last week over Gov. Schwarzenegger’s decision to induct actress Jane Fonda into the California Hall of Fame. Mike wrote soem choice words about Ms. Fonda and he got most of his facts wrong.
Mike wrote: “By picking a left wing liberal, the Governor is doing the politically correct thing. But this is not just any left wing liberal. This ‘legendary’ pick actually went to Communist Vietnam and fired an anti-aircraft gun at American planes. Fonda never apologized for making propaganda broadcasts for the Communist Vietnamese. Jane Fonda aided and abetted an enemy of the United States.”
Jane Fonda was an anti-war activist who used her celebrity status to visit North Vietnam during the war. And while I don’t condone her actions and statements made at the time, denouncing American soldiers as war criminals and lobbying to cut of economic aid to Vietnam, her actions and statements were only used as propaganda tools by the North Vietnamese.
Spence’s statements that Fonda “fired an anti-aircraft gun at American planes” and that Fonda “never apologized for making propaganda broadcasts for the enemy” are complete falsehoods. Fonda posed for a photograph behind the sights of an anti-aircraft gun and she has apologized to Vietnam veterans twice for posing for photographs in Vietnam; once during a national broadcast in 1988 and again in 2005. She did not apologize for going to North Vietnam as an anti-war protester noting American POWs met with hundreds of American delegations. The POWs were used by both sides as propaganda tools.
I’m sure Spence also buys the debunked stories that Fonda turned over slips of paper with messages from POWs to the North Vietnamese (not true) and that Jane Fonda and Senator John Kerry appeared together at an anti-war rally in the 70s (one word: Photoshop). But this is the second time in a week that the Red County guys could benefit from a short visit to www.snopes.com.
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