re: #299 Eclectic Cyborg

and here I thought Nixon was the previous standard by which all bad Presidents are measured.

Nixon was the previous standard for crookedest, but his legislative agenda was mostly pretty good. It’s why his supporters were so sad that he turned out to be a criminal.

EPA
OSHA
Title IX
Title X

These were unmitigated good things, and their goodness has only become more obvious over time.

He also had a plan for universal health care, even leftier than what we ended up getting with ACA. Ted Kennedy said many times that his greatest mistake as a senator was turning down that health care plan because he thought he’d be able to get something even better if he pushed. (I specify “as a senator”, because Mary Jo Kopechne was arguably not an “as a senator” kind of fuckup.)