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I thought the Vietnam war was an utter, unmitigated disaster, so it was very hard for me to say anything good about it.

George McGovern

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George McGovern
Age: 90 †
Born: 1922
Born: July 19
Died: 2012
Died: October 21
Autobiographer
Diplomat
Historian
Peace Activist
Politician
University Teacher
Avon
South Dakota
George Stanley McGovern
George S. McGovern
Thought
Anything
Hard
Good
Unmitigated
Utter
Vietnam
Disaster
War

More quotes by George McGovern

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I flew a full string of 35 combat missions over some of the most heavily defended targets in Europe. We were hitting Hitler's oil refineries, his tank factories, his aircraft factories, his railway yards. Those were our prime targets.
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I think the country's getting disgusted with Washington partly because of the decline of civility in government.
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When I was small, my most serious handicap was a painful bashfulness in the presence of strangers.
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We seem bent upon saving the Vietnamese from Ho Chi Minh, even if we have to kill them and demolish their country to do it....I do not intend to remain silent in the face of what I regard as a policy of madness which, sooner or later, will envelop my son and American youth by the millions for years to come.
George McGovern
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You don't run for the presidency out of nostalgia.
George McGovern
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Every once in a while, I run into somebody who tells me that she met her husband in my campaign or a husband who says, I met my wife. I have to tell you, I caused a few divorces too.
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Somehow politicians have become convinced that negative campaigning pays off in elections.
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I am 1,000 percent for Tom Eagleton and I have no intention of dropping him from the ticket.
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Above all, being a Democrat means having compassion for others. ... It means standing up for people who have been kept down.
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It doesn t require any particular bravery to stand on the floor of the Senate and urge our boys in Vietnam to fight harder and if this war mushrooms into a major conflict and a hundred thousand young Americans are killed it won t be U.S. Senators who die. It will be American soldiers who are too young to qualify for the Senate.
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Pay attention to the hungry, both in this country and around the world. Pay attention to the poor. Pay attention to our responsibilities for world peace. We are our brother's keeper.
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For a generation and more, the government has sought to meet our needs by multiplying its bureaucracy. Washington has taken too much in taxes from Main Street, and Main Street has received too little in return. It is not necessary to centralize power in order to solve our problems.
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Truth is a habit of integrity, not a strategy of politics.
George McGovern
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Every Senator in this Chamber is partly responsible for sending 50,000 young Americans to an early grave. This Chamber reeks of blood.
George McGovern
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Empathy is born out of the old biblical injunction 'Love the neighbor as thyself.'
George McGovern
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I make one pledge above all others - to seek and speak the truth with all the resources of mind and spirit I command.
George McGovern
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I didn't know a damned thing about mental illness and neither did anyone around me.
George McGovern
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One of the sharp parallels is that neither Vietnam nor Iraq was the slightest threat to America's national security.
George McGovern
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It's nice not to have to worry about constituents.
George McGovern
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Democrats believe that the federal government is not our enemy, it's our partner.
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