I think that you mis-understand what Nixon was, in terms of a pop-culture figure going back to the 48 election.
When he was elected in '46, he was a shameless, self-promoting reactionary with very little real political thinking. He only became notable when he turned a real crisis, the Alger Hiss case, into a 3-ring circus that basically resulted in the labeling of the entire New Deal era as a Communist plot. Because of his Sarah Palin-level antics, many honest people who had been politically active in opposing Hitler before Pearl Harbor had their careers torn to ribbons, people like Ring Lardner Jr and Dalton Trumbo. Was Hiss a Soviet informer? Probably, we know now that there were some serious issues to be discussed with regards to security and the fact Stalin bugged the wing of the Soviet Embassy at Yalta where FDR and his people, including HIss, were lodging. But also they were our wartime allies, and so sharing secrets between governments was not uncommon. Hiss shared things with the Soviets, but his non-Communist colleagues shared the same info with the British wartime government under Churchill. So Hiss being called a spy was basically a double-standard in practice, under the same logic FDR would be called a spy. In fact, Nixon's ultimate target was not Hiss, it was Mrs. Roosevelt. At one point, he launched an investigation into a pre-war charity, run by the US Communist Party, which sent funds to Spanish Civil War orphans from the Republican side who lived in the USSR. When questioned about donors, the head of the charity refused to name names and went to jail for contempt of Congress because one of the donors he was protecting was Mrs. Roosevelt.
When elected President, he basically went so far to the Left that his political advocates, like Murray Rothbard, had a heart attack. The EPA, ending the gold standard, de-segregation through school bussing, all these were agenda items from the Democrats that Nixon lifted and created so to play himself as a moderate against Barry Goldwater and his John Birch Society boosters.
So I respect Nixon as a political genius, but in terms of principles or decency, he was a monster. Furthermore, as someone who loved to play to the heart strings of the religious right, he was probably the least-devout Quaker in the history of mankind, given they are historically pacifist. In regards to Vietnam, it is known and established now that he hijacked the 68 Paris Peace talks via intervention with Kissinger to undermine the Democrats, prolonging the war for another 6 years, the period when a majority of the names on the Memorial Wall in DC were KIA, and when they ended negotiations under Nixon, they essentially had the same deal as in 68. As such, he bears total and absolute responsibility for that waste of lives and the later victimization of the Vietnam Vets by the Republicans, such as the cut-backs in Vet services which has resulted in an entire generation of homeless men who only wanted to serve America. JolyKiwi, what makes him respectable to you?
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InfidelDog
11 years ago
Richard Nixon, one of the 20th century's great villains? Yes, he was. As perverse as this will sound, I have developed a grudging respect for the deeply flawed, contradictory, and (yes) tragic figure of American politics that was Richard Nixon. I do not and cannot condone some his views or actions, but I can admire the man's sheer determination and the tenacity that kept him going after several humiliating political defeats. When he ran unsuccessfully for the presidency and then lost his bid to become governor of California, Richard Nixon was considered "down and out" by most pundits. But he fought back, defied his detractors, and become President of the United States in 1968. It was one of the most remarkable comebacks in American political history. Nixon worked harder than any man who ever held the office, and he made politics look like an Olympian ordeal. Nothing was ever given to him. He had to earn it. You could see the strain in his face -- the sweaty upper lip, the furrowed brow, the five-o'-clock shadow, the jowls. In every conceivable way, he was the opposite of his one-time rival, John F. Kennedy, Jr. While Kennedy was born into one of America's most powerful families and was blessed with movie-star looks, Nixon was the son of a humble grocer and looked like a bridge troll in a cheap suit. Nixon, not Kennedy, was the underdog.
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