BOB DOLE : 1995 Clinton's Comeback

Send us Fan Mail

Dan Inouye and Ted Stevens, they were like brothers. 

Dan Inouye won a Medal of Honor fighting for his country in Italy.  He would serve 59 years in Congress and he would be the example our leadership should always look to for building consensus and reaching across the aisle in a bipartisan fashion. He had two famous cross party friendships we can examine with Bob Dole and with Ted Stevens. 

The friendship with Ted Stevens was legendary and together they built modern day Hawaii and Alaska and the modern military too from their places on the Appropriation's Committee and the military subcommittee they shared chairmanships of together. 

But the greatest test of their friendship came when Stevens was wrongfully accused, tried, and convicted for lying on his ethics forms. Throughout it all his friend stayed loyal to him even taking on his own party in a tight reelection fight that Stevens eventually lost. Here we look at these two giants of the Senate and hear their friend, now President, Joe Biden give their eulogies. 

Questions or comments at  , [email protected] ,  https://twitter.com/randal_wallace   , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
Please Leave us a review at wherever you get your podcasts
Thanks for listening!!

Send us Fan Mail

Some of the 20th Century's most consequential figures all served in the last quarter of the 20th century with the man who is now the President of the United States, Joe Biden.  They may have had very little in common, and disagreed often, but they all figured out ways to get things done by reaching across the aisle and finding that common ground so necessary in making government work successfully. Strom Thurmond, Ernest Hollings, Dan Inouye , Ted Stevens , Robert Byrd and Frank Lautenberg all helped build the American Century. 

They also had one other thing in common, Joe Biden did their eulogies at their funerals.

Over the next three episodes we look back on the lives of these giants of the Senate and the marks they left on their States and their country. We also will listen to Joe Biden as he speaks at each of their funerals. Biden was known as the eulogist of the Senate long before he was a Vice President or President of the United States. 

In this episode we look at the two giant figures of South Carolina politics in the 20th century, a team that served together for nearly 4 decades and helped transform our State into its modern day form as a tourism an economic powerhouse. Today both men are enshrined in the South Carolina Hall of Fame, Strom Thurmond and Ernest Hollings. 

Questions or comments at  , [email protected] ,  https://twitter.com/randal_wallace   , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
Please Leave us a review at wherever you get your podcasts
Thanks for listening!!

Send us Fan Mail

In 1996,  I was a student at Lander University and to complete my Mass Communication T.V. production project to graduate I decided to create a Lander College Republican Recruitment video. I was the Chairman of the College Republicans at the time. 

I got lucky!! 1996 was a Presidential election year and we had every candidate running come through town and so I managed to get snippet interviews from several of them. I was also able to tape speeches by the candidates. In an entirely different race it was also Strom Thurmond's last campaign for the Senate. He was an amazing 94 years old that year and he was still on his game. 

I filmed all the speeches that year at the Third District Convention in Greenwood , South Carolina. Here was then first term Republican Congressman Lindsey Graham introducing Strom Thurmond. Thurmond fired up the crowd in what was a great old school stump speech and nobody did it better than Strom Thurmond.  Enjoy this stepping back in time. 

Questions or comments at  , [email protected] ,  https://twitter.com/randal_wallace   , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
Please Leave us a review at wherever you get your podcasts
Thanks for listening!!

Send us Fan Mail

Our Podcast second season was supposed to start in March of 2021 but sadly my Mother passed away on March 17, 2021.  I could think of no better tribute to her than taking this opportunity to introduce her to the world here on my Podcast. 

There is absolutely nothing I ever achieved that she was not the foundation for throughout my lifetime. As she was recovering from her first illness in 2015, I recorded her talking about our family, her life growing up on a farm in rural South Carolina, my orphaned Grandmother, Ruth Crowley Grant who died when I was seven years old, and my World War 2 era hero Uncle J. B. Crowley. 

So I hope you will enjoy indulging me in a look at my family, learn a little about growing up in the rural mid 20th century South, an allowing me to preserve my Mother here on "Bridging the Political Gap" because from here on out, as long as we are doing this show, I will always be able to come to this episode and hear my Mother's voice. 

Questions or comments at  , [email protected] ,  https://twitter.com/randal_wallace   , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
Please Leave us a review at wherever you get your podcasts
Thanks for listening!!

Send us Fan Mail

"We can lead or we can mislead, as the people's representatives, but either way we will be held accountable" - Senator Robert J. Dole,  (R- Kansas) 

January 6, 2021

 A day when years of conspiracy theories and outrageous accusations finally came home to roost. Re-live the horrifying day from start to finish, when the World's oldest and greatest democracy had its center of government, the very symbol of freedom for the World, the United States Capitol,  attacked by a right wing mob, angry over an election that was, in reality,  not even particularly close. 

Here it is in all of its embarrassing, horrible glory. The day the United States of America was reduced  to looking like a banana republic on the eve of revolution, for all the world to see.

It is time for all of us to make a conscious decision to change. 

Here in the finale of "Bridging the Political Gap" we look at the culmination of two decades of leadership that has proven it is not up to the challenges of our time.  

And then, finally,  we return to Senator Bob Dole, from his  June 11, 1996 Senate Retirement address, in what has turned out to be a message needed more today than when he originally spoke it as the last symbol of the Greatest Generation. 

Questions or comments at  , [email protected] ,  https://twitter.com/randal_wallace   , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
Please Leave us a review at wherever you get your podcasts
Thanks for listening!!

Send us Fan Mail

Thank You for tuning in!! You have made our show a hit!! 

Here are a few of our hopes and a few plans for the coming months too. We hope you will continue to tune in and please write us up a review and let us know what you thought of the Podcast Documentary and share it with your friends too!! 

If you are on Facebook please check in with our page Silent Majority America and take a look at our book "Always Vote Your Conscious " available on Amazon.

Questions or comments at  , [email protected] ,  https://twitter.com/randal_wallace   , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
Please Leave us a review at wherever you get your podcasts
Thanks for listening!!

Send us Fan Mail

Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind! 

For two decades our leadership in America has sown discord and divisiveness. The leadership of the Republican Party have often pushed conspiracy theories out to its true believers, the Democratic Party, in turn, has made outlandish accusations a hallmark of its leadership. 

All the while the national media has devolved not into purveyors of fact, but of cheerleading organizations , that pick sides, and give the political parties outlets to preach their outlandish nonsense to the unsuspecting masses. 

As Ted Koppel said in his interview with PBS, " The Washington Post of today, and the New York Times of today is not the New York Times of 50 years ago, nor the Washington Post of 50 years ago." 

The same could be said for all the television networks and the cable networks. They have all blurred the lines between news content and editorials. What is even worse is they have done it at the exact moment that the rise of social media has made any person with a lap top computer or cellphone an untrained, and often unreliable journalist. 

You don't know what you are listening to or whether what you are reading has any validity at all. That has allowed every crazy story to get legs and travel. That, all together, has fed an atmosphere of division, demonization, and no trust in our traditional institutions, not even a shared sense of what is really reality,  and  that boiled over on January 6, 2021 at the U.S Capitol. 

This episode takes you from the retirement of the last World War 2 national figure, Bob Dole, to the circus of the Brett Kavanaugh Hearings and President Donald Trump's war with "Fake News". 

 And to the doorstep of  what it brought us, the meltdown at the U.S. Capitol January , 06, 2021. 

Questions or comments at  , [email protected] ,  https://twitter.com/randal_wallace   , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
Please Leave us a review at wherever you get your podcasts
Thanks for listening!!

Send us Fan Mail

*THIS IS NOT THE FINAL EPISODE.  DUE TO EVENTS ON JANUARY, 06, 2021 TWO MORE EPISODES WERE ADDED TO THE SERIES AND THEY WILL BE PREVIEWED AT THE END OF THIS SHOW.

In part 2 , of the two part look at World War 2, we look at the life of Senator Bob Dole.  Dole was shot in the shoulder as he was trying to save his radio man on an Italian battlefield, Hill 913.  He would spend 34 months in Army hospitals including the hospital in Battle Creek , Michigan. 

Percy Jones Army Hospital would be the place where three United States Senators would recover from their war wounds;  Dan Inouye, Phil Hart and Bob Dole.  Here,  they try and figure out what they will do with their lives;  now that war wounds would prevent two of them from becoming medical doctors, their life long dream. 

Here they would find new dreams and together change not only America for the better, but also the world. They would win the Cold War, fight for civil rights for African Americans, and guarantee equal access to millions of their fellow disabled Americans.  

Another fellow World War 2 veteran, George H. W. Bush, would go on to be President of the United States. He would wage a brutal tug of war with Bob Dole in the 1988 Republican Primaries to win the Republican nomination.  They would eventually leave their hard feelings behind, become friends, and achieve great things together and , upon Bush's death, set an example about civility and friendship I hope we all paid attention too. 

Finally, Bob Dole, with Dan Inouye's help, would lead the building of a Memorial to the Greatest Generation. A generation that gave up 400,000 lives to build a better, freer, safer world.  So that we could all be free. 

Questions or comments at  , [email protected] ,  https://twitter.com/randal_wallace   , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
Please Leave us a review at wherever you get your podcasts
Thanks for listening!!

Send us Fan Mail

World War 2, the main event of the 20th century. It shaped the lives of all who lived through it. 10 United States Presidents and countless numbers of other public servants shaped American policy, both foreign and domestic, for the next half century.  It moderated their stands and kept emotions in check. They came back from the war and very sensibly went about creating the most dominant and prosperous nation in the history of the human race. 

Let's look back at Why? 

What did they see and live through that made all that they achieved possible.  What did they see that motivated them to make sure the world was safe from ever having to see it again. 

Listen as Senator Strom Thurmond talks about liberating a Nazi Concentration camp at Buchenwald , landing at D-Day, and moving in towards victory in Berlin. 

Listen as Senator Ted Stevens talks about Pearl Harbor and the shock of the start of the war

and relive with Senator Daniel Inouye as he scales a mountain to attack a Nazi division at breakfast, or fighting the elite of the Italian troops, losing an arm an earning the Medal of Honor. 

Questions or comments at  , [email protected] ,  https://twitter.com/randal_wallace   , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
Please Leave us a review at wherever you get your podcasts
Thanks for listening!!

Send us Fan Mail

Richard Nixon was arguably the most controversial political figure in the last half of the 20th Century. Today, he has been smeared as the measuring stick for corruption and authoritarian behavior.  Yet, when you examine his record, he is also arguably one of our 5 or 6 Greatest United States Presidents. Clearly, one of the most consequential figures in any field of endeavor in all of American History. 

His record is enormous, from environmental policy, to the enormous strides in Cancer research (His personal proudest achievement)  that has changed a diagnosis from a death sentence to a real chance of survival. He opened the door to China, got us out of Vietnam, and signed the first nuclear arms treaties between the then super powers. 

He did all of it, and more, while being the first President since Zachary Taylor to have both Houses of Congress be in the opposing parties hands the entire time he served.  Despite the Watergate Scandal that forced his resignation, this man, so often reviled by liberals, got a lot of stuff done. How did he do that? How could that be? How is it a politician this controversial could accomplish this much?  Yet today we can't seem to get anything accomplished. Let's take a look to those days and this extraordinary man who served as the 37th President.  The second man in 100 plus years to truly save the Union. 

Questions or comments at  , [email protected] ,  https://twitter.com/randal_wallace   , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
Please Leave us a review at wherever you get your podcasts
Thanks for listening!!