# Moral Outrage--Baldwin as Doolittle? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 16, 2001, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moral-outrage-baldwin-as-doolittle/69004 "2001-06-16T04:14:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Freedom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Freedom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freedom)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2001, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moral-outrage-baldwin-as-doolittle/69004/41 "2001-06-21T02:53:50Z")
[Was John Wayne a Draft Dodger?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_004.html) > [@](#): > > Perhaps rationalizing that he could do more good at home, Wayne obtained 3-A status, “deferred for [family] dependency reasons.” He told friends he’d enlist after he made just one or two more movies. > > The real question is why he never did so. Wayne cranked out thirteen movies during the war, many with war-related themes. Most of the films were enormously successful and within a short time the Duke was one of America’s most popular stars. His bankability now firmly established, he could have joined the military, secure in the knowledge that Hollywood would welcome him back later. He even made a half-hearted effort to sign up, sending in the paperwork to enlist in the naval photography unit commanded by a good friend, director John Ford. > > But he didn’t follow through. Nobody really knows why; Wayne didn’t like to talk about it. A guy who prided himself on doing his own stunts, he doesn’t seem to have lacked physical courage. One suspects he just found it was a lot more fun being a Hollywood hero than the real kind. Many movie star-soldiers had enlisted in the first flush of patriotism after Pearl Harbor. As the war ground on, slogging it out in the trenches seemed a lot less exciting. …and about the OP… I would just like to point out that Democrats were quite different back in the 40’s and 50’s. So even if Doolitle was a Democrat, he most likely has little in common with Alex Baldwin. I doubt ANYONE who fought in WWII has anything in common with Alex:) I see it as more of a generation thing than a political thing. If you had Baldwin’s positions back then, you would have been blacklisted and crucified quicker than you could spell Doolittle. ---
**Author:** ![Freedom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Freedom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freedom)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2001, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moral-outrage-baldwin-as-doolittle/69004/42 "2001-06-21T03:23:27Z")
Was the editorial only upset about Baldwin’s politics? Or were they upset about a real life alleged wife beater playing the role of an American hero? ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2001, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moral-outrage-baldwin-as-doolittle/69004/43 "2001-06-21T03:28:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Freedom \* > **If you had Baldwin’s positions back then, you would have been blacklisted and crucified quicker than you could spell Doolittle.** I actually have learned to pay very little attention to Mr Baldwin and his many brothers, but if you are referring to politically LIBERAL positions in general I think you have a mistaken idea of what our parents and grandparents thought when they were younger. There are relatively few people today as left-wing as many people were back then. The Great Depression set many people to thinking that Capitalism was what got us so messed up. Socialism and Communism were big and plain ol’ liberal politics was bigger. The conservative Southern Democrats were already splitting from the liberal Northern Democrats. The blacklisting you mention was later. The Communist Chic on campuses in the Thirties is what gave Joe McCarthy so much ammunition when he was ruining careers in the Fifties. In the Forties we were ALLIES with the Soviet Union. Uneasy allies, but still… ---
**Author:** ![Freedom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Freedom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freedom)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2001, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moral-outrage-baldwin-as-doolittle/69004/44 "2001-06-21T13:38:02Z")
Do you honestly think gun control, gay rights, affirmative action and vegitarianism were issues floating around the democratic party in the 40’s and 50’s? I can just see some 1950’s democrat railing on and on about making the Boy Scouts have gay scout leaders. Somehow I don’t think it would have gone over that well. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2001, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moral-outrage-baldwin-as-doolittle/69004/45 "2001-06-21T16:06:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Freedom \* > \*\*I can just see some 1950’s democrat railing on and on about making the Boy Scouts have gay scout leaders. > > Somehow I don’t think it would have gone over that well.\*\* Well, like you said, the attitudes were different. You’re right, a 1930s, 40s, or 50’s Democrat probably wouldn’t support the Scouts having gay scout leaders, but, if you confine the discussion to economic issues, I could see a Democrat railing on about the need to regulate the price of medication, or about providing telephone service to poor or rural areas, or setting up a national health care system, or rewriting the tax code to benefit the poor. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moral-outrage-baldwin-as-doolittle/69004.md?page=2)