(Ben Sargent cartoon via Gocomics.com)
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Speaking of Republican shenanigans, this week’s NIXONLAND discussion will take place Sunday evening at 7pm EDT, so people have a chance to take advantage of the later sunsets.* Chapters under discussion will be “Trust”, “If Gold Rust”, and “The Presidential Offensive” — closing with the unmasking of a murderous sociopath who ensnared wide-eyed Midwestern innocents into a web of deceit and terror. Also, Charles Manson.
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*Stock phrase would be ‘nice Spring weather’ but we’re not seeing much of that here in New England. What’s the weather like in your neighborhood tonight?
NIXONLAND, Week 9: “Winning”, “The First 100 Days”
Labor poured unprecedented resources into the Democratic campaign going into the home stretch, registering 4.6 million voters, sending out 115 million pamphlets, establishing 638 phone banks, fielding 72,000 house-to-house canvassers and 94,000 Election Day volunteers. Humphrey nabbed 15 last-minute points from Wallace among unionists. He also ran a lachrymose print ad: “Don’t let him buy the White House” over a picture of a smiling Richard Nixon. “No man has ever paid more trying to be President… “
Well, there’s a fitting epitaph for our own Ragged Dick Nixon.
And in these chapters the rest of the CREEPSTER band of brigands falls into place: Haldeman, Erlichman, Kissinger. Do I actually remember a period crack about “two German Shepherds and a German Jew”, or is that post-Watergate?
Some things never change on the (D) side of the aisle, either:
Reasoned [Humphrey’s] chief political deputy, “Nothing would bring the real peaceniks back to our side unless Hubert urinated on a portrait of Lyndon Johnson in Times Square before television — and then they’d say to him, “Why didn’t you do it before?”
What’s your impression of the Triumph of the Richard?
NIXONLAND, Week 9: “Winning”, “The First 100 Days”Post + Comments (135)
NIXONLAND, Week 8: “Violence”, “From Miami… “, “Wed. 8/28/68”
When Nelson Rockefeller arrived, he claimed he had almost twice as many firm delegates as Reagan. The standing ovation John Wayne had just received put that notion rather in doubt.
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Over and over again, delegate Ronald Reagan had visited on his recent Southern tour told him they might switch their votes to him if he were a declared candidate. At 4 pm Reagan returned to Miami Beach and stepped up to the press conference microphones and announced that this was what he now was.
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Harry Dent, Strom Thurmond’s man, said he’d never seen anything like what happened next. Reagan enthusiasts appeared out of nowhere. Reagan was queried for his reaction: “Gosh, I was suprised. It all came out of the blue.”…
… If one were willing to consider ‘four years of non-stop underground campaigning’ as “out of the blue”. I’ll admit I never knew how far back St. Ronnie had started to run for his eventual ascension; if we’re gonna talk about what-ifs: What if Nixon’s paranoia hadn’t been stoked by his “friends'” continual assaults on his right flank? (All we ever seem to hear about is the Original DFHs trying to garrote him with their love beads from the other side of the aisle, which is, after all, the purpose of a two-party system.)
What’s your take?
NIXONLAND, Week 8: “Violence”, “From Miami… “, “Wed. 8/28/68”Post + Comments (96)
Looking For a Book
I’m looking for something to read, but I don’t want anything but light crap- something like David Baldacci, Michael Crichton, Grisham, etc.
Anything new that fits that genre that you would recommend?
Friday Evening Open Thread
(Ohman via gocomics.com)
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Anybody got plans for the weekend that don’t involve watching college basketball?
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Reminder: This week’s NIXONLAND book discussion, Sunday afternoon 4pm EDT, chapters 13-15 (“Violence”, “From Miami to the Siege of Chicago”, and “Wednesday, Aug. 28, 1968”). Bring your bad memories…
NIXONLAND, Week 7: “The Sky’s the Limit”
He wondered why he had to go into all this. “I assumed any superintendent would issue instructions to shoot arsonists on sight and to maim the looters, but I found out this morning this wasn’t so and therefore gave him specific instructions.” [Mayor Daley] added, “If anyone doesn’t think this is a conspiracy, I can’t understand.”
Daley really had a gift for vocalizing the unconscious projection, didn’t he? There were many who saw ‘a conspiracy‘, but quite a few assumed it was The Authorities against the rest of America. I know that Conspiracy Theorizing as a way of life is usually credited to JFK and the grassy-knoll chalkboarders, but Dallas was just a point — it was the ‘twin’ assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy that turned those bullet points (sorry) into a line of thought.
I was ensconced in a blue-collar, very white NYC parish in 1968, so all I (or, I think, most of my parents’ generation) knew about Dr. King’s assassination was what we could read in the newspapers. While there certainly wasn’t much sympathy for the civil rights crusaders among those cops, firemen, civil servants, small-business workers & their wives (estimate: 50% Irish-Catholic, 35% Italian-Catholic, 5% other Catholic, 10% Jewish), I also recall an outspoken fury at the “dumb Southern rednecks” who condoned the assassination — it was seen as allowing their temper at a personal annoyance to potentially spark a much more dangerous outpouring of violence.
And, of course, Bobby Kennedy’s assassination locked that fear into a permanent state of mind. Everybody in my neighborhood “knew” it was going to happen, after the fact — “They had to take out one of OURS to balance the scales”. The only question was whether Sirhan Sirhan was the tool of “the Coloreds” or of the Elite than ran the country and the world as their private fiefdoms. And if the simplest explanation was that a shadowy ruling class was running the rest of us for a puppet show, the remaining issue was: Should you drop out of the system entirely, give up on all hope of political action (such as, for instance, voting) as a way of improving one’s chances? Or should you do whatever it might require to join the ruling class’s shock troops, and “get yourself a piece of the action”?
NIXONLAND, Week 7: “The Sky’s the Limit”Post + Comments (73)
Late Night Open Thread: March Madness
From commentor Bootlegger:
March Madness is upon us (at the very least if you have 8 and 9 year old boys who are chased indoors by the rain you are going mad).
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Register now for the Balloon Juice NCAA tournament pool, brackets will be ready for pickin’ on Sunday.
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I also created a pool for the women’s tourney here.
Reminder: This week’s NIXONLAND discussion group meets Monday evening, 8pm Eastern Daylight time. Chapter under review: “The Sky’s the Limit”.
Gail Collins’ evisceration of “Eye of the Newt” is entertaining:
Anyway, you can see how the topic of Gingrich’s home life would come up. Generally, he doesn’t seem all that thrilled by the invitation to explain himself. But he was very chatty on the Christian Broadcasting Network. Perhaps this was because of the way the interviewer, David Brody, phrased his question.
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“Talk about a forgiving God?” he asked.
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Newt was quite forthcoming about both God’s readiness to forgive him and the much, much better lifestyle he has embraced now that he’s found true love with Wife No. 3, converted to Catholicism and “learned an immense amount.”
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People, can we all agree now that men who spend their early and middle ages betraying women right and left are not allowed to get credit for discovering the joys of monogamy at about the same time that they receive their first Social Security check? …
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Gingrich offered up his analysis of the cause of his sexual indiscretions when he appeared with other presidential hopefuls at an event in Iowa sponsored by the Faith and Freedom Coalition. This is a group established by the former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed, who is recovering from a fall from grace himself. Reed’s involved secretly working with the disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff to block a ban on Internet gambling. Which I do not believe is the sort of thing you can blame on a heavy schedule and the flag.
And finally, if you are living on the left-hand coast (or just generally feeling apocalyptical) Farhad Manjoo at Slate reviews earthquake survival kits.