Random thoughts on Clinton, Nixon...

[TreasonousBastard]

Finally got around to watching Oprah interview Clinton, and was amazed at the reaction he got from the audience. OK, Oprah revs up her audience and they go nuts over everything, but it was still impressive.

So, he's talking about his drunken father, and some of the problems back then and start thinking that he was hated so much in certain quarters not because of anything he had done, but because of who he is. Like Carter and Nixon, he made no secret of his humble roots, and made it up the ladder the hard way.

Carter wasn't hated, but he was marginalized. Nixon and Clinton, though, were hated far more than they deserved. I'm thinking that in some quarters there is a resentment that they all proved it IS possible for any kid to grow up to be President.

We all talk about it a lot, but the truth is that most of us don't amount to much, and have the snowball in hell chance of getting that far. That someone comes from such a background and actually does manage to get to the top isn't always an inspiration. It can also show some of the rest of us to be the relatively miserable failures that we are. Or, it can show some of us who were raised in privilege that there are undeserving interlopers into our little world.

OK, it's late and I don't want to think about this any more until tomorrow.

Sorry to interrupt the Mooregasm threads.

[Zomby Woof]

1. Nixon was a dirty creep

A vicious jack-booted thug and a crimanally insane raving paranoid nazi. Do you not know about his California House and Senate campaigns in the 50's?? Checkers? His speech to the press after he lost the CA gubernatorial race in '62?

The Enemies List?

Wire-tapping anti-war people?

Using Hoover's FBI to harrass and spy?

...and on and on...

Goddammit, I get so frustrated at the sheer historical ignorance on DU anymore. Must be pervasive throughout the land. Lack of critical thinking skills, lack of context... :nuke:

Fuck it.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. I am well aware of Nixon's...

crimes, and I was investigated back then, although I wasn't nearly important enough to get on the enemies list or dangerous enough to get hassled.

My point is not what they did, but who they were. The hatred of Nixon in some quarters went far beyond what he did and it wasn't so much that he abused the office, but that he didn't deserve to be in it in the first place.

In that way, the visceral hatred for Nixon is pretty much the same as the hatred for Clinton. I sense the same revulsion at the idea that they were in office at all, and anything they did simply fed it.

[mountainvue]

2. Nixon

did a lot of things for which he should be disliked, IMO. However, he did do some good things and certainly was a competent president, compared to what we have now.
I agree with what Clinton said on Oprah. They did hate him because he wasn't one of them. Nixon said the same thing. Supposedly, Clinton consulted Nixon during his presidency.
I often wondered how much of an influence Nixon's upbringing a a Quaker impacted his actions as president.

[TreasonousBastard]

6. As a practicing Quaker...

I can't imagine what influences he could have had. We don't like to talk about him much (or Hoover, for that matter, who was much more of a Quaker) but if the name comes up, there is much shaking of heads.

There are Advices and Queries that we are not required to keep or obey, but we do respect them and use them as guidance. There must have been a few pages missing in his copy, since he seems to have managed to ignore just about all of them.

There is also something called the Committee on Clearness that can do the Quaker equivalent of excommunication. Once in a while we wonder just what his Clearness Committee was thinking.

[Taverner]

4. I agree

The fact that Nixons own party turned on him is very telling

[NNadir]

5. Nixon was not more hated than he deserved.

He earned every bit of the hate heaved on him, as the fate of the citizens of Cambodia and Chile (and many other places) attests.

The fact that Nixon was no where near as disasterous as George W. Bush does not make contempt for Nixon passe.

[TreasonousBastard]

7. Again...

I am no Nixon apologist, and I lived through Nixon, even suffering a little pain because of him, although not nearly as much as many others.

My point is the difference in disagreeing, even passionately, with one's acts, and hating the individual.

[NNadir]

8. I personally think we're too hung up on being polite about hatred.

I am not afraid to hate (the now historical) Nixon or Bush. I make no apologies for doing so. If I can't hate the people who do these things, than I would feel less than human.

It happens that certain human beings are beneath contempt. There are of course degrees: Maybe Nixon deserves less hatred than Pol Pot (whose rise Nixon helped fuel) and maybe Nixon deserves less hatred than Bush, or Stalin or Hitler, but I make no apologies: I hated Nixon and I am glad that his pernicious influence on history is over.

It happens that I am against the death penalty but I certainly think that all these people (Pot, Nixon, Stalin, Hitler and Bush) certainly deserve(d) to rot in prisons or if there is such a thing, hell. I have no compassion for them. Zilch. I despise them.

[TreasonousBastard]

9. I suppose we could...

get into a discussion about the Constructive Uses of Hatred, but personally I don't see much positive coming from hate.

There are certainly quite a few villains who do everything they can to be hated, and I can certainly understand hating Stalin, Hitler, Saddam Hussein, and Grover Norquist. And a few others out there.

Personally, every time I see the evil empire in the White House pull another trick, I get the urge to bitchslap that whole crew to a whorehouse in Marseilles where they can find more decency than in all of Washington. But, those are dark thoughts that are better pushed off to the side somewhere.

Getting back to Nixon, I find it difficult to hate him. I pity him, like MacBeth. Unlike Shrub, Nixon actually had the capacity for greatness if his dark side didn't have such a hold on him. Unlike Hitler, Nixon may have been equally misguided and paranoid, but didn't have the evil goals of genocide and world war. Kissinger, maybe, but not Nixon.

We could argue forever if Nixon's crimes and mistakes outweighed the EPA and Voting Rights Act and his attempt to get us better healthcare. What we could agree on, I suppose, is that he was incredibly tormented and did his best to do the job with all of those demons chasing him.

If anyone deserves our hatred, it is the crew that now is refusing to do the basic job of governing and the minions that support them.

[NNadir]

10. Just for the record I do not agree that he "did the best job..."

"with all those demons."

Nixon did not create the EPA or sign the Voting Rights Act or work for health care because he thought these were honorable things. He did it because it was politically necessary in those times. He was President at a time when baby boomers had not decided that the environment took a back seat to the need for 500,000 dollar homes in the suburbs.

If you want to remember who Nixon was, I think a little bit of Shawcross's "Sideshow" is in order. Nixon was a criminal of monstrous proportions.

To be perfectly frank, your comments remind me of the time a historian asked Nazi Admiral Doenitz (who briefly replaced Hitler after Hitler's suicide) what the Germans should remember about Hitler. Quoth Doenitz: "The wonderful way he solved the German unemployment problem."

[zmdem]

11. Nixon committed impeachable offense, Clinton didn't

I'm not a big fan of either, tho' each did have considerable strengths.

Bottom line is Clinton's impeachment was purely motivated by Republican hotheads in the House. While his behaviour was reprehensible, it was not something that should result in impeachment. See Federalist #65.

What Nixon did fully qualifies, which is why he resigned.