Posted on 06/30/2002 8:39:32 AM PDT by Clive
It was yawning time for me when Robert Woodward and Carl Bernstein made TV appearances to gloat on the 30th anniversary of the Watergate break-in and enjoy their notoriety for bringing down one of the most competent U.S. presidents in history.
Yes, for a long weekend this month, they had a field day on TV and in newspapers and magazines discussing Nixon's shame and how Watergate is now part of our political culture -- even being carried over in silly, silly ways such as referring to one of Jean Chretien's political scandals as "Shawinigate."
Now, I know no one is supposed to have a good word for Nixon -- we have been taught to despise him. But there is another side to Nixon's political life.
Canadians tend to have a holier than thou attitude regarding our political leaders and those of the U.S. -- but when it comes to political shenanigans, Nixon and his team were choir boys compared to Jean Chretien and his cabinet.
Aside from the break-in at the National Democratic Headquarters in the Watergate Hotel -- a break-in that despite popular legend, Nixon knew nothing about -- there was hardly a whiff of scandal surrounding his administration.
What Nixon did to deserve dishonour over Watergate was to try and protect his friends after they -- without his knowledge -- organized this little bit of chicanery.
In hindsight, after the burglary was revealed, Nixon should have washed his hands of the participants and let them go before the courts and have their knuckles rapped. What kind of sentences would they have received?
Likely, only probation.
Instead, Nixon, an individual of very high ideals, was foolishly drawn into trying to protect his friends. That's where Woodward and Bernstein and the Nixon-hating Washington Post came in and with it the lib-left media crowd in the U.S. went for blood. An unsavoury lot.
Yet, dig into Nixon's life as much as they could, all this pack of media wolves ever found was the attempt at the Watergate "cover-up."
Unlike Bill Clinton -- a liberal favourite despite his scandalous record -- no one ever accused Nixon of adultery or of lying under oath before those probing his affairs. Nixon was never forced to turn in his lawyer's licence as was Clinton for behavior shaming his profession.
What has Clinton's legacy been? You tell me. There was not one foreign affairs accomplishment. There was, however, a casual downgrading of the U.S. military and intelligence forces, a grievous error that, as we now know, seriously damaged Washington's ability to protect the U.S. and its allies.
Nixon's great success was foreign affairs. John F. Kennedy -- like Clinton a compulsive womanizer and adulterer -- got the U.S. into the Vietnam War in a big way. Nixon got the U.S. out of it. Yet we are supposed to love Kennedy and hate Nixon.
It was Nixon who made the great stride toward U.S. rapprochement with Red China, and he is still respected amongst the Chinese people for taking that leap.
This was the president, too, who knew how to deal with the Soviet Union. True, he did not bring down its collapse as did the Ronald Reagan/Margaret Thatcher/Pope John Paul trio but throughout the dictatorships of Nikita Krushchev and Leonid Brezhnev, he worked steadily at defeating the Kremlin's attempts to stir up trouble from one corner of the world to the other and locked them into military treaties that prevented the Soviets from achieving their dream of military superiority -- a stance that, if achieved, would have allowed them to blackmail us into submission.
I've never quite trusted the Woodward/Bernstein duo. I suspect the infamous "Deep Throat"never existed -- this fictitious individual was likely a composite to give more colour to their yarns. Woodward's claims that he secretly interviewed former CIA director William Casey on his death bed have also been treated with suspicion by many.
Nixon did have some bad people surround him -- the weasel John Dean, for one, who sold his boss down the river to save his own skin, but he had some top-notch people, too. The dashing G. Gordon Liddy, who went to jail rather than testify against his boss, is one of America's patriots.
To get a true picture of Nixon, one should read some of his many books -- including The Real War, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, Leaders, and No More Vietnams.
They are absorbing reads, and give a completely different picture of this man the liberal-left wants us all to vilify.
Let's hope objective historians -- rather than muckraking journalists -- will win the final battle.
No hero of mine.
Isn't it wonderful, the things you miss when you don't watch the liberal networks?
No hero of mine.
I wouldn't elevate him high on a pedestal, either -- he was in some ways a less than fully-effective president on the order of, say, Reagan (but still much more so than Carter) -- but I still remember the thoroughly vicious hatred the Left had for Nixon, years before his downfall, even more extreme than I ever saw leveled against Reagan.
Nixon was not what you would call a conservative; these days I'd call him a liberal Republican. He had a tough row to hoe, inheriting the Democrat war in Vietnam among other messes. He may not go down in history as one of the truly greats, but I hope history will judge him more honestly and fairly than the Left is capable of doing.
... as opposed to Bill "Shut The Government Down" Clinton, the moral-liberal wannabe Libertarian.
Nixon was a foreign policy genius. Knowing we could not arm against two Communist nuclear powers, he triangulated and successfully wooed China, playing both against each other. Once apprised of the true quagmire that was Vietnam, he set about determinedly cleaning up LBJ's mess and getting us out of the war, ordering more bombings and incursions into Cambodia to force Vietnam to consider peace. Nixon insisted the peace talks remain secret despite the opportunity to use them as political ammo. Thanks to Nixon, we eventually won Vietnam; our veterans travel there to search for their fallen comrades and break bread with their former enemies.
IMO, Nixon was one of the last of the statesmen in that he acted out of principle even when it cost him popular support.
You're calling Bill Clinton a Libertarian...
LOL!!!!!!!!
You need to immediately quit what ever you are smoking and then go get your head examined ASAP!! Because there is something seriously wrong with the way you perceive reality.
Somebody that disconnected from reality would need a proctologist to find his head, much less examine it.
I think we also need to cut him a little slack for the era in which he lived and served his term. The "Great Society" was still being built, LOTS more people believed it would actually work back then (even those who suspected it was the impending disaster it turned out to be had no empirical proof with which to argue against it) ... there were just too many wonks who really thought Big Government just might work if managed properly. Nixon was a product of those times. And, of course, there's always the fact that if either of Nixon's opponents had won in '68 or '72, they probably would have implemented five times as many government programs.
What this is about.. is how a MAN OF HONOR stepped down from power.. rather than putting his ego, his self over country, and a man who could not do that.. CLINTON!!!
President Kennedy will always be remembered fondly, after all our President was murdered while serving. I think he was heading in trouble politically, but we will never know that, and in my mind even disrespectful to the memory of this young man, to "speculate". I mean, we really don't KNOW what would have happened had he lived. He very well may have done good things.
President Nixon however.. did do great things. He was a great Statesman for many years. I've heard tell he was extremely intelligent and his ideas were brilliant. Historically, he deserves more than he has gotten. I think what happened to him was horrible. His worst decision, was to try to help his friends out of a mess. And he came up against THE VAST LEFT WING ESTABLISHMENT.. the very ones who were so silent during Clintons years!! (Last time I checked Woodward was still alive, as were a few others. Deep throat is a chicken sh*t, who also cares more for himself than our country!!) The "still a clear and present danger media" Who in our opinion bear responsibility for blinding following Clinton, to the detrement of our Nation!!
I am unclear as to your meaning.
Clinton was worse than Nixon? Of course he was.
Nixon may have set the example, though, for Clinton to follow in the use of various government agencies against one's enemies. Clinton refined the crude Nixonian attempts to razor-sharp expertise.
Q. Mr. President, a week ago a group of gay and lesbian representatives came out of a meeting with you and expressed in the most ringing terms, their confidence in your understanding of them and their political aspirations, and their belief that you would fulfill those aspirations. Do you feel now that you will be able to meet their now enhanced expectations?
THE PRESIDENT: ... I believe that this country's policies should be heavily biased in favor of nondiscrimination. I believe when you tell people they can't do certain things in this country that other people can do, there ought to be an overwhelming and compelling reason for it. ...
... When I was Governor, I was attacked from the other direction for sticking up for the rights of religious fundamentalists to run their child care centers and to practice home schooling under appropriate safeguards. I just have always had an almost libertarian view that we should try to protect the rights of American individual citizens to live up to the fullest of their capacities, and I'm going to stick right with that.
- April 23, 1993
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