Remember back in the day when we only got to hear the tapes with the expletives deleted?
But we always knew there would be more and now they're here! For the best round-up of Nixonian quotables for the aspiring Republican pol, see Amygdala. The thing about Nixon you have to like---if, that is, you subsequently lived through Reagan and Bush---is that he didn't bother to conceal his ruthlessness or cynicism under a genial mask or a crimp-browed chimp-like smirk of good-natured puzzlement.
He was "ruthless and cynical," sure---just as much so as Reagan and Bush---but at least he was also "profane." Give him that. Furthermore, he was not only not someone dumb bozos would ever want to invite to a weenie-roast and/or beer bash, if he'd sat down next to one of them in a bus station or a theater, they'd have got up and moved somewhere else.
He was the Uriah Heep of GOP presidents. He was sincerely off-putting and creepy, and for that, dammit, our hat's off to him. Since we've apparently gotta have right and left, we need more weirdly repellent GOP politicians.
Oh, wait. We were forgetting Dick Cheney.
Because don't mention George W. Bush in the same breath as Nixon or Chris Wallace will be all up in your grill.
According to this account in Gawker, Wallace was present at a panel discussion of Ron Howard's film about Nixon and David Frost and got Righteously riled when the panel compared Bush to Nixon.
"Richard Nixon's crimes were committed purely in the interest of his own political gain," Mr. Wallace told Mr. Howard before an audience of a few hundred after viewing the filmmakers new film "Frost/Nixon," which is about the only U.S. president to resign from office.
"I think to compare what Nixon did, and the abuses of power for pure political self preservation, to George W. Bush trying to protect this country — even if you disagree with rendition or waterboarding — it seems to me is both a gross misreading of history both then and now," Mr. Wallace said.
And!
"Yeah I respectfully would like to disagree with that," Mr. Wallace said. "It trivializes Nixon's crimes and completely misrepresents what George W. Bush did. Whatever George W. Bush did was after the savage attack of 9/11, in which 3,000 Americans were killed, and was done in service of trying to protect this country. I'm not saying that you have to agree with everything he did, but it was all done in the service of trying to protect this country and keep us safe."
"And the fact is that we sit here so comfortably, and the country has not been attacked again since 9/11," Mr. Wallace said.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc to you too, Fox News man.
Anyway, Gawker and we concede that Chris Wallace is---for once---right.
But, you know, Chris is less right to dismiss Bush's various crimes as borne out of a desire to do good and protect the nation (and do good intentions actually make a difference when you're violating the fucking constitution from the office of the presidency, Chris? really?), as opposed to Nixon's supposedly less pure motives. What the hell was the illegal dismissal of seven US Attorneys for partisan political reasons? That was for the security of the nation?
Giving Karl Rove, architect of the permanent Republican majority plan, a policy position certainly smacks of "pure political self-preservation." The Valerie Plame thing?
Also, yes, Chris, motivation aside, making torture official United States policy is actually worse than a two-bit burglary. Asshole. (empahsis added0
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