Let me ask you a simple question. What do you think really explains the recent impulse to look back at President Nixon’s domestic policy with fondness and to thereby soften history’s condemnation of that snake?
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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My instant reaction is that it’s too damned hard to look at the present crop of GOP Presidential candidates.
There is some benefit because in the sixties and seventies there were positive domestic policies, although most of that was done by a much more liberal legislature forcing the policies through.
Imo – it’s probably the same conservative line of BS that wants to idolize Reagan, and name everything after him, and put his face on Mr. Rushmore.
Without doing so, I would say that people thinking or arguing that Nixon was a closet environmentalist for starting the EPA, etc., etc. are taking events out of context. It’s tremendously easy to do that these days with Google and Wikipedia – it wasn’t so easy a couple of decades ago.
Nixon did “liberal things” not because he was a liberal but because he faced a Democratic congress. He fought for what he could get, and when he couldn’t get what he wanted, he tried to make lemonade.
Effective politicians do that.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who will try to read the article tonight.)
True, what you said. Also, our expectations for POTUSes (and politicians in general) were so much higher then that Tricky probably did a lot of stuff that seems good now because he didn’t think he could get away with doing less.
If you want a sleepless night, try imagining a Nixon presidency following Dubya’s two terms. What’s Stephen King got that I ain’t got?
As I recall, it was Nixon who stopped actual meat inspection and started the practice of inspecting the meat industry’s records instead, like no one knows how to fake inspection records?
I think it’s simple: if you’re a reasonably smart (albeit wrong-headed persons) who’s allergic to Clinton and Obama, then Nixon becomes the most recent President who could talk and had a fucking brain.
Why do people ignore the contributions President carter brought us. His environmental, energy, social policies, etc. Of course, he was bullied and illegally PRed out of a second term. But given the terrible ramifications of Clinton’s compromises and 3 strikes and tough on crime policies; I’d trade his 2nd term for a Carter second term. Would Reagan loveliest have lasted for another election cycle? Maybe we would not have had a Reagan president at all.
Bush the Elder wasn’t a moron, neither was Carter. I often wonder if we’d had eight years of Carter followed by eight years of Bush the Elder how things would be right now.
Neither was perfect, but both were OK people who had their heads on straight.
Because, at present, as a nation, we’re scared, dissatisfied, and selfish.
Well as someone born a decade after he left, the white hot rage a lot of older lefties felt for him made his more liberal domestic actions seem all the brighter then of course you compare them to the current insanity combined with his visceral distaste for born elites and he looks like someone you could work with. That and in the current era the Watergate breakin and the dirty tricks (like using someone’s mental health against them) seems almost quaint. Would Nixon have gone after unions like Walker?
Until you recall that he’d probably be paranoid and be digging up or making up dirt to plant on you. That said I do in fact think a Nixon presidency would have left the world a better place in place of a Bush II though it might be a near thing.
Books like Evan Thomas’s Nixon bio take years to write, so I don’t think it’s an of-the-moment impulse. I think it derives from the Beltway’s fondness for hippie-punching, centrism, and both-sides-do-it-ism. Remember, the takedown of Nixon seemed like a huge win for liberalism. The ’80s/’90s/’00s/’10s Beltway thinks liberalism is icky, especially when it wins. So Nixon’s character has to be defended, because liberals can’t possibly be 100% right and any of their opponents 100% wrong.
I think, as one of the LGM guys have pointed out, it shows the length that Nixon would go to get continued funding for the Vietnam War. Basically Congress engaged in a trade off.
The day Nixon submitted the comprehensive health insurance plan, February 6 1974, was the day the House voted to authorize the Judiciary Committee to investigate grounds for impeachment.
I think it might have something to do with the EPA.
Also most of the current Republican leadership cut their teeth or were attracted to politics by the Nixon administration. He’s grandpa, Reagan’s papa, and George W. is the wastrel son.
PR is what the republicans are about.
I was just reading something today about what a crook Jeb Bush is, and I suspect it’s really about him.
“Yeah sure, Dick was a crook, but look at all the good he did us.”
From a bumper sticker that came out shortly after Ronald Reagan became President:
“You know, I miss Jimmy. . .
Hell, I miss Dick!”
The title of the Booman’s frontpage series?
“Simple Question”
Is this a simple question?
I don’t think so.
Let us deconstruct a little.
1-“…the recent impulse…”
What “recent impulse?” And among whom? You link to an article on one
centrist…ooops, sorry…”liberal” website the opening paragraph of which states:“Every once in a while” does not translate to “recent.” People have been excusing Nixon since before he resigned. Way before. Why? Politics as usual. Nuthin’ new here, folks. Just the facts. Keep on walking.
Just keep on walking.
2-“…to look back at President Nixon’s domestic policy with fondness…”
What? You mean “policies,” don’t you? He had more than one. “Domestic?” That means w/in the borders of the U.S., right? I guess his involvement w/Bebe Rebozo and Henry Kissinger would qualify as “domestic,” eh? Dirty money changing hands under the table while other less common “under the table” activities were quite likely also taking place.
3-“…to thereby soften history’s condemnation of that snake.”
There’s your answer, right there.
We have had a PermaGov-owned and operated Preznit…w/the possible exception of Jimmy Carter…since LBJ. Every election has been fixed on any number of levels. It is in the PermaGov’s interest to make it seem as if there was no funny business whatsoever going on in Washingtoon DeeCeeLand although the opposite of that conceit is the truth of the matter up and down the line. Thus the attempted renovation of Nixon’s reputation. The fix will be in this time as well. Bet on it. As far as the fixers are concerned…including the media powers that promote and spread disinfo like this shit about Nixon’s essential goodness…everything’s been on the up-and-up since Hector was a pup and Paul Revere made his historic ride.
Thge truth of the matter?
Ol’ Paul should have been shouting:
But NOOOOOOoooo…
Rehabilitate Nixon’s image?
Riiiight….
And sympathy for the Devil as well.
Whatever works…
AG
I’m pretty sure it’s because Obama’s worse than Nixon.
Any dispassionate comparison of the secret bombing of Cambodia and Obama’s record of drone strikes leads ineluctably to that conclusion….
And knowing Merkel’s Handynummer is virtually the same thing as Cointelpro.
As to the question… Because you need to say something new or surprising to get a publisher to publish a book or get a spot on cable teepee as a pundit.
OTOH I heard an interview last week with Weiner http://www.amazon.com/One-Man-Against-World-Tragedy/dp/1627790837/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1435789
086&sr=8-1&keywords=nixon+book and his take based on newly released tapes, etc. is Nixon is everything we thought and worse… Including being too drunk to at times perform his role as commander in chief and head of state.
But Lynard Skynard said, “Watergate does not bother me. Does your conscious bother you?” And that song is still popular on the radio. So Nixon apologies have been around awhile.
As for Nixon and the EPA, he gets no credit. Congress would have steamrolled him. Cambodia? Unlike drones, it threatened expansion of the war and perhaps even Nuclear standoff, was secret and illegally went against the will of the congress. Drones are not very cool but have kept boots off the ground and further expansion of a totally foolish “war on terror”. The two are as completely different as the men who ordered them.
Nixon had no principles of any kind as far as leftness or rightness goes, he wanted to “get things done” in Washington and didn’t much care what they were. In policy he would leap across the aisle to win applause while in electoral politics there was nothing so slimy he wouldn’t try it to sabotage the other side. As such he is really the ideal statesman to people like Mark Halperin and Mike Allen and Ron Fournier. They’re saying why can’t Obama be like that?
Partly it’s the Nixon was merely a sociopath. He was not totally insane. Ah, the gauzy soft tones of yesteryear!
Election night 1968 — my only thought was “how will we ever survive four years of Nixon?” The optimism of youth.
In his time, Nixon was as toxic as Reagan was in his and GWB in his and anyone of the GOP clown car is today. Congress back then still had a working majority of New Dealers. Neoliberalcons didn’t yet exist, but seeds were being planted by a few non-southern loathsome Democrats like Scoop.
Lest we forget.
Because when the apocalypse is upon you, one can feel nostalgia for the götterdämmerung preceding it.