I for one agree with Stein.... Time for history to speak...

YOu know what?

Stein is 100% on the spot. When Felt cam out this week I thought the exact same thing. What did Nixon do that was so wrong?

My Dad was a major Nixon fan and I liked him too. He was the first president I was old enough to vote for.

American high school kids must think all politics is oral sex by this point.

As America obsessed over the trivial Watergate scandal, Southeast Asia was proving the Domino Theory correct. As usual, the media was far more interested in reporting on itself.

Does anyone remember what he did that was bad?

Yes. He was a Republican

Gotta like Ben Stien.

Mark Felt has bought himself the worst future of any man on this earth. And Bob Woodward is right behind him, with Ben Bradlee bringing up the rear. Out of their smug arrogance and contempt, they hatched the worst nightmare imaginable: genocide.

I have noticed that despite trying to prop this guy [Felt] up, a lot of the coverage shows who he was, a hypocrite who was PO'd about not getting made FBI director

The Kharma Supermarket

I vote for that for a rotating title. What is really ironic for me is this weekend, before the Deep Throat story broke, I bought an 1970 era cookbook called "The Watergate Cookbook" supposedly filled with recipes hastily thrown together by the major Watergate players so that they could make money after all this broke because they would all be out of jobs. Iron Pipe Salad was the name of one of the recipes. I found in an old church cookbook I have that was hand typed and xeroxed a bunch of recipes from the Nixon White House, from Pat and Julie too. Very weird.

I never did like Nixon back then and didn't vote for him but Stien is on the mark about his accomplishments. I find it interesting that the hatred for Bush is very similar to the hatred of Nixon. I guess strong willed presidents that actually get things done beget that kind of hatred by the MSM. Maybe I was wrong about Nixon.

ooops, thought I could do that quote thing, didn't work

Nixon had respect for the election process. He could have challenged the election of 1960 but didn't. That's his legacy.

I don't know about this. I think Felt was an oppurtunist and I have no love for the media in general, but the reasons for the Killing Fields were legion and I am not sure what would have happened there if Nixon had stayed around. I think Stein is way smarter than I am, but he might be reaching here.

The Khmer Rouge were villains but the secret bombing of Cambodia had been met with such rage in this country I don't know if Nixon could have done much to intervene there. He might have been able to keep them from coming to power, but it is impossible to say now. All of it: the boat people, the reeducation camps and reprisal killings in South Viet Nam seems like such a useless tragedy today.

It seems that if we really wanted to change the ultimate outcome we would need to go back further in time than Watergate.

I do know that Chomsky had to crawl under a rock for a few decades after the truth came out about his heroes the Khmer Rouge, too bad he did not stay there.

this is rather inaccurate. let us not forget
nixon:
- sabotaged the Paris negotiations of 1968 only to give North Vietnam essentially the same terms a few years later. half the names on the Vietnam wall came after 1968.
- he and the Ford administration that followed essentially sold out S. Vietnam gov't, refusing to give them weapons after the US withdrew.
- as for Watergate itself, let us remember that this was an attempt to tamper with the election , and then he used the CIA to impede the FBI investigation, and he fired the special counsel and tampered with the Justice Dept. investigation.
- as for saving Israel, let us also remember that he forced Israel to not smash the Egyptian Third Army and march into Cairo, allowing Egypt to this day to claim it won the war of 1973.
- Nixon going to China may have split China from USSR, but Mao had already fallen out with the Russians long before; the Chinese got America to quit Vietnam.
- Cambodia was a mess, and Nixon's invasion of Cambodia helped contribute to the chaos which led to Pol Pot, and without. check out :
[Link: www.mekong.net...]
for a good synopsis.
i am not blaming Pol Pot on Nixon; i am blaming Nixon for invading Cambodia which accomplished nothing militarily, cost countless US lives, and helped destabilize Cambodia.

Ben Stein is so right.

JFK got us into Vietnam (mopping up after France's doomed imperialism).

Nixon got us out, but got in trouble with the liberals because he tried to actually win the war.

Nixon got in trouble in Watergate because he stuck up for his people instead of abandoning them (the Clintons have a long track record of sacrificing subordinates).

I think Bob Dole made a joke about the Watergate break-in, asking what could possibly be of value at the Democratic headquarters anyways. Can't remember much else about this because I was middle school.

It's a shame that the Democrats have yet to run a candidate with half of Nixon's sense of honor in hte years since his retirement.

The Left sows hate and reaps death.
Thanks to Ben Stein for drawing us back to Alger Hiss. It's spine-chilling to glimpse the underlying evil that moved these things. Nixon was scapegoated. He wasn't our best president, and he wasn't our worse, and he definitely didn't deserve the vicious treatment he got.

Nixon also ended the draft threrby creating the modern American military.

...yeah, leftists are fucking idiots too...

good article. nixon was a good quaker.

The MSM just loves this story so much. (Have anyone here talked to anybody not in the news business, whether Dem or Republican, who is that friggin' interested in it?)

The whole subtext of this story is "See! We really are noble seekers of truth! We're not liars with a sleazy agendas - that's the GOP! Forget Jayson Blair and Rathergate and Easongate and Newsweek - remember Woodward and Bernstein!"

It's like an tattered old whore shoving a picture of herself at age 21 in your face and screaming "This is what I used to look like! I was beautiful then! And I'm still beautiful!"

No, you're not. And you might have been in better shape when you were young, but you were still a whore.

I think it's obscene that once the shoe was on the other foot and Felt was being "charged with illegally authorizing government agents in 1972 and 1973 to break into homes without warrants in search of anti-Vietnam War bombing suspects from the radical Weather Underground organization."

What a guy! Help bring the President down. But then, when you're being charged with crimes, by prosecutors made zealous after Watergate, let him save your ass and show his decency in this situation with nary a word.

Thanks, Charles, for providing this link, and raising the possibility that Nixon was wronged by a bitter hack.

There's another thing Nixon brought us that we should all be happy for: Monica Crowley.

bambati -- The Ford administration did not deny weapons to the South Vietnamese. The radical Democrat post-Watergate congress did so. I recall President Ford (whom I have always disliked for different reason) giving an incredibly impassioned speech -- literally begging the Congress not to cut off the ammunition from the ARVN. Congress did so anyways. The South Vietnamese fought to the last bullet. They then lost.

And we saw the last helicopter out of Saigon. I have no problems with blaming Pol Pot on the liberal congress of 1975 to 77. (and on me.)

Delighted to see this posted.

Having lived through that era, and having followed it closely at the time, Nixon's main problem was that he was a something of a paranoid-type man to begin with, and then when faced with the unholy alliance of the liberal left and the MSM which were intent upon driving him from office, his paranoia spiked to a whole new level. As a result, he made some bad decisions, and he didn't handle Watergate well at all.

But just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean that people aren't out to get you.

I voted for Nixon in '72 and don't regret it a bit.

#21 Vortec

... and another.

Chuck Colson

This leaves me torn.

On Cambodia and Vietnam I think Stein has a point.

But what are we to make of the MSM’s current targeting of President Bush and its “at any cost” pursuit of scandals? Could we not trace that back to the entire Watergate scandal and (pardon the Ward Churchill reference [hate him]) the unleashing of a “million Woodward and Bernsteins”?

A mixed legacy in IMHO.

And while we are noting the MSM's blind devotion to Felt and their hero worship, why did they label Linda Tripp a snitch. Because she went to the FBI and not the NYT? If you start comparing Nixon's lies and the MSM response and that of Clinton's lies and their response the liberal slant of the media is evident to all but the media.

Think I'll sport my vintage "I'm for Dick Nixon" pin tomorrow.

#22

And we saw the last helicopter out of Saigon.

That image will stay with me until I die. I could never forget.

The only Deep Throat most people think of these days, is the old porn film... ask anyone on the street...

Frank Church, a man I respected and admired at the time was very much responsible for defanging our intelegence community as well as the military. One more thing that came from Watergate. If only I were graced with what I know now, at that time. Is there any wonder why Wapo is gloating? MSM wants a repeat. Felt
was only a small part in bringing down Nixon. I believe without him, Woodstein would still have continued its relentless quest to get Nixon.

No more movies for Ben!

What Mr. Stein is saying with his "He lied so he could stay in office and keep his agenda of peace going." is that the ends justified the means. And he is wrong; Nixon lied to save Nixon; he obstructed justice (anyone else remember the 17 minute gap in the tape recordings he made in his offices?; he lied to all of us on TV (I am not a Crook).
Nixon got us out of RVN; he DID not get back ALL of the POW's. He prevented Israel from doing what it COULD and SHOULD have done. He started the EPA because congress passed environmental legislation and he had to set up a regulatory agency to implement that act.
What Bill Clinton did was terrible and he did lie under oath (which Nixon didn't do he because he became the FIRST and so far only President in the US to resign the office of the President of the US and he did it to avoid impeachment and probable criminal prosecution) but in terms of their dishonorable actions as President, there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between Clinton and Nixon: arrogance and desperate and illegal attempts to remain in power.
Anyone who is surprised or shocked that ANY politician lied (lies) is naive in the extreme. For Mr. Stein to put such a nice spin on it is just wrong.
I voted for Nixon in 1988 and in 1972; the alternative was just unacceptable. Moreover, I believe that Nixon was never the villain people in the MSM made him out to be; but Mr. Stein has gone way overboard with this article.

1.) The defeat of the South Vietnamese government with decades of death and hardship for the people of Vietnam.

2.) The assumption of power in Cambodia by the bloodiest government of all time, the Khmer Rouge, who killed a third of their own people, often by making children beat their own parents to death. No one doubts RN would never have let this happen.

This very well may be true.

But...

Can anyone even remember now what Nixon did that was so terrible?

Uh, yes. At a minimum, ordering a cover-up of the break-in/burglary/bugging of his political opposition's headquarters by operatives connected to his own campaign.

At a maximum, possibly ordering the break-in.

So yeah, people can remember that.

Am I the only one who can't help but hear Stein's voice in their head? I hope not.

Anyway, of course he's right about most of this. I would say all except that RN would have "done something" about the Khamer Rouge. Also, spinning Nixon as a "peace maker" would be (as they say from my neck of the woods) "A hard row to hoe." China, the EPA and SALT are all examples of Kissinger's realpolitik.

He's right on about Alger Hiss, though. They had it in for Nixon from his prosecution of Hiss (who was guilty, as Nixon was just doing his job).

#21 Vortec

There's another thing Nixon brought us that we should all be happy for: Monica Crowley.

Amen. And the fact that she shares a TV show with Ron Reagan Jr is proof that God has a sense of humor.

It should be noted that there is a significant difference between Nixon and Felt. Felt was convicted. Nixon was not.

Alger Hiss was a communist. Of course the Left would retaliate for exposing him. Now they just produce documentaries on el Che, wear shirts with Lenin's picture on the front and take your freedoms and money.

Nothing has changed at all.

David Frum in his blog at National Review online says that the Watergate affair is fondly remembered by the mainstream media, for at that time the mainstream media was at their zenith of the cultural influence.
I agree. Just think--it was a time when there was no major radio personality like Rush Limbaugh; no major cable TV station; and, no widespread use of the Internet, no blogging.
I would also add that the mainstream media at that time also hurt our cause in Vietnam.
Look at the disasters the mainstream media contributed to.

In addition to Nixon and Roy Cohn, wasn't there a Kennedy on that anti-commie commission
that nailed Hiss?

lied so he could stay in office and keep his agenda of peace going.

I realize I'm in the minority here, but that line is amazingly painful to read.

I'm with (#33) realwest.

Me (#40)

By "amazingly painful" I just mean wince inducing (not actually painful, obviously).

That line cannot be taken seriously. He's laying it on thicker than molasses.

Yeh, yeh. So what?

Deep throat. Big effin deal.

Been there, done that.

So what?

Anyone done any fact checking on this claimant?

I love it that the biggest thing in the left's moral equivalency arsenal, Deep Throat's identity, didn't light up the sky and wipe the new Clinton book off the front pages.

Woodward's explanation of his meetings with Felt is totally preposterous. His reputation as well as Bradlee's and the Wapo's just hit rock bottom.

This new Clinton expose must be really something.

Great thread! Brings back many memories of that era. I was one of the last draftees in December, 1972. After MP school, I was sent to Thailand (please don't throw me in the briar patch) and arrived there in May, 1973, about a week before my 21st BD. I missed out on the WG hearings as we didn't have a TV. I remember when Agnew resigned and some guy named Gerry Ford was the new VP. A few months later, I went into the orderly room and the picture of Nixon was gone and there was just a piece of paper in the frame that said "President Gerald Ford". I didn't even know what the president looked like!

Strange days, indeed....

You guys are trying to rehabilitate Nixon now? Unbelievable! Is there no crime against America that you won't forgive Republican leaders for committing? What's next, amnesty for Spiro?

Pat Buchanon was interviewed on a local radio station this morning and said much of the same about Nixon.
The left did not want a powerful effective Republican in office for any length of time. The left brought on the deaths of millions in SE Asia. I doubt that they will accept responsibility for that.

Not to be a spoil sport, and while I think Nixon was a better President than Ford or certainly Carter (in Ford's defense all he could do was veto the Demonrat Congress' bills, he couldn't do a thing), he was about as liberal as Clinton was (Nixon was the POTUS that gave us OSHA and wage and price controls), he apparently had a drinking problem, may have expressed antisemitic feeling to Kissinger, of all people, and did break the law.

And I think the US would have been spared the disaster that was Jimmy Carter if Watergate had never happened.

One other thought. It was a Republican, Howard Baker of Tennessee, who said "what did the president know, and when did he know it". The Republicans in Congress would have impeached and convicted Nixon for his crimes. Compare and contrast to the Demonrats dealing with the Demonrat Clinton who lied to a grand jury under oath, and encouraged others, to lie under oath.

44 Huckfunn

I've been drunk in Pattaya and Bangkok.

The escape is about to begin.

Did I mention, best movie ever made (unless it was the 1938 materpiece "The Hurricane", with Dorothy Lamour) is on.

They are moving through the tunnel. My wife thinks this movie is a downer, because of what the Gestapo does at the end, but at least James Coburn makes it to Spain. And Steve McQueen on a motorcycle on the Swiss border?

#48 Ed

Heard that. Add Phuket to the mix.

#4

Yes. He was a Republican

Sounds like Howard "I hate Republicans" Dean.

#48 Ed Mahmoud abu al Qahool Martyr Brigades

I was at Camp Same San, Sattahip (right next to Utapao AFB) for 18 months. My hootch was about 4 blocks from the gulf of Thailand. Pattaya and Bangkok were our playgrounds. War is hell.

When his enemies brought him down, and they had been laying for him since he proved that Alger Hiss was a traitor, since Alger Hiss was their fair-haired boy, this is what they bought for themselves in the Kharma Supermarket that is life:

love that

I've never seen "karma" with an 'h' in it.

It means "action" and is cognate to "kara" which means "hand" or to do something by hand. Both come from IE root kwer, "to make."

Now, "dharma" has an 'h' because it's a different sound than an unadorned 'd.' "Dharma" is cognate with "throne" the 'h' is needed. Both are from IE root dher, "to hold."

"Dharma" means Law, or Truth - something held - as in "we hold these Truths to be self-evident...."

"Karma" can be translated as "fate" because your actions determine your fate.

I almost ran over Ben Stein (and his son) once. I was driving my '61 Ford Falcon down Franklin in Hollywood, doing about 45 mph, and they ran right out in front of my car.
Close call.

Good guy though.

#53 Free Speech Is Only For über-Libs

I love ol' Ben. He gives great haiku.

If any of you have not read Nixon's Memiors I would highly recomend giving it a look (it's two books though so it would help if your a big fan of politics otherwise you might not make it through the whole thing!) it is deeply personal and allows us to see the whole thing from the only perspective that mattered; Nixon's

Bob Munck-
We are not trying to rehabilitate Nixon, he was a criminal, but unlike any other chief executive, he had a sense of honor and accepted responsibility for what he did by resigning from office. And the cover-up did not negate all the good that the man did, which, when compared to any of his successors, was pretty damned impressive.

Note to Ed- Nixon was a teetotaller. I think I heard a story of him losing sobriety once because he had t drink saki as part of a ceremony when visiting Japan because he had no tolerance for alcohol.

The Watergate scandal began with a botched burglary in June 1972, but subsequent investigations by Congress, the Justice Department, and the news media revealed a much broader network of corruption and criminality. Prior to the burglary, Nixon aides had already placed wiretaps at Democratic National Committee Headquarters at the Watergate office complex. Ultimately, Nixon's closest political aides went to prison: Attorney General and director of the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CRP) John Mitchell; chief of staff H.R. "Bob" Haldeman; top domestic affairs adviser John Ehrlichman; White House counsel John W. Dean III; and White House special counsel Charles W. Colson. CRP engaged in what Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein called "a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage conducted on behalf of President Nixon's re-election." The campaign involved "following members of Democratic candidates' families and assembling dossiers on their personal lives; forging letters and distributing them under the candidates' letterheads; leaking false and manufactured items to the press; throwing campaign schedules into disarray; seizing confidential campaign files; and investigating the lives of dozens of Democratic campaign workers." White House aides also carried out the burglary of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office and wiretapped news reporters who revealed information that the White House wanted kept secret. (Ellsberg had leaked the Pentagon Papers to Congress and the media.)

Nixon also abused executive branch agencies for political purposes: He urged the IRS to audit journalists and political opponents and instructed a deputy attorney general in the Justice Department's antitrust division not to file a brief opposing a merger involving a major campaign contributor, International Telephone and Telegraph Co. (ITT). Nixon's resignation followed the discovery of a White House recording of Nixon, one week after the Watergate burglary, approving a plan by Haldeman to use the CIA to thwart the FBI's investigation into the burglary.

Note that this doesn't even mention that Nixon lied to the American people; that was way, way down the list of his crimes and misdemeanors.

#49 Ed - yeah, The Great Escape is one of my all time favorites too; great actors and acting and direction and all the rest.
But Steve McQueen - the epitome of cool, bouncing and catching his baseball when in "solitary".
But the best two "movement" moments in American film are McQueen on his bike and Mcqueen again in his Mustang in that great chase scene in Bullitt.

I was a teenager during the Nixon years, and it was an eye-opener as to how American politics operate. Nixon did some good things but that does not excuse that he lied to the American public in an attempt to protect his "boys" and himself after the bungled, unnecessary and criminally stupid burglary at the Watergate. Nixon was not a saint by any stretch of the imagination, he used the IRS to audit the taxes of his enemies, which is nothing but naked political intimidation. He deserved what he got, and was lucky not to be impeached and jailed.
Contrast this with continuous shenigans of the Clinton administration, the 900+ FBI security files the Clinton administration possessed was also political intimidation, but nothing seem to come of it. The continual sexual scandals of Mr. Bill only heightened the feeling of unreality among us who did not understand why the media was playing so coy with same type of sexual scandal that they had sunk numerous politicians with in the past. This was what caused many Americans to start questioning possible bias of the MSM. The 2004 election was where the MSM lost all credibility with its unbelievably sympathetic coverage of Kerry along with the savage attacks against Bush. For the MSM, Watergate was the high point of American journalism. Now they are in the gutter.

I think the media loved Watergate. It was their shining moment. They want desperately to have a repeat. It would be bad for the country, but who cares about that?

In truth I think a lot of people today don't really care about Watergate and many of the ones who do wonder if the journalists involved were on the up and up.

But Woodward has been surprisingly decent about Bush. so far.

tankdemon -- in the few months before his resignation, Nixon supposedly became a heavy drinker. I don't doubt that you are right otherwise.

Nixon had two great moments when he gave up his ambition for his country -- November 1960 when he chose not to contest the election and 1974 when he rejected Pat Buchanan's advice to throw down the gauntlet and make a latter-day Dreyfuss case.

He, IMHO, compares favorably to Al Gore and Bill Clinton for these two actions.

If the media was so interested in another Watergate sized story, Hillary would be sitting in prison instead of the Senate.

#59 Bob Munck

Note that this doesn't even mention that Nixon lied to the American people

Now, there's a SHOCKA! What president hasn't lied to the American people? What grade are you in?

Broke in to a psychiatrist office to steal patients records
Broke in to the rival parties office to plant bugs and steal files
Had $1,000,000 is illegal cash in a safe in the White House to pay crooks
Committed perjury
Stole taxpayer money to build a vacation home, then lied when caught

Yea he was a scumbag…and I am a Republican

READ THIS! READ THIS! *********************

He tried to protect the people that had helped him.

IMO Nixon was set up,there was no purpose to the Watergate break-in.It was a 2-bit burglary by third rate bunglers,they wanted to be caught,1 asshat even dropped his wallet at the hotel.

If not for Watergate.Nixon would have been remembered as one of the greatest presidents.

Thanks for reminding us,Ben.

Bravo to Ben Stein.
The LLL's used the "plumbers" to sink Nixon. 30 years later, Newsweek tried to flush Bush. Some of the same players are still around, like Hillary "Whitewater" Clinton and wet Teddy.
Same shi'ite, different day. Only, this time we're wise to the fake but accurate MSM.

(#63) levi from queens

and 1974 when he rejected Pat Buchanan's advice to throw down the gauntlet and make a latter-day Dreyfuss case.

Can you elaborate for those of us who are unfamiliar with this episode?

Cheers.

Richard Nixon lied about a technical burglary.

The South Vietnamese government was defeated.

The Khmer Rouge assumed Cambodia and murdered a third of it.

Abe Vigoda told Leonard Bernstein.

I absolutely DESPISED Nixon when he was President (course that was back in my left-wing moonbat phase). Still don't think very highly of him. However, as mentioned the Left and MSM was against him because of Hiss. He was paranoid about the Dems and the election process cause of the 1960 presidential run against Kennedy. He beleived that the election was stolen from him via fraud (and was probably right). In particular there was a lot of questionable voting in Daley's (the first one) Chicago. Note: that he had the class to NOT demand repeated recounts and continuously whine because he thought it bad for the country.

Terrye wrote:

But Woodward has been surprisingly decent about Bush. so far.

Wasn't he the one who predicted that whole scenario that everyone liberal quoted as dogma for a while that Bush was planning on letting oil prices rise, so that he could intercede with the Saudis before the election and get them lowered, to help him win the election. And the left was suckered by it.

Or was that Bernstein?

#63
Some revisionists say Nixon did not contest Illinois because while Daley was counting the dead vote in Chicago, there were GOP shenanigans in the conservative southern Illinois. I do not know if any of it is true.

Lest we forget, RMN also killed the Apollo program and had flight-ready Saturn 5 rockets stripped to prevent the U.S. from continuing to lead in space exploration. Part of his legacy is that right now the only country that can send people to orbit on a regular basis is, well, NOT the U.S.A.
Nixon was not good for this country or for the world, and his damage lives long after him. Don't make a hero out of a crook who failed his country miserably.

SoCal -- Pat Buchanan pointed out that it was District of Columbia juries which convicted the Watergate burglars -- and D.C. was 70% black and blacks voted 90% against Nixon. His point was that an unbiased jury pool would have worked differently. He wanted Nixon to rally a white base against the media and the democrats. To Nixon's everlasting credit, he resigned instead.

The strategy probably would have failed, but it would surely have caused lasting damage to the national fabric before it failed.

"It depends on what the meaning of 'break in' is".

I think even more than the fact that Nixon was a powerful Rep Pres, the left hated him because he was a brooding, stand-offish man. Clinton is the ultimate charmer. To quote Pulp Fiction, personality goes a long ways, and Nixon had a deficit of personality.

Clinton has that loveable rogue, car salesman schtik. He could get caught pimping the Queen Mum and get by with a smile and a shrug.

The corruption of Agnew, the war, then the break in. It all lead to a feeling of shoddiness and underhandedness. Stiff, scowling Nixon with his sweaty lip only seemed to confirm it.

Remember, Liberals feel, they emote. Nixon sent out an ugly vibe that helped to confirm the lefts dislike of his politics. He wasnt cool, he wasnt hip, he wasnt.... slick.

#74 sigfried 6/2/2005 07:23PM PDT

Pardon me, Roy, is that the cat that chewed your new shoes?

To me the Watergate affair and the subsequent downfall of Richard Nixon was the stuff of tragedy. Nixon was an unlikeable man who (as Steyn pointed out)accomplished of good. He was brought down over a petty cover up following a relatively minor political dirty trick. The great irony of the Watergate break-in was Nixon's opponent in the '72 election: one George McGovern. McGovern was the Dennis Kucinich (sp?)of his day- trying to be the first hippie president. McGovern didn't have a snowflake's chance in hell of getting elected. Even I, a dope smokin' hippie at the time, thought McGovern was a loser. I remember the Watergate frenzy got me far more pissed at the media than it did at Nixon.
JWM

levi from queens,

Interesting.

They don't call him Pitchfork Pat for nothing.

What a creep.

Nixon got in trouble for trying to save some of those that worked under him in his re-election campaign. His crime was to help cover-up their doings. Watergate became the rosetta stone for the MSM. Media behavior has changed since then for the worst, IMHO. Watergate shifted the goalposts of respect for the office of the president for the worse. That's why they go after Bush so vehemently. Alas, our society becomes coarser.

If you recall, Even Kerry was sent into Cambodia by Nixon before he was inaugurated in 1969.

I didn't vote for Nixon in 1968 or 1972. Actually, I didn't vote at all in 1968 because I was in the Army and too busy. In 1972 I voted for McGovern; what a choice, Nixon the crook or McGovern the imbecile---I chose stupidity over duplicity. I never liked Nixon, he didn't pass my political smell test and he really didn't have a "secret plan" to get us (and me) out of Vietnam. So 31 years later the MSM is celebrating its one big triumph and wondering where all its power went. But Woodward and Bernstein have been usurped by Jayson Blair, Eason Jordan and "fake but accurate" memos. Watching the TV the past few days is like watching a 50 year class reunion---they even interviewed Robert Redford! After all he played Woodward in a movie so he must have plenty of insights into Watergate. I'm surprised no has interviewd Anthony Hopkins who played Richard Nixon in Oliver Stone's opus.

#81 jayfen

How can I forget,it is seared,SEARED into my memory.

Oliver Stoned

Clinton could have all the blowjobs he wanted, that was between him and the lesbian that lived with him.

But he lied in a deposition, and repeated the lie under oath before a grand jury.

The Republicans showed they would not cover for Nixon, the Demonrats showed they put politics ahead of justice and integrity.

#78 jwm

I agree totally! Brothers of the hemp, now recovered. I still remain po'd at the MSM to this day for the same reasons.

#80 GeeWiz

Well said! MSN views every GOP admin through the prism of Watergate and Viet Nam and they just won't let it go.

81 jayfen

Why do you want to go and bring Kerry into this. Nixon was, by comparison, an honorable man.
Of course, I think he was, by comparison, and honorable man compared to any of the presidential nominees the dems have brought up since his resignation.

Nixon's bombing of Cambodia started a chain of events that eventually led to the exile of the king and rise of the Khmer Rouge. I dont think there was anything he could have done to stop them and the genocide once it started, after a decade of war in Vietnam.

The left just can't stop licking Dick.

Ben Stein is my hero ;)

No fan of Nixon here. He merited impeachment more than Clinton.

Now because someone is a Republican they are automatically good?

#90
"The left just can't stop licking Dick."
And Deep Throat is in the lead.

#85 Ed

ding! ding! ding! give that man a cigar. oops wrong choice of prize.

Problem I have with anyone with a vendetta to bring down an individual, is that you bring down the entire country with it. And that is just dispicable.

93 jayfen

Swish!

McGovern was a campaign volunteer in 1948 for Henry Wallace, who was FDRs SecAg, visited the Soviet Union, saw the gulags, and still decided the Soviet system was superior. Back when there were still patriotic Democrats, like Harry S. Truman, Wallace bolted the party to run on the "Progressive" (ie, Communist) ticket. His campaign manager was a Soviet agent. Amazing, in a way, that Truman beat Dewey, with almost 10% of the vote going to the pro-Klan "Dixiecrats" of Thurmond, and almost another 10% going to the Soviet party.

Although the Soviet Union has fallen, they did achieve one of their goals, near complete control of a major US political party.

#74 sigfried is another misguided fool who thinks the "space race" was about getting man into space...

#84 jayfen

Oliver Stoned

Poor Oliver, the complete failure of "Alexander" caused him to revert to his former bad habits. He's such a sniveling weasel that, at his trial, he'll blame his drug and alcohol problems on trauma he suffered in Vietnam.

OT:

Let us look ahead, say 30 years. By then the young men volenteering for duty today will be of age to run for congress, the senate and the white house.

How does the military tend to vote? To the right of center. Who is against the war? Those on the left.

In 30 years time most of the people running for high office that had also served in the miltary will be Reps. Once again the left will face a generation of canidates without military service. Men and women weighted down with sordid anti-war, anti-American protest speaches.

The left is facing a half century of grasping at any candidate with a service record. We could all be looking at another 50 years of the Kerry refrain.

"Did you know I served in Iraq? Bush sent me on a secret mission into Syria. I snuck navy seals across the boarder on a hover craft and a CIA spook gave me this magic turban".

Ya know Ed, seems to me you are right on. After this last election propaganda fest from the left, I suspect highly that the dems have been heavily infiltrated by "commies"... problem I have with this so called radicals who hate America and capatolism is that they all live the life only capatolism will afford. Nothing more I hate than phonies.

#80 GeeWiz 6/2/2005 07:26PM PDT

I'm sorry. But the clue was "template."

Thank you for playing.

Better luck next time.

But we do have a consolation prize . . . the home version of our game . . .

"What-Kind-of-Bull-Shit-Will-They-Try - Next?"

Until tomorrow at 5:45 a.m., please don't register to vote . . . and be sure that you buy . . .

Novosoy Brand Isoflavones -

Look For the Small Print!

and please excuse me that I can't spell. Seem to have a disconnect somewhere.

Nixon raised taxes, instituted price controls, and was a raging anti-semite. By cutting off arms transfers to the South Vietnamese after we pulled out, he eliminated any chance they had to defend themselves from the North. And his decision to bomb Cambodia set off a chain reaction that helped bring the Khmer Rouge to power.

Even if you ignore Watergate and the other scandals, Nixon was still the worst Republican President of the 20th century, and third-worst overall (behind Wilson and LBJ).

#99
I suffered Stone's Vietnam trama when I saw
"Platoon" It was the feature presentation of a Quinn-Martin production where every crime was commited by a crazed Vietnam Vet.

Bob24 -- it is not my memory that Nixon cut off arm transfers to ARVN. I remember that as congressional action in 1975 after Nixon had resigned. Do you have a link -- (or a reference)?

" and third-worst overall (behind Wilson and LBJ)."
Carter was so bad he doesn't even count.

#61 LoFlyer 6/2/2005 07:12PM PDT

Contrast this with continuous shenigans of the Clinton administration, the 900+ FBI security files the Clinton administration possessed was also political intimidation, but nothing seem to come of it. The continual sexual scandals of Mr. Bill only heightened the feeling of unreality among us who did not understand why the media was playing so coy with same type of sexual scandal that they had sunk numerous politicians with in the past. This was what caused many Americans to start questioning possible bias of the MSM.

Excuse me but I remember NPR and TV anchors gunning for Clinton on the Monica scandal and going completely nuts that public opinion wasn't budging. They thought they understood the limits of the American public and the fact that half the public could not be moved by constant exhortations threw the MSM into a "wait a second, we're supposed to control public opinion" panic. They were pissed pissed pissed that they could cover a story 24/7 without affecting the president's ratings.

Sure lots of liberals in the MSM were on Clinton's side, but don't forget the gunning for Monica 24/7.

The 2004 election was where the MSM lost all credibility with its unbelievably sympathetic coverage of Kerry along with the savage attacks against Bush. For the MSM, Watergate was the high point of American journalism. Now they are in the gutter.

Now that I'll believe.

Nixon's fatal mistakes were:

1) He came into office at the height of the Vietnam War, so he immediately became the lightning rod for the anti-war, anti-American left; despite the fact that he did not start the war, and in fact was trying to extricate us from it.

2) He kept an audiotape-recording system in the Oval Office for historical purposes. (A mistake, you might note, that NONE of his successors has repeated).

Aside from that, he behaved no differently from any of his immediate predecessors. Most of whom (with the notable exception of Ike) were corrupt to one degree or another, and some of whom (LBJ) were astonishingly corrupt, much more so than Nixon.

Alas, the historical book on this period has already been written, by people like Woodward and Bernstein, long ago.

The members of the modern American press have wet dreams about being the next wood-stein and destroying a Presidency.

Bob24-

Have you ever heard of Clinton, Carter, GHW Bush, Kennedy, Ford, Hoover, or Wilson? Perhaps you might consider changing your rankings.

Even if you ignore Watergate and the other scandals, Nixon was still the worst Republican President of the 20th century,

But still, Jay, no matter how horrid a man might be, to bring down the entire nation just because a president was fucked up, is not a good enough excuse. Wait till he is out of office. It's like tearing apart a life boat at sea just because you don't like the design. Maybe not a good analogy. But, one man is not worth a nation.

That's the problem with the left today. They hate Bush so much, as if this nation belongs to him.... and do everything to destroy this nation just to destroy one man. Not good.

. . . even Richard Nixon has got soul . . .

Neil Young

Of the 76 that escape, 50 were shot by the Gestapo, 2 escaped to a Swiss freighter, the Australian made it to España, Donald Pleasance was shot by German troops after the Luftwaffe trainer James Garner had borrowed crashed in the Alps just short of Switzerland, and the rest, including Steve McQueen, the "Cooler King", were captured and returned to the stalag.

Hmmm.

I'm comparing the crazy nonsense that Bill and Hillary did in their 8 years vs the Nixon administration and all I can see is:

Hey Nixon wasn't that bad.

Wasn't Nixon a pretty big Jew-hater?

#102 Habib
LOL better choice of words. Ahhh the hour is late on the east coast and I must get to bed. Work and all, even tho Howie thinks that we don't actually work for our money, buts thats another thread. nite all.

It was true then and remains true to this day; from the left's perspective the outcome is inmaterial - only the intent. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Castro are all patron saints of the left because no matter how it turned out, they all meant well.

ed-
Many that were returned to the stalag were taken out and shot. Do you think that those prisoners wished for the treatment we give our guests at Abu Grahib and Gitmo?

Ed - I believe you have hit the nail on the head.

Hmmm.

Maybe we should start pushing for the next aircraft carrier to be called the "Richard Millhouse Nixon".

So that would be: CVN 78 the Richard M. Nixon

a ka "Tricky Dick"

Heh. Watch the liberals go absolute f-ing batshit crazy.

I LOVE IT!

ed - BRILLIANT!

Joshua Scholar -- I thought the MSM reporting on Clinton was materially different than Nixon. Most reporting on Clinton was opinion polls showing that most of the population did not really care. While this was also true of public opinion during the early months of Watergate, all of the reporting was on the substance of the activities. A similar focus on the Clinton coverups would probably have had a similar result. Even during the impeachment trials of Clinton, the focus of reportage was on opinion polling instead of the substance of perjury.

Better yet, rename the Kennedy.

#108
As another view of the elephant, I thought the MSM were ebuliant that the Monica story was not gaining momentum with the public. With the exception of Fox, the media kept the focus of the story on sex, both for ratings and to obfuscate the underlying charges of lying under oath. Most of us empathized with the philandering liar without realizing he is a lawyer, and he knows the laws when it comes to perjury.

I agree with Stein on this but, to play devils advocate....had Watergate not happened would Ronald Reagan ever been president? Ford likely would've been elected in 76 instead of Carter and been a one term prez, so in 80 we would've got a dem? who knows but worth pointing out.

If we had to suffer through watergate bs to get Reagan it was worth it.

nixon was a piece of utter dog crap. he was way over-demonized by a left that collapsed into itself, but STein's column is silly.

were lbj and jfk bad--yeah. But Nixon was a thug. any serious commentary needs to take into account his utter depravity in accomplishing what he wanted.

He was a breed apart. Oh, and he had a special, special place in his heart for anyone he suspected was Jewish. Oh yeah, a biiiiig fan of the tribe.

Hmmm.

"Better yet, rename the Kennedy."

No. The JFK is nearing the end of it's useful lifespan. Renaming it would be a useless gesture. On the other hand a brand new aircraft carrier would last another 50 years.

Hmmmmm. 50 years of reports about, and from, the Richard M. Nixon. lol.

Rod

LBJ wrote the book on depraved. Nixon was a choir boy compared to him.

Nixon

Nixon was a lying crook and shouldn't be defended by anyone. the MSMs big mistake is that they think Bush = Nixon, and they're dead wrong.

OT...just saw this on Yahoo news...has it been posted here yet?...could develop into something interesting:
U.N.: Weapons Equipment Missing in Iraq By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 38 minutes ago

UNITED NATIONS - U.N. satellite imagery experts have determined that material that could be used to make biological or chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles has been removed from 109 sites in Iraq, U.N. weapons inspectors said in a report obtained Thursday.

entre article:
[Link: news.yahoo.com...]

True, Ed. But think of how much it would annoy the Libs. Just watching the fits and public displays of distress is reason enough.

Hmmm.

"were lbj and jfk bad--yeah. But Nixon was a thug. any serious commentary needs to take into account his utter depravity in accomplishing what he wanted."

I see you can excuse the Tonkin Gulf incident easily.

LBJ deceived the American public more times, and with far more serious consequences, than Nixon ever did. And yet Nixon is pilloried?

And let's not forget the absolute and utter disaster LBJ's "The Great Society". Welfare just about completely destroyed the black American culture and left in it's wake alcoholic violence prone black men and black women who were often single mothers, and with multiple children to boot.

Then there's LBJ's fradulent Silver Star. Any reporter who gave a damn could have easily refuted that piece of nonsense.

Don't even get me started on JFK.

As much as I like and admire Ben Stein, I know his view is a bit biased when it comes to Nixon. Stein worked in the Nixon White House as a writer and a lawyer. I do not dispute Stein's list of accomplishments achieved by Nixon. But, there are serious matters and crimes, that can not be dismissed, despite Ben Stein's cheerleading.

Nixon did do the following: He tried to subvert and impede the FBI's criminal investigation into the Watergate break-in. He refused to honor lawful subpoenas by Special Counsel, Archibald Cox, and tried to have him fired. When his Attorney General and his deputy refused, he fired them.
Stein tries to dismiss Nixon's actions by saying

"He was a politician who lied. How remarkable."

Well, when you lie about a campaign promise, that is one thing. When you lie trying to cover-up a crime, that is a whole different matter. In retrospect, Nixon's big mistake was he acted like many politicians when confronted with a crime; he tried to cover it up. It's a kneejerk reaction. Reagan did it on Iran-Contra. Clinton did in the Whitewater/Lewinsky matter
Nixon's actions led this country into a constitutional crisis. The revelation that W. Mark Felt was "Deep Throat" , does not absolve Nixon of his misdeeds.

Paul Johnson is much more of a fan of Nixon than I am, but in his book "A History of the American People," he points out something I never before thought of when considering Nixon: the Yom Kippur War. He pointed out that Nixon acted very decisively and ordered that Israel be resupplied.

Without the resupply, which transformed Israel's sagging morale, it is likely that the Israeli army would have been destroyed and the entire Israeli nation extermined. Indeed, it is probable that this is precisely what would have happened, had Nixon already been driven from his post at this stage. In many ways, October 1973,...,was his finest hour.

I'm not convinced by Johnson's arguments about Watergate ("Johnson and FDR spied on their political opponents too") but, sheesh - imagine if the Yom Kippur attack had occurred during Carter's Presidency.

The worst thing about Watergate (which was a true scandal) is that it led to the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976. We responded to a headache by shooting ourselves in the head. Carter was the worst President in American history, feckless and incompetent, and he's still with us! He's still toadying to left wing dictators and terrorist thugs, he's still undercutting every President who's succeeded him.

This was posted on the misc. thread the other day. I wrote the following then:

I like ben Stein. However, in all fairness, he should have noted the following when making his comments about Felt:

Ben Stein's father, Herb Stein, was Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under President Richard M. Nixon, which presumably helped young Stein, just a few years out of law school, get hired as a Nixon speechwriter.

[Link: www.nndb.com...]

Worst Presidents of the 20th Century are:

Jimmy Carter
LBJ
William Howard Taft
Hoover
Clinton
FDR
William Harding
Gerald Ford (does he really count?)
GHWB
Woodrow Wilson (though he should probably be higher, I'm not sure I'd move him above these others)

#123 levi from queens

Well it's true that they didn't go after the worst they could (I think they felt that a lot of the women remembering Clinton's misdoing must be political operatives). As for perjury a lot of people, myself included, felt that it was wrong for congress to be asking a president about his dick and not only didn't care that he lied, but wished he had told congress to go to hell.

For a lot of people who aren't right wing Christians, the idea of congress going on puritanical sexual witch hunts seems infinitely more scary than the crime (adultery). I think the MSM avoided the purgery because for half the the country, the image of Congress going after a man's dick would prejudice people in favor of Clinton.

So there were reasons they avoided the purjery and the other charges... But they really seemed to believe that adultery, completely apart from the Washington sideshow, would bring Clinton down and they played that as hard as they could.

Hmmm.

Anybody else notice when Kofi Annan gets into hot water the UN inspectors find something in Iraq?

Anybody remember Al-Caqca, or whatever the hell that place was named?

Anybody remember the reports, which have been appearing for the last 2 years, about scrap metal appearing in Dutch scrap metal yards. Scrap metal that came from Iraq that were either missile parts or assorted machinery?

I'd be very surprised if this weren't just a rehashing of old news.

I never liked Nixon in those days, but I was young and more easily led by the MSM then. In retrospect, he was one of the few who actually did anything positive. He would be considered a boy scout by today's low standards. And he sure as hell wouldn't let Mexico invade and take over our country, like Mr. Bush is doing!

Joshua -- as I recall the defense was that it was adultery. The charge was perjury. The democrats played up the sex angle as hard as possible -- as in these are just a bunch of hypocritical puritans going after our president. Give Clinton credit -- it worked. I would never have thought that the defense that some other crime wasn't that bad would be sufficiently distracting to allow the thesis that a president is not bound to tell the truth in court.

We probably were paying attention to different stations at the time. I didn't have a TV so I mostly listened to NPR (and maybe PBS radio).

I remember that NPR anchors where crazy frustrated that they the numbers weren't budging. Though of course they couldn't say that directly.

On Nixon and the Jews:

Nixon and the Jews. Again.
If his tirades against Jews weren't anti-Semitism, what were they?
By David Greenberg
Posted Tuesday, March 12, 2002, at 8:44 AM PT

Richard Nixon's reputation as a hateful, vindictive anti-Semite was reinforced late last month when the National Archives, which has been releasing the 3,700 hours of Nixon's tape-recorded White House conversations in installments since 1996, dropped another batch.

Whenever new Nixon tapes are released, the next-day stories invariably highlight the most outrageous tidbits, which typically include some anti-Jewish slurs. This go-round was no exception. Along with Nixon's apparently unserious threat to nuke Vietnam, reporters pounced on this 1972 exchange about Jews in the media between Nixon and the Rev. Billy Graham:

BG: This stranglehold has got to be broken or the country's going down the drain.

RN: You believe that?

BG: Yes, sir.

RN: Oh, boy. So do I. I can't ever say that, but I believe it.

BG: No, but if you get elected a second time, then we might be able to do something.

As the Chicago Tribune noted, Nixon, Graham, and Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman also cracked anti-Semitic jokes, discussed which journalists were Jewish, and lamented that Washington reporting had deteriorated since Jews entered the trade. (As the National Archives explains here, there are no complete transcripts of the tapes. However, historian Stanley Kutler edited a valuable collection of transcripts relating to Nixon's Watergate transgressions, entitled Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes, and a University of Virginia project is planning to publish volumes of additional transcripts.)

[Link: slate.msn.com...]

Hmmm.

"I think the MSM avoided the purgery because for half the the country, the image of Congress going after a man's dick would prejudice people in favor of Clinton."

I'm sure you mean well, but really. Are you joking?

Is it strange I should change?
I don't know, why don't you ask Schmerel.

edr--

i'll grant you that LBJ was trash, pure and simple. you are correct in calling me on tonkin.

i guess i am trying, perhaps not deftly, to seperate the policy from personal. Personally, Nixon was appalling, when there was nothing at stake. I could have beaten McGovern in '72 ( I was 4) and '68 wasn't far behind that.

policy wise, lbj's great society was bad; carter was worse though.

please don't read that im issuing free passes here, just establishing a hierarchy of crappiness.

How does Stein rationalize Nixon's imposition of wage and price controls?

I'd love to read it. It's probably the funniest stuff he's ever written.

Someday, Nixon will be revered not just as a peacemaker but as a martyr and prophet of the decades-long struggle against the institutional media culture.

As I have mentioned a number of times, the 1960 election, which Nixon lost because he looked bad during the televised debates, was the real beginning of institutional media power as we know and loathe it today.

As the victim in the MSM's first significant intrusion into real power, Nixon had a kind of negative attraction for the media lords; a convenient lightning rod and foil for their continued exercise of power in its heyday, the early 70s.

Nixon's resignation was the absolute high-water mark of institutional media power in this country, emphasized by the victory of their defacto allies and clients, the Vietnamese Stalinists, just a few months later.

Another Republican who is not always fully telegenic, George W. Bush, will mark the final downfall of the institutional media culture and its nihilistic empire, just as Nixon marked its greatest triumph.

Joshua Scholar
"felt that it was wrong for congress to be asking a president about his dick and not only didn't care that he lied, but wished he had told congress to go to hell."
.
.
It's all a matter of trust & principal.
For a sitting President to sit in front of the American people & LIE in un-forgivable.
The fact is, what if the "Monica" person was a mole or spy?
What of the families that were ruined by clinton's cover-up?
Should they be told to "go to hell" also?!

#143 levi from queens

It worked for me. I don't want Congress engaging in sexual witch hunts.

When Larry Flint started digging up dirt on all those hypocritical bastards I was all "way to go."

Funny thing, in my experience those right wing Christians cheat on their wives more shamelessly than everyone else. Other sorts of people are at least close to breaking up before they start fucking the secretary.

I can't go back and edit but I was thinking Teapot dome and writing Taft when I should have written Harding.

So the revised list is:

Jimmy Carter
LBJ
Harding
Hoover
Clinton
FDR
Gerald Ford
GHWB
Woodrow Wilson

I for one can say something terrible about that left wing lunatic, Nixon. Price controls! Rot in H@ll!

Hmmm.

"Richard Nixon's reputation as a hateful, vindictive anti-Semite was reinforced late last month when the National Archives, which has been releasing the 3,700 hours of Nixon's tape-recorded White House conversations in installments since 1996, dropped another batch."

So what? Am I to be impressed by this? This is some sort of evidence that will sway my opinion into thinking less of the man?

Here's a question for you. You think he was talking about jews in the media because they were jews? Or because they were in the media and looking to get his scalp?

color me unimpressed.

Folks, lets not get carried away here.

The Clinton Impeachment was nothing but a "set piece". Congress indicted knowing full well that there was no way in hell the Senate was going to convict.

On the other hand in Watergate, indictment and conviction was almost assured as soon as the special committee voted to send the articles of indictment to the House.

#151 RebTex

We better agree to disagree. But if you ignore the fact that half of the country thinks like I do on this issue then you're in la la land. It's useful to maintain a realistic sense of what the public thinks no matter what you believe personally. I fully understand that most conservative Christians disagree with me.

I wonder if conservative Christians understand as fully as I do that the difference in our points of view has nothing to do with what we think about lying and everything to do with what we think about Christian anti-sexual-freedom rage.

Of course, if the Demonrats had the integrity the Republicans had during the Watergate hearings, Clinton would either have resigned or been convicted in the Senate, Gore would have been the incumbent during the 2000 election, the electorate would not have had the "Clinton fatigue" that probably made the difference in the defeat of Gore, and 9-11 would have happened as planned.

Gore would have ordered a few dozen cruise missiles fired into freshly abandoned al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, sent Madeline Albright to the UN for a harshly worded resolution, had Janet Reno or her AG succesor push for grand jury indictments against bin Laden, and then it would have been over.

Until the next terror attack, of course.

When Felt was put on trial in 1980 Richard Nixon was his star witness --subpeonaed by Felt to testify for him. Felt was convicted anyway. Nixon no doubt never knew that he was called by Deep Throat for his help, and Reagan no doubt never knew that it was Deep Throat that he was issuing a pardon to when that happened not too much later. And now Felt postures himself as the one who saved the republic from Nixon, with his hands out asking for money. What a slimeball.

Joshua -- you were only listening to the most pro-Clinton of media if you only heard NPR and PBS-- even moreso than the NYT. No wonder you seem to think that Clinton's impeachment was about adultery.

It was in fact about lying to the court.

The people of the United States would never act on adultery before his wife-- who chose not to for whatever reasons.

The remaining question is did the country gain by his acquittal? I am personally apalled(sp.?) by the idea that the President is free to lie to a court, if it is on a subject which makes people uncomfortable.

edr
"color me unimpressed"

Fine. Have you read them? Maybe you should...you won't be so ignorant.

Hmmm.

"The Clinton Impeachment was nothing but a "set piece". Congress indicted knowing full well that there was no way in hell the Senate was going to convict."

Really? I had always thought that many members of congress believed the impeachment would go through. Included in this list were Al Gore and Bill Clinton.

So. I know you've got proof right?

#162 levi from queens

I understand full well that right wing Christians all maintained that it was about lying under oath.

You're insulting my intelligence.

Hmmm.

"Fine. Have you read them? Maybe you should...you won't be so ignorant."

You're linking to Slate and you're calling me ignorant?

Reread that little piece of the conversation you quoted and look at it in context.

Hipocracy swings both ways. Does anyone remember Bob Packwood, and the treatment he got from congress? There is no consistancy in politics, save defending your party no matter what. One thing I noticed, Republicans are not nearly as good at it as Democrats.

MJ 145: Well, if what Johnson said about Nixon and the Yom Kippur War is true, what would you rather have:

A. A President who laughs at anti-Semitic jokes and resupplies Israel, or;
B. A President who would never dream of laughing at an anti-Semitic joke who invites Arafat to the White House?

Mind you, I'm in no position to judge whether what Johnson wrote (see my post #136 is accurate. I know the basic facts about the Yom Kippur War, but I haven't studied up on it.

My question to those who have: do you think Paul Johnson's assessment of Nixon's role in resupplying Israel is right, or is he giving Nixon too much credit?

I would be very interested in the input of somebody who knows more about the Yom Kippur War than I do.

#162 levi from queens

It was about adultery to NPR, because they DID think their audience would respond to the adultery story and resent Clinton.

If they played up what the republicans were saying then their audience would respond by resenting the republicans not by resenting Clinton.

You really don't understand how liberals think.

Joshua
If you were to take a poll tomorrow morning....NATIONWIDE....with the question being:
"Should a sitting President be excused for lying"
.
You'd get a solid 80% No!
.
Ask wheither a person should be excused for lying to Congress during questioning.
.
You'd get at least 65% No.

Deep Throat was Abe "Fish" Vigoda?

How odd, Dean.

Bambati writes:

[Nixon] and the Ford administration that followed essentially sold out S. Vietnam gov't, refusing to give them weapons after the US withdrew

It was the Democrats in congress who betrayed the people of South Vietnam, not Nixon.
 

#171 RebTex

Context is everything.

Ask the country how they think thing a sitting president should respond to Bob Barr and Kenith Star in their puritanical rages and you'd get a different answer.

Those freaks made Howie "The Scream" look sane by comparison. And you missed that fact because you were on their side.

Hmmm.

"... But if you ignore the fact that half of the country thinks like I do on this issue then you're in la la land. ..."

But let me point out that this was still at the height of the MSM's power. Blogs had yet to really come into their own and talk radio was just becoming powerful. With sole control over the agenda and message, the MSM could and did drive public opinion. So I frankly question whether or not "half" of the country realy does think like you.

Or do they think that way because they simply don't know what the actual facts were.

"I wonder if conservative Christians understand as fully as I do that the difference in our points of view has nothing to do with what we think about lying and everything to do with what we think about Christian anti-sexual-freedom rage. "

I've known a lot of people who practiced that whole "sexual freedom" thing. Very very few of them were ever really happy. Frankly, as a non-Christian btw, that people are usually set up spiritually to bond with another person. From a health and hygiene point of view it's certainly a lot safer to be in a committed relationship.

*shrug* you pay your money, you take your chances.

Joshua
Dude!
Facts are facts PERIOD!

It's pretty funny to see free market folks argueing against free markets in defense of Nixon. It'd be a whole lot funnier if they weren't on my side.

It's common sense and as fundemental as Capitialism that free markets work best and price controls and socialism fail.

Imagine a street where lemonade sells for $.50 a glass, and along comes Nixon who says "Nope, 40 cents a glass." And the stands find they can only break even at that price, so they all fold.

Now the price on that street for lemonade is a sideways 8. It's ultra-common sense, price controls only create shortages.

Think about the knuckleheads in Florida who outlawed "gouging". Imagine that you are a truck driver in South Caronlina, and folks are paying any price for generators. You might load up a truckload and head down. But imagine you hear that only "reasonable" prices will be lawful. You might well change your mind. "Gouging" is the markets way of proper allocation. If I have a freezer with $20 worth of meat in it and Morton's has one with 20 grand worth, they'll pay more for a generator. But if the price is set in stone and I get there first, I save my $20, and Morton is out his 20 grand.

It's so freaken stupid that it shouldn't even be debatable! People that hate free markets and love price controls only want to enslave the human race, and that is the end of the story!

Joshua -- having spent most of my life as a liberal and as the parent and husband of liberals, I differ. NPR is an incrdibly liberal network which was trying to save Clinton's hide in any way possible. They succeeded -- as part of a broad liberal effort -- to paint the question as one of sex rather than one of lying. During Watergate, the press was quite clear that lying was the great question. IMHO, this difference of emphasis in the press was why Nixon resigned and Clinton remained in office. And NPR was part of the demonization of Linda Tripp and the systematic demonization of the other women assaulted by Bill Clinton.

I still believe that there is an ongoing cost to this demonization and this trivialization of perjury. But it is long over. I do hope that the next big issue that arises that the MSM can act on principle and not just root for the left. I am not sure my hope is sensible.

#176 RebTex

Take it from a hippy diaper baby, left liberal (but hawk - that's why I'm here) - that all you conservatives are rather spectacularly failing to understand how the Clinton deal looked to liberals: both to those who wanted to take Clinton down and those who defended him.

By the way I remember that the real left hated Clinton for being too far to the right. It was left/center that liked Clinton. Of course a Republican presidency and congress is good for making lefties forget that they didn't like Clinton.

TGregg -- Nixon was a disaster economically -- but he followed the far greater disaster, LBJ. This cannot excuse the wage-and-price controls.

It does however allow people to extrapolate back to 1973 with all sorts of economic folderol. Because of the controls, the data for 1973 are badly distorted. Any study you see that compares changes from that year to today is intrinsically dishonest.

#179 levi from queens

Personally I wanted to Clinton to send his lawyer into Congress to testify by pulling a giant inflatable dildo out of his brief case and pump to demonstrate to congress what had happened.

I wonder if conservative Christians understand as fully as I do that the difference in our points of view has nothing to do with what we think about lying and everything to do with what we think about Christian anti-sexual-freedom rage.

Joshua, I am not terribly religious, am no prude, and certainly am not walking around frothing at the mouth in an "anti-sexual-freedom rage." It's disingenious to pretend that only Christian puritans despised Clinton.

If Clinton had come out and said, right off the bat, "Yes, I had sex with that woman" I would have more respect for him. Instead he lied and weaseled around like the sordid used car salesman he is.

One thing I think was potentially much more serious than Monicagate were the allegations of campaign conributions from China. Starr should have focused more on that.

The one great thing about the Clinton impeachment fiasco was the clarity it gave to the relative innocence of Clarence Thomas.

#164 edr

No more proof than you have of the contrary:)

But one can look at the sheer closeness of the number of Democratic and Republican Senators and discern that the supermajority needed for conviction was simply not there. That was known even before the indictments.

Joshua
Your retort "context is everything" is kinda cute.
Especially since you were wanting to cover clinton's a$$ & got called on it .....THEN you want to pawn it off on "Right wing Christians" & start finger-pointing at Ken Starr!
THe fact is that clinton lied.
He got caught lying.
He should've paid the price.

the left does indeed not care about the nation

anyone else besides me think that Abu Graib-Gate and QueerAnn-Gate 24/7 is keeping oil prices high ?

the left could care less, the more the nation suffers the more they grin like the little children they are

they just want to poke their fingers in the eye of fanatics and stand behind the big guy and laugh while he fights their fight

maybe we should institute a draft
and force Libs' kids into the front lines

let them face the wrath of fanatical muslims
who their very words incited into such a frenzy

JFK is to all the Presidents since him as littlegreenfootballs is to all the other blogs:

Better - in practically every category - by a long shot.

Regarding US bombing of Cambodia...

1) The communist North Vietnamese were hiding troops and supplies in Cambodia.

2) The Cambodian government requested the US bomb these North Vietnamese troop positions.
 

Even Richard Nixon has got.
Soeul.

#184 It's Miss Donna V. to you

Funny thing, I dispised Clinton the first time I heard him speak because it was obvious to me that he cared only about being loved by everyone in the audience - not about any particular policies. I wanted a man who believed in something.

In these days of divisive politicians wanting everyone's approval doesn't seem so bad to me. I wish the country was much more united..

But at the time I had a strong picture in my mind of an old used condom - somehow that was my mental image of Clinton. Slippery, slimey, disgusting and untimately cold.

Joshua

I understand full well that right wing Christians all maintained that it was about lying under oath.

You're insulting my intelligence.

No, I think you insulted your own intelligence. Blow jobs in the Oval Office are unseemly, but the impeachment was indeed about lying, first under oath during a deposition, than again under oath to a Grand Jury.

You're drinking too much of the MSM Kool-Aid if you think it was all about Christian prudes upset that Clinton got knobbers in the White House.

That was the Clinton White House line, and the MSM gobbled it up, because Clinton was one of theirs.

I guess as a militant atheist you assume people of religious faith are 1) superstitious fools and 2) dishonest about their motives.

You aren't as bright as I assumed, and are pretty close to DU land with your views about all the stupid working class hicks in "Jesus-land".

# 169

I read Paul Johnson's book. Nixon had many reasons to re-supply Israel in 1973 but loving Jews or Israel was not one of them. Indeed, Nixon and Kissinger decided to wait a full week till they re-supplied Israel in the hopes that a weakened Israel would equalize the region's balance of power and to make Israel a more compliant party in regional peace negotiations. Only when the situation became truly desperate, did the United States step in, knowing they could not let a pro-U.S. democracy be overrun by Soviet allies. I don't have the exact quote in front of me, but Kissinger said at the time something to the effect of "we couldn't allow Soviet weapons to beat American weapons."

The one great thing about the Clinton impeachment fiasco was the clarity it gave to the relative innocence of Clarence Thomas.

Yeah, levi, listening to stories about cigars in Monica's **** made me long for the pure and innocent days of the early '90's when all we had to endure was talk about pubic hair on Coke cans. :-)

#188 RebTex

In politics it helps to understand what the images are. No matter if I'm fair or not, my point of view isn't rare and is therefor important for that reason. You should understand it even if you can't agree.

#195 Ed Mahmoud abu al Qahool Martyr Brigades

Blow jobs in the Oval Office are unseemly, but the impeachment was indeed about lying, first under oath during a deposition, than again under oath to a Grand Jury.

You state this as a fact. But I simply don't believe you. I'll grant you that you may have convinced yourself that this is the case.

Ultimately the republicans alienated the social liberals because they acted like their worst church lady stereotypes.

#158 Rayra 6/2/2005 08:18PM PDT
"rationalize"? (shrug) You'll likely find it's you being laughed at, as Stein has a SOLID financial head on his shoulders, and Nixon was reacting to Inflation precursors - you know, that double-digit inflation that we mock the shit out of the Carter administration for? That economic blight didn't start with the Arab Oil Embargo.

Funniest thing I've read here all night. I think you'll find that a lot of people here will be laughing at you for writing it, Rayra.

Rayra presents us with her mystical belief in Ben Stein's economic prowess (he sure seemed really smart on his game show) and takes it as an article of faith that justifies Nixon's flirtation with socialist economic policy.

You know the monetary policy that Reagan had the balls to impose on the country, Rayra?

You remember the double-digit interest rates and unemployment rate that we had to suffer through to kill the inflation that Nixon, Ford and Carter saddled us with?

That was the fix to runaway inflation, not a useless Nixonian quickie in the backseat with Karl Marx that stripped Americans of their right to trade amongst themselves in a FREE market.

Ronald Reagan, Paul Volker, Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan get the credit for beating inflation. Not that moron Nixon.

I have no problem with athesist or agnostics.

But obnoxious little shits, who assume some kind of intellectual superiority. like Octopus and his little brother here tonight, well, I'm sorry most organized religions say you can't stick your dick through a glory hole in a interstate truckstop and hope stranger sucks it, well, get used to it.

Garden variety atheism is one thing, militant atheism, the Madelyn Murray O'Hair type, suggests to me someone with serious issues who can't stand the idea some might disapprove of their actions.

(#169) It's Miss Donna V. to you

A. A President who laughs at anti-Semitic jokes and resupplies Israel, or;
B. A President who would never dream of laughing at an anti-Semitic joke who invites Arafat to the White House?

That's not necessarily a fair comparison. Choice B was also signing bills into law giving billions of dollars of military assistance to Israel. (Yes, aid was stepped up in general after the '73 war).

Anyway, imagine yourself being both Jewish and pro-Israel and being forced to chose between choice A and B in the first place.

Lovely.

Joshua -- the reason to believe Ed is becuase those were the reasons stated in the documents and so voted by the House of Representatives. I understand that Clinton was acquitted because he and you and NPR and the rest of the MSM argued that they were really about something entirely different.

But now today -- can nobody be convicted of lying to a court if the underlying subject is sexual? I would have a hard time voting as a juror to convict since a President is now free to lie on the same subject matter. And on what other subject matter is lying to a court now just fine?

#195 Ed Mahmoud abu al Qahool Martyr Brigades

I guess as a militant atheist you assume people of religious faith are 1) superstitious fools and 2) dishonest about their motives.

No. You really don't understand that from the point of view of liberals like myself, Bob Barr was much more threatening than Clinton, even if we believed that Clinton was completely guilty of adultery, lying under oath and possibly much worse (in his past).

Joshua, you fucking moron, blowjobs and adultery don't rise to the level of "high crimes and misdemeanors".

Go troll DU where you belong, fucktard.

#204 levi from queens

You're female, right? Women in general have a hard time forgiving men who cheat on their wives and lie.

Men tend to think that this is no one's business but the Clintons' - and that it might not even be a problem for them.

Joshua
I don't care much for labels.
I don't follow party lines.
I try to look at the person & their potential to help or hinder my future.
Claiming "politics" as a reason to act on one way or another is a feeble excuse for feeble minded folks.
If I had my way, they'd fired the Pope when he didn't immediately condem the child molesting priests & banish them from the clergy.
Don't get me wrong...I'm NOT a Catholic.
I think "public trust" should be more than a slogan.
On that note, I will agree to dis-agree.

Joshua -- last time I checked, its still not time to clean my apartment. Getting a little desperate are you?

#206 Ed Mahmoud abu al Qahool Martyr Brigades

Cool down dude. Apparently you think that no one should ever disagree with you or explain how the other half thinks.

You're not making your side look too good right now.

Wow, nothing like digging up the ugly corpse of the past to disrupt the harmony of LGF.

Now everyone, into the lotus postion and breath in.... then out... ooohhhhmmmmmm......OOoooooohhhhhmmmmm...

I know I said I love you
I know you know it's true
I've got to put the phone down
And do what we gotta do
One's standing in the aisle way
Two more at the door
We've got to get inside there
Before they kill some more
Time is running out
Let's roll

Sorry for the language.

Just pointing out that if Clinton had just admitted the truth, nothing could have been done.

As Dick Morris has suggested, Hillary was at best bisexual, and one can almost feel sympathy for Bill if he got a little lonely.

In these days of divisive politicians wanting everyone's approval doesn't seem so bad to me. I wish the country was much more united..

I prefer a Chief Exec with principles to someone who acts like my brother's Golden Retriever ("Love me! Love me! I'll do anything you want! I'll also hump everything in sight!"), although my brother's dog is more sincere than Clinton and has the grace to look ashamed when he's bad and gets scolded.

We're in a war - we need more than charm offensives.

Clinton could only have been President during the interval between the end of the Cold War and the WOT, when the country was tired of (and neglectful of) foreign policy and fixated on its' stock market portfolio. The 90's were like the '20's in many ways - the calm between storms.

I thank G-d we have a President who is made of sterner stuff now.

I was pretty religious during monica-gate.

He was a slimy lech because of his actions with that woman and who knows how many others. I personally disliked him for that and many other reasons and wanted him impeached because he lied to authorities in a criminal investigation and subsequently to the American people about his actions.

He should have been impeached because he broke the law not because he played hide the cigar in the Oval Office.

#206 Ed Mahmoud abu al Qahool Martyr Brigades

I simply don't think that Congress should have asked the question that Clinton lied about.

Then accusing him of lying about what was never Congresses business to know about in the first place is a transparent set up. Its like charging people with felony conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor.

Joshua -- Congress did not ask the question. A Federal Court did so because he was charged with sexual harassment. Perhaps you feel that this should not be a crime or a tort or that presidents should not be answerable for the same (and that is not entirely unreasonable), but do not blame Congress for asking the question-- they did not do so. They merely responded to his evident perjury in front of a Court of the United States.

Not only did Clinton break the law, but his wasn't a victimless crime. His lying under oath essentially denied an American citizen her day in court and the justice she deserved.

Just one more display of Clinton's arrogance and contempt for the American citizen.

Joshua
You keep referring to a meaningless point that you're not the only one that thinks like you do....therefore it's important & correct.
Have you never heard of the Heaven's Gate cult?
They had extreme lines of thinking.
Does the name Jim Jones ring a bell?
.
.
At this moment, there's probably 57 people, worldwide, screwing monkeys.
Do I care? No!
Bring them before a Jury.
If they lie about it, THAT'S PURJURY!

Joshua-

You are extremely dishonest, as well as condescending, if you think the Republican majority in the House offered articles of impeachment because they were Christian prudes who though blow jobs were wrong.

"Other side". Admit it, you really think "The Christian Right" is as dangerous as the Taliban.

Look around, Bush has been POTUS for 5 years, Republicans have controlled Congress over a decade, and you are still free to troll gay bars for anonymous sex, watch "Queer Eye", rent hardcore porno from a store in your neighborhood. Men and woman can live "in sin" pretty much anywhere in America, and it becomes big news if a small town cop threatens an employee with a 150 year old law for shacking up with her boyfriend.

I don't really care what you think of "our side". At best you are an Andrew Sullivan type pseudo-anti-idiotarian, who agrees the 9-11 was bad, and Muslims are bad because they repress sexual freedom, but if Bush expressed misgivings about gay marriage, or maybe with you its marijuana decriminalization, well, forget about terrorism, gay marriage and legal pot are so much more important.

From now on, I'll just call you "Andy", ok?

215 Rayra

good points but let's dig deeper

the left accused Nixon of starting the bombing of civilians in North Vietnam which of course is totally untrue

the leftist network A & E just had a movie about John McCain getting shot down over a bombing run of Hanoi in 1967

that would have been when LBJ was POTUS

also - blame Korea from getting so out of hand to the liberal wunderkids the Rosenbergs for giving A-bomb technology to the Soviets

yeah, give the enemy tools to kill us with so we can live in peace.....the liberal mantra

#218 levi from queens

In that case I was wrong. I thought it was the Star investigation that Congress started that bought Clinton to "that depends on what the meaning of is is" etc..

By the way I remember hearing about bullying witnesses from Star's office etc. It sure looked like witch hunt to me.

Joshua (not a hamster) Scholar

Try to blame the Christians all you want for Bill wetting his cigar and them hating him for it.

The truth is Clinton lied under oath.

I rather liked the cigar thing and have picked up a new move.

Joshua, Christians like cigars and women too.

A. A President who laughs at anti-Semitic jokes and resupplies Israel, or;
B. A President who would never dream of laughing at an anti-Semitic joke who invites Arafat to the White House?

Donna, I'm afraid you're underestimating the degree to which Nixon subscribed to the various antisemitic myths floating around out there. The degree to which was an antisemite was probably unparallel in US Presidential history.

As for Clinton, let's remember some other names connected with Arafat's White House visits- Barak, Rabin, Peres, etc.

That all said, I entirely agree with you when you write "thank G-d we have a President who is made of sterner stuff now. "

Whoa, did someone from DU put something in the LGF water supply while I was out at dinner?

Joshua
Is there more than 1 meaning for the word "is"?

Joshua --thank you. BTW, all lawyers bully witnesses. That is the way that they find the holes in their stories. As a Christian and believer in original sin, I am certain that all people (including all Christians) embelish, lie, etc. to save themselves, get something they want, avoid embarassment, or for fun. It is important that the United States remain intolerant of such behavior at important points.

You're female, right? Women in general have a hard time forgiving men who cheat on their wives and lie.

Oh, I see. Before, it was only Christian sex-haters who objected to Clinton; now it's a girl thing. Keep those neat little stereotypes coming.

Actually, the feminists were ready to put kneepads on for Bill, depsite the fact that the allegation that Clarence Thomas once talked a little trash to Anita Hill had them reaching for their smelling salts a few years earlier.

And I knew quite a few guys - not religious types, either - who were disgusted by Billy Jeff's lying.

Clinton's White House knobbers never would have been an issue for deposition (and a Grand Jury, after the first case of perjury, oh, and Clinton never testified to Congress about his BJs) except he had a pattern of repeatedly propositioning women working as subordinates for him, as Governor of Arkansas and then as President.

The Lewinsky questions were asked because Paula Jones' attorneys were seeking to establish a pattern of repeated sexual harassment for the lawsuit against Clinton.

Paula Jones, as a US citizen, was entitled to a fair judgement in her civil action. Clinton lying under oath was an attempt to deny her justice.

It wasn't a plot by Christian Taliban who don't believe in sex.

Disagreeing is one thing, but Gordon has more intellectual honesty than you do.

#222 Ed Mahmoud abu al Qahool Martyr Brigades 6/2/2005 09:00PM PDT

You are extremely dishonest, as well as condescending, if you think the Republican majority in the House offered articles of impeachment because they were Christian prudes who though blow jobs were wrong.

No, I believed that they were playing to their base and playing politics.

If anything I thought Republicans were getting retribution against the Democrats for the Nixon impeachment and the Iran contra investigation.

I thought this was just a sign of the breakdown of Washington and the rise of using the courts and congressional investigations to obstruct government, smear the opposition etc.

I prefer it when congress trusts the people to vote and then does their jobs.

You all don't understand that I no longer give two shits what happened to Clinton.

What I do care about is that LGFers understand the politcs from both sides because the war on terror will have to matter to Democrats.

I don't care about attacking Clinton's accusers, I just want you to understand how it looked from the other side of the social divide.

back in the impeachment days when I talked to women who supported slick wilie I asked them if they realized that by supporting him they were in effect telling their hubbies to go ahead and have an affair, any time, any place

you can't believe the dagger-looks I got

Lewinsky was "Deep Throat?"

Joshua
"I thought this was just a sign of the breakdown of Washington and the rise of using the courts and congressional investigations to obstruct government, smear the opposition etc"
.
.
.
You mean like the demoncrats tried after the 2000 election?!

#235 Rayra

Well there are penty of social divides.

I've known people with various sorts of open mariages. Since Clinton had a long record of going outside his mariage, it seemed to me a pretty good bet that he and Hillary knew exactly what Bill was like. If she was still with him, then maybe it was just fine with her but of course a politican's wife can't say.

Hillary is no wallflower. She could have left Bill at any time. Why didn't she?

Anwser:

She decided not to.
And why is none of my business.

BTW, wage and price controls are pure socialism, and doomed to failure.

If you won't let someone sell a scarce resource at a fair price, he just stops making/selling it. It just increases the scarcity.

I haven't really studied the matter, although I remember "Whip Inflation Now" pins as a youngster, but I suspect the high inflation of the Ford years, which got even worse under the incompetence of Carter, was probably exacerbated by the wage and price controls of the Nixon era.

Don't forget, Nixon also gave us the OSHA that besides actually working for safer workplaces, also micromanages and regulates crap like the shape of toilet seats in factory restrooms.

MJ and SoCalJustice: Thanks for the feedback regarding Nixon.

Nixon was a very, very complex man. I certainly recognize his dark side (and think people like Johnson and Stein underplay it too much), but he wasn't the complete and total devil the Left makes him out to be either.

#238 Rayra

And you're used to seeing insults and abuse used as emotional convincers of what's right and wrong.

So what?

I'm not impressed by your insults.

Bed time.

By the way everyone arguing with me read #241 carefully. That should explain something of my attitude.

Joshua -- you have made that last point several times. And I think, regardless of the emotion shown here tonight, that nobody wants to redo the Clinton impeachment trial.

In 1975, to my everlasting shame, I held a liberation of Saigon party. And two million dead Cambodians later, I was ashamed.--bully for me.

The point is that because the MSM backed Clinton in everyway possible in no way makes him right -- just as their opposition to the Vietnam War or the WOT does not make that wrong.

If you have followed the MSM, along with most of the country in the past, this does not make you an enemy today. But also -- it does not mean that your opponents of yesterday, who did not follow the MSM of the late 90's, were puritanical anti-sex freaks

gnite ed. I'm out of here too.

#241 Joshua

There is still the issue of lying under oath to deny an American citizen her day in court. What say you to that?

Jayfen--

Responding to your comment about the stolen 1960 election. The shenanigans in Chicago would have absolutely dwarfed anything downstate.

The Democrats had absolute control of the West Side at the time, and Republicans even today cannot find people to serve as poll watchers in many precincts. Fred Roti's old First Ward is the only one in Chicago where the cemetaries had polling booths.

Besides, Downstate is not that conservative and far south Illinois is fairly liberal.

Just FYI.

Adrenalyn,

back in the impeachment days when I talked to women who supported slick wilie I asked them if they realized that by supporting him they were in effect telling their hubbies to go ahead and have an affair, any time, any place

How dare you bring clarity and logic to the issue. Just like Joshua thinks only women care about fidelity. It's good to know that I can cheat on my boyfriend and he won't care because monogamy is a female issue.

#248 levi from queens

"it does not mean that your opponents of yesterday, who did not follow the MSM of the late 90's, were puritanical anti-sex freaks"

What I said was that half of the country supported Clinton because right wing Christians in Congress looked like puritanical anti-sex freaks on a witch hunt.

I don't care what my nieghbors do, but I do care what Congress does.

As for what the MSM did, we started by disagreeing on whether they MSM tried to take Clinton down.

I argued that NPR tried to take Clinton down among liberals and that because their target audience was liberals their attack looked much different than right wing attacks on Clinton. There was no point making a right wing arguement against Clinton because the right already hated Clinton.

#252 Reagan

My point of view is that YOUR relationship doesn't affect MY relationships so much that I should try to control what YOU do.

# 243
( Nixon ) wasn't the complete and total devil the Left makes him out to be either.

That's for sure. Nixon actually proposed a minimum annual wage-if I recall, I think he was talking about $3,000 per person per year!

Joshua: Rayra isn't just hurling insults at you. He makes a very valid point here:

You've repeatedly given examples of your interpretation of other peoples' motivations and not once explained your own. It's been entirely about you reacting to what you've been taught to think other people are doing.

Your way of explaining to us "how Dems think" is to tell us we're religious nuts and prudes or girls who are a bit funny about married men having affairs. When we say "It was about lying under oath and obstruction of justice" your reply is "I don't believe you." No, no, it has to be about hating sex and forcing everyone into church pews, I just know it!

Chris
He stated earlier that the people wronged by clinton's lying should go to hell.
Nice.....isn't it?

239 Lawrence Schmerel

A classic. I thankyou for that.

#257 RebTex

Hmmmm. I've been keeping up with the thread, must have missed that....

I'm a fairly liberal girl but I found Clinton's behavior offensive, especially the time Monica was giving him oral sex while he was on the phone ordering fresh bombing during the Bosnian War.....

I'm outta here. 'night, all.

#256 It's Miss Donna V. to you

You're oversimplifying.

I'm not saying "it was about issue X"

I'm saying that the democratic half of the country was reacting to issue X and the republicans in Congress were responding to issue Y (say revenge for iran-contra) and there is an issue Z which people like you responded to:

Mainly that people like you thought that Clinton was setting a bad example.

thank you

PIMF

I'm rewatching Larry King (missed it earlier and wanted to see what the Woodstein Twins would say). Haven't seen Ben Bradlee yet but he made a comment that he thought Mark Felt did his country a service in trying circumstances and he (Bradlee) found it humorous to hear G. Gordon Liddy talking about Felt being 'immoral' when, as Bradlee put it, "he hasn't been out of jail that long himself!" Good one, Ben!

#256 It's Miss Donna V. to you

Uhm yes, exactly.

Democrats ARE responding to shallow sterotypes about Republicans.

You never noticed that?

Anyone else getting the "We captured Osama" emails?

I'm assuming it's a fake. I certainly ain't opening the attachment.

Reagan,

Hardly ever does anyone ever accuse me of being clear or logical.

Kooky and maniacal, all the time.....

Joshua: Again, no. It was not about "setting a bad example."

It was about lying under oath and obstruction of justice.

Oh, I know, I know. You don't believe me.

#264 Rayra

I like to argue until its absolutely clear what the points of disagreement are and why, so I tend to argue for a long time.

#256 Miss Donna V.

In #159, states Joshua states:

I wonder if conservative Christians understand as fully as I do that the difference in our points of view has nothing to do with what we think about lying and everything to do with what we think about Christian anti-sexual-freedom rage.

Not only is he stereotyping conservative Christians, he is insulting their intelligence -- they don't understand, you see, that liberals fear that their sexual freedoms will be denied if Christianity runs amuck (sp?)....

Joshua,

So are you saying that we shouldn't have any kind of socialital standards? Laws and moral values are the foundation of civilization and without them we're cavemen.

As to this specific issue, Bill Clinton wasn't just another guy. He was freaking President of the United States. Forgive me for thinking that he should be held to the vow he made in marrying that woman. If he wasn't happy he should have left her. But again that makes him a shitty person, which is not an impeachable offense. The second he said, "I did not have sex with that woman." I wanted him gone, not because he defiled the Oval Office with his sexual games, but because he lied.

#259 Chris
This from entry #140
" and not only didn't care that he lied, but wished he had told congress to go to hell."

#269 It's Miss Donna V. to you

Ok, maybe it was about "It was about lying under oath and obstruction of justice" to you.

And to half of the country it was about "Congress should never be asking these questions"

Also, maybe I wasn't paying close attention (like most people who didn't care), but Monica didn't accuse the president of sexual harrasment, so how could the question "did you have sex with Monica Lewinsky" have come from a sexual harrasment case? How would that have been relevent?

#273 RebTex

Yes, I remember now, thanks. I'm out, you and the rest have a great night...

Joshua,

You are one stubborn motherfucker.

A lawyer asked Clinton under oath in a deposition, he was asked in front of a grand jury if he'd ever been alone with her and he lied. Those are just the facts.

Also, he and his lawyer persuaded Monica to file a false affidavit saying she had never been alone with him, which was not only false but a crime.

Get a grip.

How the hell did we end up refighting the Clinton impeachment on a thread about a criminal who helped destory a President, changed the nature of American Politics that eventually effected the lives of millions of people half way around the world?

#272 Reagan

The American people chose Bill to do a job. We don't get much say in who runs, but we'd like it if Congress would let us decide who runs the county and not bring in stuff that doesn't have to do with the job we hired him to do. When Congress does this they show contempt for the voters.

Chris
Sleep well!

I was in Paris when Nixon resigned.

The Figaro headline: "Une Tragedie Grecque."

Inside page headline: "Qui est Gerald Ford?"

The French were baffled that a U.S. President could be felled by what was essentially a minor peccadillo; they said we Americans are so naive--"you expect politicians to be corrupt. You just want the ones who are smart and corrupt."

The French loved Nixon.

Joshua
Are your eyes brown?!
Your post #278 makes me think you're full of it!

He cranked up the drug war to smite his political enemies.

He told Haldeman that he thought pot was no worse than the martini he was drinking.

This is not the proper use of government. In my opinion.

In addition we are living with the results: criminals and terrorists are profiting from prohibition.