:... surveying current politics, I find myself missing Richard Nixon.He is talking about the army of lobbyists in Washington.
...Nixon era was a time in which leading figures in both parties were capable of speaking rationally about policy, and in which policy decisions weren’t as warped by corporate cash as they are now. America is a better country in many ways than it was 35 years ago, but our political system’s ability to deal with real problems has been degraded to such an extent that I sometimes wonder whether the country is still governable.
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
I too miss Richard Nixon
Nobel Prize Paul Krugman wrote in the NYT tht he is missing Nixon
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6 comments:
Note the careful confusion between "Nixon" and the "Nixon era".
People like Krugman, at the time, were-how to put it- not very partial to Nixon. They did everything in their power to remove him from office.
Yet economically, he was not at all right wing; they just didn't like him personally, and the sort of self-made traditional Protestant America that he represented.
And what did they achieve?
Eventually, Jimmy Carter, the noted friend of Israel, and one of the weakest and most disastrous presidents in American history.
Congratulations.
And now, just to show how little they understand from history, these same people have engineered the election of Obama, the other notable friend of Israel, and bastion of a strong America.
Anon.
Anon,
You know that I agree with your view. In retrospective, Nixon was the best President for Israel, Carter the worse. People thinks in stereotypes, and Nixon had some petty antisemite attitudes that confused the media. I think his fall was caused by the draft, middle class people didnt want to go to fight in Vietnam.
Yes, But he didn't get them into Vietnam. And he and Henry really tried very hard to get them out in a respectable way. And even made some progress.
Anon.
"It is fitting that Richard Nixon's final gesture to the American people was a clearly illegal series of 21 105-mm howitzer blasts that shattered the peace of a residential neighborhood and permanently disturbed many children. Neighbors also complained about another unsanctioned burial in the yard at the old Nixon place, which was brazenly illegal. "It makes the whole neighborhood like a graveyard," said one. "And it fucks up my children's sense of values."
Many were incensed about the howitzers--but they knew there was nothing they could do about it--not with the current president sitting about 50 yards away and laughing at the roar of the cannons. It was Nixon's last war, and he won. "
--Hunter Thompson
Hunter Thompson, deranged fuck, Hell's Angels groupie and devoted worshipper of violence when its rightly applied to the deserving categories of rednecks and rubes, has no right to piss on RM Nixon.
Resignation did RM Nixon a world of good, he worked out his paranoia (though justified it took its toll), wrote books and came back as an elder statesman. But his enemies (to a man on the Left) had no such redemption, they thrived on hating him, his haircut, his less than handsome face anything at all about him. After Nixon's death they lost all purpose in life. Thompson killed himself in 2005, the years he survived Nixon must have been unbearably listless.
I agree with Ivan.
America needs a Nixon now, more than ever.
Anon.
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