During Watergate, I was as anti-Nixon has anyone, completely convinced that he was a lowlife, a scumbag, and a liar. But since Nixon, we’ve had presidents like Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, and Bill Clinton, so I think it’s appropriate to re-evaluate Tricky. That’s what former Nixon speechwriter Ben Stein does here:
Can anyone even remember now what Nixon did that was so terrible? He ended the war in Vietnam, brought home the POW’s, ended the war in the Mideast, opened relations with China, started the first nuclear weapons reduction treaty, saved Eretz Israel’s life, started the Environmental Protection Administration. Does anyone remember what he did that was bad?
Oh, now I remember. He lied. He was a politician who lied. How remarkable. He lied to protect his subordinates who were covering up a ridiculous burglary that no one to this date has any clue about its purpose. He lied so he could stay in office and keep his agenda of peace going. That was his crime. He was a peacemaker and he wanted to make a world where there was a generation of peace. And he succeeded.
Comments on the connection between Mark Felt and the Cambodian Genocide follow. What is it with Commies and genocide anyway?
“Ended the war in the Mideast” — Really? There have been thirty years of peace there?
“Ended the war in Vietnam” — Only after much public pressure and after escalating it to half a million soldiers, three or four times what we have in Iraq.
“Can anyone even remember now what Nixon did that was so terrible?” — Ummm, essentially saying that his word was law?? “If the President does it, that means that it is not illegal”?? Trying to fire someone investigating his own improprieties? Arranging to have burlgars paid from campaign donations? Threatening those who did not donate to his campaign? Smearing Daniel Ellsberg?
Nixon was, at heart, a petty thug surrounded by pettier thugs, and whatever good he did in the White House doesn’t cover that up.
Ben should have noted his conflict of interest (speechwriting for Nixon) in the article.
Methinks Mr. Stein protests a little too much:
He lied to protect his subordinates who were covering up a ridiculous burglary that no one to this date has any clue about its purpose. He lied so he could stay in office and keep his agenda of peace going.
He did a little bit more than lie. He actively impeded a criminal investigation and when he saw where it was going, he fired the prosecutor. He authorized the payment of hush money from the Oval Office.
I think the years have shown that Nixon was not nearly as bad a president as those of us who reviled him at the time thought. He was a deeply flawed person whose paranoia got the better of him. There’s a pretty simple lesson in Watergate that many, many people have failed to learn (think Martha Stewart, Bill Clinton): it’s not the act, it’s the coverup that will get you every time.
At least he wasn’t a crook, in the sense of enriching himself. He wanted to stay in office because he sincerely felt he was good for America. And compared to that simpering whiner who followed him, Jimmy Carter, he had a point.
“At least he wasn’t a crook, in the sense of enriching himself. He wanted to stay in office because he sincerely felt he was good for America.”
Wow, you could say the same thing about Carter. By your own standards, damning him with faint praise?
Well, Nixon did accomplish some things of lasting value, such as opening China, while all Carter did was prop up Saddam Hussein.
Let’s not forget that he got rid of the #*&*(@ draft. I’ll gladly forget all about Watergate just for that.
Although, he does lose points for wage and price controls.
Yes, Nixon was a man of peace.
@Lee
So by your logic Anwar Sadat was also a failure (still war in the middle east & pressured into making peace with Israel).
How is Sadat viewed in history? He was both a despot and a man who gave his life for peace. Can his accomplishments overshadow his shortcomings?
Maybe perfection is your standard? And who measures up?