― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 27 May 2004 02:47 (twenty years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 27 May 2004 02:52 (twenty years ago) link
― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Thursday, 27 May 2004 02:56 (twenty years ago) link
you should read caro's means of ascent -- a/k/a how LBJ got his original nickname, "landslide lyndon" -- for some real hellish machiavellianism!
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 27 May 2004 03:00 (twenty years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 May 2004 03:03 (twenty years ago) link
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 27 May 2004 03:04 (twenty years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 27 May 2004 03:07 (twenty years ago) link
Johnson's "sonofabitch" vs. Nixon's "cocksucker"
― earlnash, Thursday, 27 May 2004 03:13 (twenty years ago) link
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 27 May 2004 03:17 (twenty years ago) link
― Scott CE (Scott CE), Thursday, 27 May 2004 03:24 (twenty years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 27 May 2004 03:33 (twenty years ago) link
Nixon who saw the same political facts and in response devised the infamous "Southern strategy" to win the solid South for the Party of Lincoln, by turning it into the party of preference for southern racists.
LBJ also had the guts to withdraw from the race after the New Hampshire primary, even though he was a sitting president and he actually won that primary. Eugene McCarthy only got 38% of the New Hampshire vote in '68.
Nixon, even after Watergate had busted wide open and his many, many crimes were common knowledge practically had to be pried out of office with a crowbar.
LBJ screwed up badly in Vietnam and mired the country in an unwinnable war. Nixon was a flat-out war criminal.
So, LBJ gets my vote, if those are the only two choices. No contest.
― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 27 May 2004 03:58 (twenty years ago) link
er not to be an apologist (I don't think this is being one anyway but still need to put that disclaimer out there) but the political facts were not the same as Nixon had to contend with George Wallace running against him, whereas LBJ didn't.
― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 May 2004 04:01 (twenty years ago) link
1. he was running barely less than a year after JFK ate it in Dallas.2. he was running against Goldwater, a total nutcase who LBJ very astutely portrayed as such.
― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 May 2004 04:03 (twenty years ago) link
But Nixon's southern strategy was more a long term plan than a short term tactic. A glance will show that the solid south has now turned pretty solidly Republican - which is where Nixon wanted it. He taught others to follow the path he trod first.
― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 27 May 2004 04:18 (twenty years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 May 2004 04:19 (twenty years ago) link
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 27 May 2004 04:32 (twenty years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 May 2004 04:37 (twenty years ago) link
― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Thursday, 27 May 2004 05:45 (twenty years ago) link
― Ian Johnson (orion), Thursday, 27 May 2004 06:17 (twenty years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 27 May 2004 06:44 (twenty years ago) link
Nixon - a raving lunatic. The nearest thing to a certifiably insane nutbag the USA has ever had in the White House.
Both therefore have their advantages.
― DV (dirtyvicar), Thursday, 27 May 2004 16:13 (twenty years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 May 2004 16:15 (twenty years ago) link
― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 27 May 2004 16:18 (twenty years ago) link
― DV (dirtyvicar), Thursday, 27 May 2004 16:23 (twenty years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 May 2004 16:24 (twenty years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 May 2004 16:25 (twenty years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 27 May 2004 16:26 (twenty years ago) link
― Michael White (Hereward), Thursday, 27 May 2004 16:31 (twenty years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 May 2004 16:31 (twenty years ago) link
"If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest shopping center in the world?" - Nixon
― dave225 (Dave225), Thursday, 27 May 2004 16:33 (twenty years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 27 May 2004 16:47 (twenty years ago) link
― DV (dirtyvicar), Thursday, 27 May 2004 16:55 (twenty years ago) link
― dave225 (Dave225), Thursday, 27 May 2004 17:04 (twenty years ago) link
― suzy (suzy), Thursday, 27 May 2004 17:59 (twenty years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 May 2004 18:09 (twenty years ago) link
hunter s. thompson, "he was a crook," rolling stone (Jun. 16, 1994).
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Saturday, 24 July 2004 21:10 (nineteen years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Sunday, 25 July 2004 19:05 (nineteen years ago) link
http://www.albion.edu/history/tchambers/mencken.htm
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 25 July 2004 19:06 (nineteen years ago) link
― art vandeley, Tuesday, 2 May 2006 17:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― My Vileness Is a Dream (noodle vague), Tuesday, 2 May 2006 17:52 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 2 May 2006 18:02 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 2 May 2006 18:07 (eighteen years ago) link
― kingfish doesn't live here anymore (kingfish 2.0), Tuesday, 2 May 2006 18:11 (eighteen years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 2 May 2006 18:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 2 May 2006 18:17 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 2 May 2006 18:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 2 May 2006 18:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― Eisbaer, Thursday, 29 March 2007 20:53 (seventeen years ago) link
Love this thread, and also just finished Walter Isaacson's Kissinger; it's impossible, after also reading Sy Hersh's Kiss bio and Hitchens' Trial of Henry Kissinger to decide who was more corrupt.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 23 August 2007 16:58 (sixteen years ago) link
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR. PRESIDENT! Funny gifts appear to have been a tradition in the Nixon White House. In 1973, he received some caricature figures, a framed image of Massachusetts and DC (he didn't win them in '72) & this Halloween mask from daughter Tricia. (WHPO-D1193-19) pic.twitter.com/zLfd4HFMQd— RichardNixonLibrary (@NixonLibrary) January 9, 2018
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 9 January 2018 22:12 (six years ago) link
Last time I get to do this: spend 15 minutes talking to nine-year-olds about Richard Nixon on his birthday. He’s the greatest object lesson ever in the lie being worse than whatever led to the lie, and if you frame his downfall that way, kids immediately understand. Trump’s lies are so numerous and (often) so bizarre, I don’t think there’s much meaning there. Nixon was a much more interesting liar.
Obviously, you won’t come across a clearer explanation of Watergate than my diagram. The burglars are the x’s at the bottom right, Nixon is the check mark at the top left.
http://phildellio.tripod.com/watergate.JPG
― clemenza, Thursday, 10 January 2019 00:57 (five years ago) link
Nixon was born 106 years ago tomorrow—here in 1974 offering cake to dog King Timahoe, San Clemente: pic.twitter.com/1aZkYptdDW— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) January 9, 2019
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 10 January 2019 01:13 (five years ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/O81x9cV.jpg
"Well I'll be damned – your birthday's the day before mine!"
― pplains, Thursday, 10 January 2019 02:17 (five years ago) link
RMN shares a birthday with Joan Baez. Guess where Joan was when Nixon bombed Hanoi at Xmas '72... Yep.
― Josefa, Thursday, 10 January 2019 02:27 (five years ago) link
Graceland?
― pplains, Thursday, 10 January 2019 03:04 (five years ago) link
Hanoi Joan
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 10 January 2019 21:38 (five years ago) link
I've read enough about Nixon that I ought to know the answer to this, but was he as aggressive as Trump in going after people from his own party? My sense of Nixon is that he had his inner circle of Haldeman, Erlichman, Kissinger, etc., and that the rest of the party--even his own cabinet--barely existed.
― clemenza, Thursday, 6 February 2020 18:46 (four years ago) link
Nixon didn't do that shit in public the way Trump does afaik
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 6 February 2020 21:00 (four years ago) link
Before he became president, Nixon was a tireless speaker for any republican candidate or party organ that wanted him, as a means of collecting chits for return favors in the future. When he became president he switched more into the mode of dictating terms in advance, but he was a party man top to bottom.
― A is for (Aimless), Thursday, 6 February 2020 21:05 (four years ago) link
Nixon definitely obsequious in a way Trump has never had to be
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 6 February 2020 21:09 (four years ago) link
I was thinking of Nixon in '72, heading into the election, when he--like Trump--felt all-powerful and untouchable. I don't think he was out there beating the bushes for disloyal Republicans and responding to every last slight. Not even privately, I suspect; he had moved beyond party in every sense. If you look at his '72 ads, there's just Nixon, nothing else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dploiFDlRE4
Such an inspiring song.
― clemenza, Thursday, 6 February 2020 23:53 (four years ago) link
Happy Earth Day.
http://phildellio.tripod.com/planting.jpg
― clemenza, Wednesday, 22 April 2020 22:59 (four years ago) link
every picture tells a story
― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 22 April 2020 23:21 (four years ago) link
"Goddamn it, Pat, is this really necessary?"
― clemenza, Thursday, 23 April 2020 00:16 (four years ago) link
I wonder who on the shit list is under the dirt.
― pplains, Thursday, 23 April 2020 00:24 (four years ago) link
Just posted today--your dreams have been answered.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hOqnG9UHLE
― clemenza, Friday, 29 May 2020 00:03 (four years ago) link
http://phildellio.tripod.com/resignation.jpeg
― clemenza, Sunday, 9 August 2020 14:58 (three years ago) link
Does anything say Valentine's Day better than Richard Nixon?
https://phildellio.tripod.com/nixon-2.jpg
― clemenza, Friday, 29 January 2021 20:50 (three years ago) link
somewhere, Roger Stone just got hard
― Ray Cooney as "Crotch" (stevie), Friday, 29 January 2021 20:53 (three years ago) link
You just sent me to therapy.
― clemenza, Friday, 29 January 2021 20:54 (three years ago) link
Screenshot I took from Versailles '73: American Runway Revolution.
https://phildellio.tripod.com/fashion.jpg
― clemenza, Monday, 7 June 2021 12:14 (two years ago) link
CNN starts an LBJ series tonight (yeah, I know, "Turn Turn Turn"):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pND1mP0Rwpo
― clemenza, Sunday, 20 February 2022 18:56 (two years ago) link
That trailer's voice-over has a definite "In a world..." vibe.
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Sunday, 20 February 2022 19:24 (two years ago) link
a bit of a Casey Kasem vibe too
― Josefa, Sunday, 20 February 2022 19:50 (two years ago) link
Still wishing for the day when the Mothers' "Trouble Every Day" becomes the go-to music for the mid-late '60s.
― clemenza, Sunday, 20 February 2022 20:01 (two years ago) link
Jesus, I think it involves reenactments. I'll be out of there with the first one.
― clemenza, Sunday, 20 February 2022 20:35 (two years ago) link
I bailed, indeed--the Man on Wire documentary might be the only one I ever saw where I reached a level of tolerance with the reenactments.
The other guy in the thread title has a new ally:
https://www.hotnewhiphop.com/kanye-west-shares-his-long-list-of-enemies-including-skete-davidson-news.147986.html
― clemenza, Monday, 21 February 2022 15:23 (two years ago) link
111th--planning something monstrous with Kissinger right now.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 9 January 2024 16:45 (four months ago) link
has already fired the special prosecutor in Hell
― Disco Biollante (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 9 January 2024 18:31 (four months ago) link
Still intrigued by what kind of balancing act he'd do with regards to Trump. He was the ultimate company man, but I think he'd try to figure out some way to create a little distance--a non-endorsement endorsement, if you will.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 9 January 2024 23:21 (four months ago) link
I was not quite eight when Nixon resigned. My most vivid memory of him is that, when he was on TV, he sweat. Like, a lot. His upper lip was slick.
This is my all-time favorite Nixon pic. It says so much about the man.
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/08/31/14/47274247-9943475-Pictured_Nixon_checks_his_watch_as_he_shakes_hands_with_a_member-a-12_1630417756875.jpg
I don't think he was a political genius so much as an amoral survivor. His only goal was his political survival, and any means to achieve that goal was acceptable.
If there has been a true political genius in the U.S. in the past 100 years, it was Bill Clinton.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Wednesday, 10 January 2024 00:24 (four months ago) link
Nah, man. FDR. At least his feral genius produced tangible good for decades.
― poppers fueled buttsex crescendo (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 10 January 2024 00:26 (four months ago) link
FDR I'd put up there also. I obviously didn't experience the man first-hand. But Clinton has (or had) what Apple developer Bud Tribble, referring to Steve Jobs, called a "reality distortion field."
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Wednesday, 10 January 2024 00:28 (four months ago) link
Nixon was at least complicated (Title 9, the EPA, detente with China)... for all his base amorality he actually did a thing or two
But yeah, we still live daily with FDR's legacy, maybe even a little LBJ as well
― Andy the Grasshopper, Wednesday, 10 January 2024 00:31 (four months ago) link
My very Republican grandmother used to fake gagging whenever the name Franklin Delano Roosevelt was mentioned.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Wednesday, 10 January 2024 00:33 (four months ago) link
Lol... so much of his 'pinko' stuff (via Keynesian economics) was a desperate attempt to avoid actual pinko shit; the 1930s was probably the most marxist decade the U.S. ever experienced
― Andy the Grasshopper, Wednesday, 10 January 2024 00:37 (four months ago) link
― Pat Methamphetamine Trio (is this anything?) (Boring, Maryland), Wednesday, 10 January 2024 01:00 (four months ago) link
LOL no
That didn't stop her from saying that FDR had "ruined the country."
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Wednesday, 10 January 2024 01:04 (four months ago) link
So the US was a better place in 1933 than in 1945... that is some take
― Josefa, Wednesday, 10 January 2024 01:11 (four months ago) link
I can't separate "political genius" from the morality of those decisions, and FDR followed by LBJ are so obviously the winners. Bill Clinton, the only Dem we could've elected, alas, in 1992, left office having prevented the worst of a GOP counter-revolution who thought the presidency belonged to them after a dozen years, nominated good judges and (sure) justices, and was a charming rogue, but I don't wanna think about him anymore.
― poppers fueled buttsex crescendo (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 10 January 2024 01:11 (four months ago) link
Yes . . . and this from a woman who had truly harrowing stories of the Depression. There were times she was literally starving.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Wednesday, 10 January 2024 01:12 (four months ago) link
Nixon gets mistakenly called a liberal -- or, worse, "would never have been nominated by today's GOP!" -- because he endured an immovable Dem majority in both chambers of Congress and, trying to begin a political revolution that culminated with the election of Reagan, he signed their legislation.
― poppers fueled buttsex crescendo (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 10 January 2024 01:13 (four months ago) link
Died 30 years ago today (Nixon, that is), although I think he still tweets.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 23 April 2024 00:40 (one month ago) link
Nixon never suffered enough for his crimes to satisfy me, but Kissinger's decades as an éminence grise were even more sickening.
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Tuesday, 23 April 2024 00:52 (one month ago) link
He doesn't tweet. That's just some weirdo making goofy statements and thinking he sounds just like Richard M. Nixon.
― pplains, Tuesday, 23 April 2024 01:32 (one month ago) link
he's pretty good!
― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 23 April 2024 01:38 (one month ago) link
Not Nixon good.
― pplains, Tuesday, 23 April 2024 01:41 (one month ago) link
YouTube has been recommending a lot of videos from the Nixon Foundation, which I guess runs the presidential library, sells merch, etc. Feel like their social media team is really leaning into "bet you miss him now, eh?" (I don't, though.)
― default damager (lukas), Tuesday, 23 April 2024 02:21 (one month ago) link
I'm surprised there isn't a counter-propagandist "Nixon still a craven shitbird" group pumping out unflattering videos
― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, 23 April 2024 02:32 (one month ago) link