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You are here: Home / Books / NIXONLAND, Week 13: “How to Survive the Debacle”, “Cruelest Month” & “Ping Pong”

NIXONLAND, Week 13: “How to Survive the Debacle”, “Cruelest Month” & “Ping Pong”

by Anne Laurie|  April 24, 20116:57 pm| 80 Comments

This post is in: Books, Nixonland

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Obviously, the world was ending: By 1971, the conclusion was unmistakable. Steve Roberts of the NYT wrote about the enveloping apocalypticism in California, where every trend began… [W]hen it came to existential terrors, Americans could choose from a banquet.

I would like to point out that apocalypticism comes naturally when your Serious Leaders of the Free World treat ‘mutually assured destruction’ as a phenomenon as natural as springtime tornadoes in Kansas or August hurricanes in Florida — devasting, unpredictable, and unavoidable. I did not know that Stephen Vincent Benet’s “By the Waters of Babylon” was published — in the Saturday Evening Post! — in 1937, or that it was written as a result of the bombing of Guernica. But even my non-sf-reading classmates in the early 1960s knew that gradeschool ‘duck and cover’ drills had been abandoned not because the threat of nuclear destruction had abated, but because it had become too publicly obvious how futile such gestures would be in the event. When “everybody knows” that the world could end with 15 minutes’ warning, it encourages political nihilism on either side of the aisle.

On Sunday, April 18, Vietnam Veterans Against the War’s John Kerry appeared on Meet the Press. Their Washington pageant began the next morning, the anniversary of the ‘shot heard ’round the world’ in 1775. Eleven hundred veterans, mostly in wrinkled fatigues, medals pinned to hippie headbands, marched to Arlington National Cemetary; five Gold Star mothers in the lead; two vets carrying the VVAW banner; then a contigent in wheelchairs and crutches, blind men walking with canes. Two mothers and two veterans approached the Tomb of the Unknowns with a wreath. The great iron gates shut in their faces…

Somewhere in the audience, Roger Ailes was taking notes, I’m sure.

The president was at first indifferent to the [Pentagon Papers] whodunit game. He had his suspects […] but he wasn’t disposed to worry about a document completed before he was inaugurated and covering events only through 1968. “Make sure we call them the Kennedy-Johnson papers,” he had told Haldeman at first, prepared to let the chips fall where they may.
__
Historians would debate the reasons for the president’s subsequent change of heart. They agree Kissinger was crucial in changing his boss’s mind…
__
But the reasons for panic weren’t really that complicated. Nixon-Kissinger diplomacy made credibly guaranteeing discretion to negotiating partners the first, even sacred, priority.

Yeah, that whole “It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up” piety? The sacredness of covering up was the heart of Nixon’s appeal right from the start: Cover up your feelings & ambitions (even from yourself); cover up (lie about) the reasons behind your actions; cover up your actions, because they have strayed outside the limits of lawfulness, since your lodestar is not what should be done but what can we get away with…

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80Comments

  1. 1.

    stuckinred

    April 24, 2011 at 7:08 pm

    Here is Chaplain Jack Day’s piece on that day at Arlington. I’m on the ground right next to the mother in the black and white in the second picture. I don’t know why I’d want to be in a discussion about this?

  2. 2.

    Linda Featheringill

    April 24, 2011 at 7:08 pm

    Cover up your feelings & ambitions (even from yourself); cover up (lie about) the reasons behind your actions; cover up your actions, because they have strayed outside the limits of lawfulness, since your lodestar is not what should be done but what can we get away with…

    Nixon often reminded me of an adult survivor of childhood abuse, and the imperative of never allowing the villain[s] know how much pain they have caused.

    But on top of that, yes, he was dishonest. I think he saw politics as a manipulative game, winner take all, everyone else loses. The people who populate this blog probably think of politics as a way for ordinary people to help shape their own environment, a tool for making things better. A lot of old-time politicians didn’t think that way. And a bunch of them still don’t think that way.

  3. 3.

    Linda Featheringill

    April 24, 2011 at 7:10 pm

    @stuckinred:

    You’re the blond without a hat?

  4. 4.

    Nicole

    April 24, 2011 at 7:12 pm

    But we must be tranquil and thankful and proud
    For Man’s been endowed with a mushroom-shaped cloud
    And we know for certain that some lovely day
    Someone will set the spark off, and we will all be blown away.

    My dad put that Kingston Trio song on every 8-track mix he made when I was a child. What was the name of the song? Was it called “The Bomb” or something like that?

  5. 5.

    Linda Featheringill

    April 24, 2011 at 7:13 pm

    VVAW was not treated kindly by the Establishment. Democrats and Republicans.

    But fuggum. Most of the most powerful assholes are dead and gone now. We outlived them. We are still here.

    And we can still cause trouble. :-)

  6. 6.

    licensed to kill time

    April 24, 2011 at 7:14 pm

    Gawd, Nixon was such a slimy lying scum. When he said “I don’t impugn military justice, I uphold it!” in regard to his interference in the Calley case, Rick’s editorial comment was:

    That was one of the the things Nixon liked to do in these private conversations: probe novel ways to salve his guilty conscience.

    Over and over, the tapes prove he was lying through his teeth.

  7. 7.

    stuckinred

    April 24, 2011 at 7:15 pm

    @Linda Featheringill: Yea, the beard was red in those days. I cannot describe how we felt when they closed those gates. I’m pretty critical of Kerry but he really defused that one. We went back to the campground and voted to come back the next day and place the wreath’s. They let us in.

  8. 8.

    WereBear

    April 24, 2011 at 7:16 pm

    I don’t think Nixon started the trend of personal dysfunction embodying a person’s political goals; but boy did he perfect it.

  9. 9.

    Nicole

    April 24, 2011 at 7:16 pm

    I tell ya what, reading this book had me watching last night’s season premiere of Doctor Who on a whole ‘nother level (Nixon was a character in the story)…

  10. 10.

    Linda Featheringill

    April 24, 2011 at 7:17 pm

    When “everybody knows” that the world could end with 15 minutes’ warning, it encourages political nihilism on either side of the aisle.

    On this one issue, I am lucky that I went to a little backwater school out in the middle of nowhere. The teachers/administration decided to not participate in the prepare-for-the-bomb game. So we weren’t frightened.

    Tornadoes, of course, were a real threat and we did have tornado drills periodically. I guess that if we had been bombed, we probably would have marched down to the tornado shelter. Or something.

  11. 11.

    mclaren

    April 24, 2011 at 7:19 pm

    When “everybody knows” that the world could end with 15 minutes’ warning, it encourages political nihilism on either side of the aisle.

    On the other hand, it was reportedly great for nailing babes. “The world’s probably gonna end in 5 years anyway, why not come over to my apartment tonight?”

    I wasn’t an adult during the 60s, so the joys of no incurable STDs + the great seductive potential of Mutually Assured Destruction were never mine. From the stories I’ve heard, though…wow.

    The remarkable thing about Nixon is how widely he was hated, yet how little he differed from subsequent sociopaths like Reagan and the drunk-driving C student with his torturer sidekick.

    Why was Reagan so beloved, when Nixon was so widely reviled? Their behavior was almost identical. Nixon lied constantly — so did Reagan. Nixon used dirty tricks and scams to try to destroy the electoral base of the Democratic Party — so did Reagan. Nixon constantly talked about peace but jacked up the military budget endlessly — so did Reagan. Nixon was surrounded by a gang of creepy sociopaths with no respect for the law — so was Reagan.

    Are people really that gullible?

    If someone croons soothing words to you while cutting your throat, will you really smile and tell him to keep doing it?

  12. 12.

    Anne Laurie

    April 24, 2011 at 7:21 pm

    @Linda Featheringill:

    Nixon often reminded me of an adult survivor of childhood abuse, and the imperative of never allowing the villain[s] know how much pain they have caused.

    Well, yeah, he was, wasn’t he?

    And so was Reagan, but ‘Dutch’ (whose natural gifts were different) found a way to paste a Big Happy Smiley-Face over his rage and indifference to others. So Watergate is all Nixon’s fvck-up, but Iran-contra (which directly involved much more murder & suffering all over the world) is a dimly-remembered he-said-they-said nontroversy where a bunch of faceless patriots took advantage of a happy old man at the onset of Alzheimers. Saint Ronnie!

    I swear, sometimes it seems like the history of the Republican Party over the last 60 years could be reduced to a case study of misdirected adult reaction to childhood trauma.

  13. 13.

    Linda Featheringill

    April 24, 2011 at 7:22 pm

    Why was Reagan so beloved, when Nixon was so widely reviled?

    Reagan was a Franklin. Nixon was an orthog— [what’s that word?]

    Anyway, Reagan was a lovable scamp. Many people wanted to be like him.

    Nobody wanted to be like Nixon. Even his followers hoped for a happier life than he had.

  14. 14.

    Anne Laurie

    April 24, 2011 at 7:23 pm

    @stuckinred: Glad you’re here! Thanks for the link!

  15. 15.

    R-Jud

    April 24, 2011 at 7:25 pm

    @Anne Laurie:

    I swear, sometimes it seems like the history of the Republican Party over the last 60 years could be reduced to a case study of misdirected adult reaction to childhood trauma.

    “Rose…bud…”

    Only, you know, with more dead bodies.

  16. 16.

    Nicole

    April 24, 2011 at 7:25 pm

    @Anne Laurie:

    I swear, sometimes it seems like the history of the Republican Party over the last 60 years could be reduced to a case study of misdirected adult reaction to childhood trauma

    See ABL’s post about the GOP congressman from Michigan, whose reasoning for proposing foster kids only be permitted to purchase clothes from thrift shops is basically, “Well, I never got new stuff when I was a child!”

  17. 17.

    mclaren

    April 24, 2011 at 7:25 pm

    @Linda Featheringill:
    Orthogonian. Good explanation. (The word still sounds like a Star Trek alien, though. “Captain, the Orthogonian ship is attacking!”)

  18. 18.

    licensed to kill time

    April 24, 2011 at 7:27 pm

    The memo from the Asst. Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs John McNaughton, breaking down, in Robert McNamara’s preferred statistical terms, why we were persisting in Vietnam:
    __
    70% to avoid a humiliating US defeat
    20% to keep SVN (& adjacent) territory from Chinese hands
    10% to permit the people of SVN to enjoy a better, freer life
    __
    ALSO: to emerge from the crisis w/o unacceptable taint from methods used
    __
    NOT: to “help a friend”

    From the Pentagon papers, two weeks before LBJ said on national TV that “The principles for which our sons fight tonight in the jungles of Vietnam”-that they were the same “for which our ancestors fought in the valleys of Pennsylvania”.

    Arrgggh.

  19. 19.

    stuckinred

    April 24, 2011 at 7:27 pm

    @Anne Laurie: This blog is pretty interesting, it has many of the photo’s from “The New Soldier”.

  20. 20.

    Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937

    April 24, 2011 at 7:33 pm

    apocalypticism comes naturally when your Serious Leaders of the Free World treat ‘mutually assured destruction’ as a phenomenon as natural as springtime tornadoes in Kansas

    Dorothy Day earned my greatest admiration when she and other Catholic Workers refused to obey the mandatory bomb drills in NYC in the 50’s. She protested the futility of the endeavor and challenged the political leadership to live in the real world – demanding that they get rid of the weapons, to no avail.

  21. 21.

    Linda Featheringill

    April 24, 2011 at 7:33 pm

    @mclaren:

    Star Trek alien:

    :-)

  22. 22.

    Anne Laurie

    April 24, 2011 at 7:34 pm

    @mclaren:

    Why was Reagan so beloved, when Nixon was so widely reviled?

    I’d argue that a good part of it — and this may make you want to cut your own throat — is that Nixon was smarter than his subsequent imitators. Tricky Dick actually thought about what he was doing, and wrestled with misdoubts & rationalizations afterwards. Ronnie and Dubya, on the other hand, not only weren’t that bright, they both resented smart people who thought about stuff too much. Reagan’s apothesis is the triumph of ‘Nixonland’, where the Republican electoral argument moved from vague mutterings against ‘eggheads’ and ‘pointy-headed intellectuals’ to an open “All those highly-educated people look down on you, they want to take your stuff and give it to the undeserving, so we must grab our machetes go vote against them & everything they stand for — get our licks in first.”

  23. 23.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 24, 2011 at 7:37 pm

    @licensed to kill time:

    Over and over, the tapes prove he was lying through his teeth.

    The “smoking gun” tape, the one that led directly to his resignation, showed that not only did he actively participate in the coverup of the “third rate burglary”, he in fact was the architect of its greatest single lie: the “national security” angle. He lied to the leaders of his political party, to his own lawyers, and to the nation at large, on broadcast national television. Once the tape came out, his fate was irrevocably sealed. No way out, at all.

    Every single one of the congressmen on the House Judiciary Committee who had defended him throughout the summer announced they’d vote to impeach, once that tape came out.

    No way out. It was over.

  24. 24.

    gnomedad

    April 24, 2011 at 7:39 pm

    @Anne Laurie:
    I’ve always thought Reagan’s signature skill was believing his lies before he told them.

  25. 25.

    Nicole

    April 24, 2011 at 7:40 pm

    @Anne Laurie:

    I’d argue that a good part of it—and this may make you want to cut your own throat—is that Nixon was smarter than his subsequent imitators

    I would absolutely agree with that, but add on that Nixon also didn’t trust anyone, while Reagan seemed very happy to delegate just about his entire job to underlings. I think Nixon’s absolute lack of faith in anyone with whom he worked ensured that the second he ran into trouble, they’d all throw him under the bus (just as he’d throw them under the bus without a second of hesitation). Reagan had people interested in protecting him. It might have been because they genuinely felt devoted to him; it might have been because he was their useful idiot, but either way, they protected him.

  26. 26.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 24, 2011 at 7:44 pm

    @Nicole:

    It might have been because they genuinely felt devoted to him; it might have been because he was their useful idiot, but either way, they protected him.

    “Plausible deniablity”. Reagan’s underlings crafted his statements (which he’d dutifully read as if he were reciting lines for “Bedtime for Bonzo”) to provide him with a way out.

    Of course, the observer was left with two alternatives: he was lying, or he was incompetent.

    With Nixon, you never had the incompetent option. Nixon was not incompetent, just clumsy, and arrogant to the point of carelessness about some things. Big difference.

  27. 27.

    WereBear

    April 24, 2011 at 7:45 pm

    I think a large part of it was that Reagan was likeable. Gosh, he was the Gipper!

    While Nixon; jeez. What more do I have to say? He hated himself, and you didn’t even feel sorry for him.

  28. 28.

    licensed to kill time

    April 24, 2011 at 7:47 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: @gnomedad:

    On the subject of lies and also believing in them, you have to consider the projection angle as well. Nixon and his gang absolutely believed that the “other side” operated in the same venal way that they themselves did. They speculated on Daniel Ellsberg’s motives for releasing the Pentagon Papers thus: “money, fame, ideological loyalty to the Soviet Union or perhaps some vicious blackness in his soul”. (Rick adds, “not considered: conscience, patriotism”.)

    They thought the ends justified the means, and that everybody else was doing it, too.

  29. 29.

    Anne Laurie

    April 24, 2011 at 7:55 pm

    @gnomedad: Yeah, Reagan was the poster child for “It’s not a lie if you actually believe what you’re saying.”

    Which is, of course, the mark of a sociopath. But he had such a sunny disposition!… (as long as he got exactly what he wanted & nobody bothered him with a lot of unpleasant details, as his own kids could attest.)

    But that’s an art all its own. Reagan really did have a talent, not for ‘acting’ as in ‘inhabiting other characters’ but for ‘being a STAR’, first in the movies & later in politics. Anthropologists would say that actors are the equivalent of priests, but Stars are the equivalent of god-kings — embodiments of all that a culture believes to be most valuable.

    Nixon tried to be a god-king, but he was tragically never perceived as more than an overambitious priest, scheming behind the altar to use his silver sickle on his enemies & those of the state. Reagan was an excellent god-king, and if all we needed from an American president was a really attractive, virile-looking guy to mouth all the priests’ speeches convincingly and intimidate our enemies in the next valley, he would’ve been the best. Dubya was a god-king in training from the day of his birth, but the little runt wouldn’t work at using his inheritance except intermittently, so by the end even the hardcore Republican god-king defenders resented & disowned him.

  30. 30.

    Anne Laurie

    April 24, 2011 at 7:57 pm

    @Nicole:

    Reagan had people interested in protecting him. It might have been because they genuinely felt devoted to him; it might have been because he was their useful idiot, but either way, they protected him.

    Yeah, well, this is Republican America: nobody likes a smartarse, like Nixon!

  31. 31.

    AAA Bonds

    April 24, 2011 at 7:58 pm

    Well, to be an ass, it is still a good idea to get under something and protect your eyes and ears if you know bombs are going to drop nearby. Nuclear weapons don’t mean instant death for everyone who might be injured by them.

  32. 32.

    Andrew

    April 24, 2011 at 8:00 pm

    Nixonland is one of my all-time favorite political books — I just bought the Kindle version for my iPod. Am loving this series.

    Is the Steve Roberts quoted in the intro Cokie’s husband?

  33. 33.

    mclaren

    April 24, 2011 at 8:00 pm

    @Anne Laurie:

    Very good point. Also, Nixon had all those tapes. Wow. You could listen to the cynical sliminess, and you could hear how much hatred and contempt they had for the law.

    Subsequent Republican presidents learned the lesson: don’t keep any documentation. No tapes, no papers. Shred it all. Those million-plus emails “accidentally destroyed” in Bush’s White House…leave no proof behind.

    Nixon screwed up. He left evidence.

  34. 34.

    AAA Bonds

    April 24, 2011 at 8:01 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    This is a good point about Reagan. Reagan trusted his people – so when his people planned out their criminal activities, they could count on him saying what they told him to say, in words they crafted to protect the administration, and thus their own crooked asses.

    Nixon’s papers and tapes reveal that his first instinct was usually to undermine people by setting them against each other. The captain wasn’t a team player, and the defense fell apart during a hard drive.

  35. 35.

    mclaren

    April 24, 2011 at 8:04 pm

    @licensed to kill time:

    They speculated on Daniel Ellsberg’s motives for releasing the Pentagon Papers thus: “money, fame…or perhaps some vicious blackness in his soul”.

    Isn’t it fascinating how perfectly this describes Nixon’s own motivations for doing what he did?

    My oh my oh my. The wonders of psychological projection…

  36. 36.

    Anne Laurie

    April 24, 2011 at 8:04 pm

    @licensed to kill time:

    On the subject of lies and also believing in them, you have to consider the projection angle as well. Nixon and his gang absolutely believed that the “other side” operated in the same venal way that they themselves did.

    True, that. I don’t think Reagan ever bothered to think about his enemies’ motives, or even his own. He read the scripts he was given, and put a sunny spin even on the most crabbed lies, and when the manure impacted the air-moving implement he just shut down. That’s why our side could never “win the argument” with St. Ronnie — you can’t argue when the other side refuses to engage.

    Nixon, poor sorry bastard, could never resist arguing, even before the opposition got its licks in. He gave away half his points in advance, just because he was such a natural lawyer.

  37. 37.

    joel hanes

    April 24, 2011 at 8:08 pm

    Reagan was likeable.

    I never found him so, in any of his incarnations:
    B-movie actor, SAG president, GE spokestool, CA governor, President: he was always and forever thoroughly phony, an empty suit reading the lines provided, whose nearly-complete lack of empathy always limited his performances and his life.

    The genial, avuncular bit was a role into which he stepped early in life; much of the country, and Reagan himself, seem to have confused the actor with the scripted character.

    The act of opening his Presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi put paid to whatever benefit of the doubt I had been giving him up until then — one of the most purely-evil acts in American history. After that, one could hardly be surprised by the Contra death squads or the trading arms for hostages, or the deal with the Iranian “students” to detain the Embassy hostages until after Reagan’s election so that Reagan’s handlers could play that tragedy for political gain.

  38. 38.

    licensed to kill time

    April 24, 2011 at 8:12 pm

    @mclaren: Uncanny, no? And so it goes today.

    @Anne Laurie: Reagan was a perfect puppet with a sunny face. I don’t know why so many people didn’t see that from the get-go. Bush was similar, my BS detector was on high alert, flashing red, in fact. It’s so frustrating.

  39. 39.

    Andrew

    April 24, 2011 at 8:13 pm

    @WereBear: Plus, Reagan could actually laugh at himself. Nixon could NEVER do that.

  40. 40.

    WereBear

    April 24, 2011 at 8:14 pm

    @joel hanes: Oh, I completely agree; but the man swept the country; I think Mondale carried his home state and that was it.

    He might not have fooled all the people all the time; but at that time, he sure came close.

    You didn’t vote for Nixon because you liked him; you identified with his angers and resentment and paranoia. With Reagan, you identified with his sunny optimism and “hero-like” aura.

    It never worked for me, either; but then, I guess I was never their target.

  41. 41.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 24, 2011 at 8:15 pm

    At the time, I suspected with Reagan that the lights were on, but no one was home.

    History has proven my suspicions to have been pretty valid.

    But that was part of the entire plan. He wasn’t evil, he was just senile. The problem was, before he began to show signs of Alzheimer’s, he was demonstrably evil. His governorship of California has dozens of examples.

    Everyone forgets that it was a display of black guys parading around in “second amendment remedies” demeanor that caused a flurry of gun control laws in California.

  42. 42.

    gnomedad

    April 24, 2011 at 8:16 pm

    @Anne Laurie:
    Wow, very insightful, AL; thanks.

  43. 43.

    Anne Laurie

    April 24, 2011 at 8:20 pm

    @joel hanes:

    The genial, avuncular bit was a role into which he stepped early in life; much of the country, and Reagan himself, seem to have confused the actor with the scripted character wanted a happy God-King to tell them they were the Greatest People Ever in the World’s Most Powerful Country Ever, and no more of that ‘malaise’ crap.

    Nobody with an IQ over 85 or an education equivalent to a GED believed the words coming out of Reagan’s mouth, or even believed that Reagan believed them. A lot of voters, even at the time, said right out in public that they wanted a strong president who would stand up for America, i.e., a really effective figurehead. ‘Saint Ronnie’ is waht they wanted, and he’s what they got, and the collateral damage we’ve endured since his reign just did not matter to those ‘Reagan Democrats’ and other swing voters.

  44. 44.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 24, 2011 at 8:21 pm

    I think getting back to Nixon that it’s difficult for people who haven’t carefully studied the history to get just how big an effing deal “Ping Pong diplomacy” was at the time. Nixon managed to SHUT DOWN the Bircheresque GOP right wing on China…leading us of course to the observation that “Only Nixon can go to China.”

    As Rick points out, Nixon was all about the great foreign policy initiatives and achievements…that was the legacy he was shooting for. If Watergate had not happened, that’s what he would be remembered for…Vietnam would be shrugged off as a mess he inherited from the Democrats, just as he viewed the Pentagon Papers…until Kissinger pointed out the full implications of that revelation…that the US can’t keep a secret.

    And Nixon loved his secrets. It’s just that he documented them, as pointed out upstream. The vile Bush Crime Family took that lesson to heart. Don’t leave fingerprints.

  45. 45.

    WereBear

    April 24, 2011 at 8:22 pm

    @Anne Laurie: Beautiful summing up.

    I’ll be thinking of Nixon that way from now on…

  46. 46.

    gnomedad

    April 24, 2011 at 8:23 pm

    @joel hanes:

    the deal with the Iranian “students” to detain the Embassy hostages until after Reagan’s election

    Did evidence for this emerge? Not that it seems unlikely, as the hostages were released on the day of the freaking inauguration. OTOH, why would the “students” have cut a deal with Reagan?

  47. 47.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 24, 2011 at 8:26 pm

    @Anne Laurie:

    Dubya was a god-king in training from the day of his birth, but the little runt wouldn’t work at using his inheritance except intermittently, so by the end even the hardcore Republican god-king defenders resented & disowned him.

    Reagan did know enough about himself that he surrounded himself with capable people who could execute things in an at least craftsman-like manner most of the time. The problems came up with things that required a lot of finesse to pull off…I’m thinking the entire Iran-Contra mess.

    Dubya, on the other hand, was surrounded by hacks who simply were not grounded in reality by any means, and actively sought to undermine those who could have saved them from their own folly…von Rumsfailed comes to mind at once as a victim of his own arrogance.

    Furthermore, I don’t think that the two way loyalty that Reagan showed his subordinates was in Dubya’s nature. He is more a use the tissue and toss it sort of guy.

  48. 48.

    gnomedad

    April 24, 2011 at 8:28 pm

    @joel hanes:

    Reagan was likeable.
    I never found him so, in any of his incarnations

    I agree; this “likability” is what I’ve always found most baffling about him. I found him transparent and patronizing. When he launched his “there you go again” at Carter, I rolled my eyes and though he’d just been waiting for the right moment to deliver that line. Too bad Carter didn’t respond with “how dare you?” and launch into a tirade.

  49. 49.

    Anne Laurie

    April 24, 2011 at 8:30 pm

    @WereBear:

    You didn’t vote for Nixon because you liked him; you identified with his angers and resentment and paranoia. With Reagan, you identified with his sunny optimism and “hero-like” aura.
    __
    It never worked for me, either; but then, I guess I was never their target.

    Well, look at what his fiercest defenders are still touting as Reagan’s greatest accomplishment. He ‘defeated Communism‘ by ‘standing up‘ and saying ‘Gorbachev, tear down this wall!‘

    Our cherished hereditary enemies, the tribe in the next valley over, stubbornly persisted in worshipping a false god, but when God-King Ronnie marched up and made a stirring speech at the walls of their city, by the gods, didn’t those walls just fall! Proof, as if it were needed, that God-King Ronnie was the best god-king ever! Sure, JFK was a pretty good god-king, who could give an excellent speech (he even got himself appropriately martyred), but only St. Ronnie could be counted on for actual miracles…

  50. 50.

    stuckinred

    April 24, 2011 at 8:31 pm

    @Anne Laurie: Easy with that GED stuff.

  51. 51.

    Nicole

    April 24, 2011 at 8:34 pm

    @gnomedad:

    Did evidence for this emerge? Not that it seems unlikely, as the hostages were released on the day of the freaking inauguration. OTOH, why would the “students” have cut a deal with Reagan?

    As I recall, there was something about GHW Bush heading over to Iran in advance of the inauguration, blah blah blah, but I don’t know if that’s true or conspiracy stuff. Either way, though, for them to be released the day of, the arrangements had to be made under the previous administration. And, as is typical, anything good that happens under a Republican administration is to its own credit, while anything good that happens under a Democratic one is due to the years of whatever GOP President most recently preceded the Democrat. Funny how that never works in reverse.

  52. 52.

    WereBear

    April 24, 2011 at 8:34 pm

    @Anne Laurie: I guess things can be that simple… when you are too!

  53. 53.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 24, 2011 at 8:37 pm

    @Nicole:

    Did you know that Clinton was immediately succeeded by Obama? Somehow, eight entire years vanished into thin air…along with the budget surplus, the booming economy, and peace in the Middle East.

  54. 54.

    Anne Laurie

    April 24, 2011 at 8:39 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Nixon managed to SHUT DOWN the Bircheresque GOP right wing on China…leading us of course to the observation that “Only Nixon can go to China.”

    And yet the Birchers wanted America to be Mao’s China, a place where the authorities could announce that rivers would be made to run uphill by the proper application of Correct Thought, and any dissent (second-guessing) to be ruthlessly punished by the neighborhood watch. And today’s Red Princes in China are just about indistinguishable from the robber barons now in charge of America.

  55. 55.

    MikeJ

    April 24, 2011 at 8:40 pm

    @Anne Laurie:

    A lot of voters, even at the time, said right out in public that they wanted a strong president who would stand up for America, i.e., a really effective figurehead.

    And then he told the Marines to flee Beirut.

  56. 56.

    Nicole

    April 24, 2011 at 8:43 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Heh. Of course. It must be true because FOX News says so.

    I remember how unpopular Reagan was when his second term ended, and I wasn’t aware of the concerted effort to rehabilitate his image until suddenly right-wingers I knew were giving him more due than they did Jesus (and with just as little comprehension of what the guy said or did). I’m curious if they’ll try to do the same thing with GWB. I think it’ll be a much, much tougher job, as GWB’s crew were as incompetent as he, and though the press protected him for 8 years, the damage they were doing was too great (much like the general population was fooled about Vietnam for over a decade). But I’m curious about how they’ll go about rewriting history. Blame everything on the last two years of his administration, and the Democratic-controlled Congress?

  57. 57.

    Anne Laurie

    April 24, 2011 at 8:44 pm

    @stuckinred: Fair cop. Probably should’ve said “a sixth-grade education” but I’m never sure when civics classes are taught, these days. And it’s not like you believed the California Frauds, either of them, is it?

  58. 58.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 24, 2011 at 8:45 pm

    @Anne Laurie:

    Also, the Chinese Communists REALLY get pissed about people burning their flag.

    Sound like anyone else you know?

  59. 59.

    mclaren

    April 24, 2011 at 8:45 pm

    Yes, Nixon didn’t make people feel good about themselves. The remarkable fact about Nixon though is that even though he filled people with bitterness and hatred, and even though the average voter personally disliked him and thought he looked “shifty,” Nixon nonetheless managed to get elected twice. And the second time by a huge landslide.

    Maybe that’s where the enduring sense of evil comes from with Nixon. He found a way to make people who despised him support him.

  60. 60.

    Nicole

    April 24, 2011 at 8:45 pm

    @gnomedad: A linky on the Iran hostage theory:

    http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/092006.html

    I don’t know how legit the guy is, as he doesn’t provide any backup evidence, but after reading about Nixon’s behind-Johnson’s-back negotiations on Vietnam, I find the case presented at the link terribly plausible.

  61. 61.

    WereBear

    April 24, 2011 at 8:45 pm

    Seems to me that Nixon was the transition from old school to new school Republicanism; I just can’t see Taft squealing about resentment, or Hoover pretending the Great Depression wasn’t both.

    It might have taken Nixon to open China; but only because the Republicans would have mercilessly criticized any Democrat who tried to do it.

    It’s a real handicap; not being a pathological liar or having any sense of shame.

    Then again, I found out just the other day that Republicans claimed FDR left his little dog, Fala, behind during an official visit and dispatched a war cruiser or something to pick him up; an outright lie.

    So perhaps they have been that way for longer than I had thought. Maybe they just used to hide it better.

  62. 62.

    arguingwithsignposts

    April 24, 2011 at 8:48 pm

    I know this is OT, but this is burning me up: Look at what all them crackers down in Sandy Springs, Ga. have done – according to reason.tv.

  63. 63.

    stuckinred

    April 24, 2011 at 8:49 pm

    @Anne Laurie: Sheeeet. I got my GED while sorry ass LBJ was still in!

  64. 64.

    Anne Laurie

    April 24, 2011 at 8:50 pm

    @MikeJ:

    And then he told the Marines to flee Beirut.

    There you go again, with that Reality-Based-Community stuff!

    According to the Reagan Congregation, mistakes were made — by some unknown third party, out in the passive voice universe — but the figurehead of St. Ronnie remained strong & upright against America’s worst enemies. Not the dusky-skinned guys in the Middle East, but us carping RBC liberals!

  65. 65.

    mclaren

    April 24, 2011 at 8:54 pm

    @Anne Laurie:

    I swear, sometimes it seems like the history of the Republican Party over the last 60 years could be reduced to a case study of misdirected adult reaction to childhood trauma.

    There’s growing evidence of some kind of link between political conservatism and child abuse.

  66. 66.

    Anne Laurie

    April 24, 2011 at 8:56 pm

    @WereBear:

    Seems to me that Nixon was the transition from old school to new school Republicanism

    Yeah, I think that’s Perlstein’s overarching thesis. Depressing, because true.

    @WereBear:

    I found out just the other day that Republicans claimed FDR left his little dog, Fala, behind during an official visit and dispatched a war cruiser or something to pick him up; an outright lie.

    And FDR (‘second-rate intellect, first-rate temperament’) used “Now the Republicans are even picking on my little dog” as a sympathy-getter in his next fireside chat. IIRC, some people said Nixon was imitating FDR’s Fala ploy with his Checkers speech.

    (And other people made fun of Dubya for picking a Scottie like Fala instead of one of Poppy’s spaniels, too also.)

  67. 67.

    mclaren

    April 24, 2011 at 9:00 pm

    @WereBear:

    Seems to me that Nixon was the transition from old school to new school Republicanism…

    Wasn’t Senator Joe McCarthy really the transition from old school to new school conservatism?

    People forget that Nixon, along with the unspeakably vile Roy Cohn, was McCarthy’s right-hand man.

    It seems to me that modern conservatism comes from McCarthy’s DNA rather than Nixon’s. That thesis is followed up in this classic 2008 article “The GOP’s McCarthy Gene” in the HelL.A. Times by Neil Gabler.

  68. 68.

    Damned at Random

    April 24, 2011 at 9:02 pm

    I had a good laugh when Buchanan was considered to head up the plumbers unit. If only…he could have his own right wing talk show

  69. 69.

    dmbeaster

    April 24, 2011 at 9:02 pm

    since your lodestar is not what should be done but what can we get away with…

    There was a reason he was known as Tricky Dicky.

    Nixon often reminded me of an adult survivor of childhood abuse, and the imperative of never allowing the villain[s] know how much pain they have caused.

    Fawn Brodie was going to write a biography of Nixon, but died before she could complete a full biography (her partial work was published after her death). She uncovered evidence of severe beatings from his father, and had the same thought.

  70. 70.

    Nicole

    April 24, 2011 at 9:02 pm

    Yay, “The Coven” next week! This was one of my favorite chapters. Are we doing through “The Spring Offensive”?

  71. 71.

    WereBear

    April 24, 2011 at 9:03 pm

    @mclaren: Nixon “made his bones” by Red-hunting alongside McCarthy. Maybe you could make the case that McCarthy was the Father of screaming hysteria as a Republican tactic.

    But Nixon, by gum, was the Mutha. McCarthy drank himself to death; Nixon made it to the White House.

  72. 72.

    WereBear

    April 24, 2011 at 9:05 pm

    @dmbeaster: She uncovered evidence of severe beatings from his father, and had the same thought.

    It’s downright clinical; the absolute epidemic of callous and bullying behavior on their part. Let’s hope there’s a pathetic reason behind it.

  73. 73.

    Anne Laurie

    April 24, 2011 at 9:15 pm

    Thanks everybody… same time, same place, next week?

    “The Coven”, “Party of… George Wallce”, and “Spring Offensive” to be read…

    Gosh, we’re actually looking at the end of this tunnel. Now if only I could figure out how to do a storebought sheet cake and punch via the Toobz…

  74. 74.

    stuckinred

    April 24, 2011 at 9:16 pm

    @WereBear: My grandfather, DuPage County Republican that he was, said Joe died of a broken heart.

  75. 75.

    joel hanes

    April 24, 2011 at 11:08 pm

    It’s downright clinical; the absolute epidemic of callous and bullying behavior on their part.

    “I and the public know
    What all schoolchildren learn,
    Those to whom evil is done
    Do evil in return.

  76. 76.

    Jay C

    April 24, 2011 at 11:38 pm

    @WereBear:

    Seems to me that Nixon was the transition from old school to new school Republicanism

    And you could probably (given more space than a blog-comment) make the case that Nixon was “old-school Republicanism”, and that it was Reagan who was the “transition” figure.

    Richard Nixon, for all his power and prestige while in office was never considered a Movement Conservative; never an enemy, mind: but a political loner who had made his career – and made it all the way to the top – keeping the Movement at arms’ length. Reagan, on the other hand, was a creature of the Movement: its California wing having groomed and financed his rise to the Governorship, and then to the White House, with only a temporary setback in 1976.

    It’s no surprise today’s Republicans/conservatives look back on the Reagan Era as a sort of Golden Age – a concocted myth, like most Golden Ages always are, but a potent one nonetheless. Nixon was Nixon, sui generis,hugely flawed, and a figure out of the past. Reagan (or rather “Reagan”) was, despite his age (he was actually only two years older than Nixon) a more modern figure, his political persona shaped by his handlers in the 1960’s, rather than the 1940’s/50s; not a vast gulf of time; but enough to make a difference.

  77. 77.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 25, 2011 at 12:53 am

    @Jay C:

    Yes, you can definitely make that case, Jay. Especially given that Reagan’s start with the movement conservatives was “The Speech” at Goldwater’s nominating convention in 1964.

  78. 78.

    Chris

    April 25, 2011 at 8:21 am

    @mclaren:

    Why was Reagan so beloved, when Nixon was so widely reviled?

    I keep thinking one of the main factors for that is that Nixon didn’t have the political base that Reagan did.

    Mainstream Democrats didn’t like him because he’d destroyed their forty year coalition; Dixiecrats didn’t like him because they didn’t like anyone; moderate (Ike/Rockefeller) Republicans didn’t like him because his antiliberal rhetoric applied to them too; the nascent movement conservatives (Goldwater/Reagan) didn’t like him because he was a Keynesian big government type.

    Because none of the factions in politics saw him as one of their own, none of them saw the need to rehabilitate him with some bullshit revisionist narrative after his disgrace. It’s not the only factor, but I can’t help thinking that if it had been Goldwater or Reagan in his place, the Fox Noise machine would have worked much harder to rehabilitate him.

  79. 79.

    Chris

    April 25, 2011 at 8:32 am

    @gnomedad:

    Did evidence for this emerge? Not that it seems unlikely, as the hostages were released on the day of the freaking inauguration. OTOH, why would the “students” have cut a deal with Reagan?

    I would’ve written this off as 9/11 conspiracy theory type BS, until I found out that about Nixon’s work sabotaging the peace talks in Paris in 1968 in order to deny the Democrats a victory in Vietnam and win the election (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_U.S._presidential_election#Paris_Peace_Accords).

    Frankly, if the GOP would go that far, it doesn’t seem that implausible that they’d cut a deal with Khomeini. (And remember that Reagan did exactly that a couple years later, despite his tough-on-terror public image).

  80. 80.

    Chris

    April 25, 2011 at 8:38 am

    @Jay C:

    And you could probably (given more space than a blog-comment) make the case that Nixon was “old-school Republicanism”, and that it was Reagan who was the “transition” figure.

    I agree with this. Reagan sealed the deal, though the seeds were planted long before that (much like FDR sealed the era of the liberal consensus, but other populists and progressives had been foreshadowing him for close to forty years).

    In 1964, Goldwater had the ideology, but not the electoral strategy. In 1968 and 1972, Nixon had the electoral strategy, but not the ideology. Only in 1980 did Reagan bring the two together and create the modern conservative era.

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