Watergate: S & D

Trust me on this one point: I'm not arguing that Nixon wasn't evil because he was a nice person. Nice is the last thing I'd describe him as (notwithstanding that he did have a major sentimental streak in him).

hey it's just the system that's waterboarding me, one guy can't change it. xp

I don't believe you become evil when you step into the presidency.

No; under present conditions, you generally do when you set your sights on it.

ie "the Obama who's presiding over three wars right now is more or less the same Obama who was doing community organizing" -- no way to know.

but the stealth question of this thread is: Who's driving me to the Nixon Library?

damn, alf's bringin the ruckus itt

Boy, I'll tell you: I'd love to see some of the people on this board unleashed on the presidency. When you're convinced that your every pronouncement is the gospel truth, and you make incivility your life's work on a relatively small scale such as this--no, I'm not talking about everybody--well, I'd love to see that writ large. So when Morbius says I'm off to napalm the Bronx, that's a non sequitur; you aren't, because you can't. The question is, how would you behave as president? That's what none of us knows, and why I'm a little hesitant to start setting the bar on evil.

You HAVE to bomb people to be president. So, you know, if elected, I will not serve.

I believe my every pronouncement is the gospel truth FOR ME, WHEN I MAKE IT.

plus if anyone tried to implement truly leftist values as president, assassination would be efficiently arranged.

you guys can go on and on about how bad the soviet union was, but boy i'll tell you, i'd like to see some of you guys in stalin's place, what would YOU have done?

Don't forget Hitler; you need to get to work on an outrageous Hitler analogy pronto.

Hitler loved his dog.

Good enough. Hitler loved his dog, Obama loves his dog, gradiations of evil...it's all starting to come together for me.

btw, this:

Boy, I'll tell you: I'd love to see some of the people on this board unleashed on the presidency. When you're convinced that your every pronouncement is the gospel truth, and you make incivility your life's work on a relatively small scale such as this--no, I'm not talking about everybody--well, I'd love to see that writ large.

is precisely why people object to the inflated powers of the modern presidency. nixon minus those powers is just a jerk; nixon with those powers is a dangerous man. but that doesn't excuse nixon -- he set out to expand those powers once in office, after all.

That's fair. We're arguing in circles a bit here--as I've tried to make clear, I'm really and truly not trying to excuse Nixon. We just view what lay behind his actions differently. You guys see evil; I see lots of reasons, but evil's not one of them.

And just like I'd love to see what a few people here would be like as president, I'd equally love to see what Nixon would have been like on a message board like this. I imagine he would been something to behold.

Time to get back to Il Posto. I'll leave you with some he's-good-bad-but-he's-not-evil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOdP_VvPKHU

When you're convinced that your every pronouncement is the gospel truth, and you make incivility your life's work on a relatively small scale such as this--no, I'm not talking about everybody--well, I'd love to see that writ large

You have -- in the career of Richard Milhouse Nixon.

clemenza, we share a lot of musical tastes (and views on said tastes) but politically we never do. You belive in this Vital Center of Moderation that (a) has never worked, esp in the modern presidency, when it's the bullies and actors on both sides who've been most effective (b) has never really existed.

I mean, you've said many times you're an Obama apologist, and to an extent you're right: there's a lot to apologize for.

btw unnice people are often the most sentimental.

search: the Safeway in the complex, where I shopped the summer I lived in Foggy Bottom

destroy: the tapes

as I've tried to make clear, I'm really and truly not trying to excuse Nixon. We just view what lay behind his actions differently. You guys see evil; I see lots of reasons, but evil's not one of them.

that's fair. i think i'm basically just iffy on this idea of evil being something inherent in one's personality. the impression i get of hitler from albert speer's memoirs is that he was a sociopath, a jerk, and a bore -- but not the earthly incarnation of satan. to me, evil lies in what people do, not what they are.

nixon, like every other person, was infinitely complex. that's why, to a certain extent, i think it's ultimately futile to speculate about why he did what he did. there's no doubt at all in my mind that he thought he was doing the right thing -- but for me, that doesn't mitigate anything he did.

i do, btw, think it's still possible to be president and not be complicit in atrocious acts, though it'd admittedly require a statesman of lincoln's stature at this point.

That's cuz the US generally minded its own fucking business til the 1890s

I like the title of Tom Wicker's Nixon book: One of Us. That's how I view Nixon. Then again, Syberberg called his Hitler film [i]Our Hitler[i], so maybe there's a parallel there. It's very complex...but J.D. makes some good points in the previous post.

He IS a fascinating creature, particularly in his striving to be what he was not: classy and beloved. But wickedly fascinating.

i do, btw, think it's still possible to be president and not be complicit in atrocious acts

Things you believe in despite scientific evidence to the contrary.

The question is, how would you behave as president? That's what none of us knows, and why I'm a little hesitant to start setting the bar on evil.

End the fucking wars. Cut the defense budget. Give the working-class and middle-class a fucking break for once.

Also, take over Mars.

yep. and the problem isn't that there's no conceivable candidate who would do that -- there are plenty. it's that neither party would nominate (and support) someone who was seriously likely to do those things.

End the fucking wars. Cut the defense budget. Give the working-class and middle-class a fucking break for once.

Ideally, sure. But I'll be honest, Adam--take away the profanity, and to me that's one step away from Miss South Carolina wishing for world peace.

This'll be a waste of time, and will be answered by a one-sentence dismissal by somebody--and doesn't belong on a Watergate thread besides--but, as briefly as possible, here's why I think Obama doesn't end the wars. 40% of the country will be with Obama no matter what; 30-35% are going to attack him no matter what. That leaves everyone else, and I think you could probably start chopping them up into little groups too. Somewhere in there, I think there's 10-15% of the electorate who had an unspoken deal with Obama: we'll vote for you, but please don't do stuff that's going to remind us that you're black, and no sudden movements, please, because sudden movements will remind us that you're black. Yes, I know--post-racial world, Obama's just the president, not the black president, etc., etc. I don't believe that, and I doubt that Obama does either. On top of that, you can throw in the usual Democratic skittishness when it comes to appearing weak on foreign policy, something that's defined the party since Reagan.

So, I believe, he does the crassly political thing and keeps two wars going, and, tentatively, sort of half-starts a new one. He does this because he has it in his mind that everything will unravel if he doesn't--he'll lose that 10-15% who've been keeping his approval ratings somewhere close to 50%, and from there, no legislation and no re-election. That's not a defense of the wars, and maybe I'm completely wrong; I'm just trying to explain my interpretation of what's happening.

When it comes to the detention and surveillance stuff, that I don't understand. And it's been a major disappointment. I don't go on the political thread and talk about it, because a) there are lots of people who do that already, and b) since those people rarely, if ever, acknowledge anything good about Obama's performance in office, I play the same game and don't acknowledge the negative.

Colson is one of the most disgusting humans to ever walk the face of the earth imho

you guys can go on and on about how bad the soviet union was, but boy i'll tell you, i'd like to see some of you guys in stalin's place, what would YOU have done?

not a stupid question actually

anyway oughtn't you to "set the bar for evil" somewhere you actually occasionally cross, because otherwise it's pretty obvious you're cheating

that said nixon was some medieval shit

Yeah I was thinking that the Stalin comparison actually raised some ~interesting questions~

man though can i just say--regarding sam waterston's speech about the cia "developing... appetites" in that clip upthread--there's really a level of stone's ridiculous melodramatic inaccurate shakespearian-history approach to America At The Zenith Of Its Cloistered Power that half the time i totally love. except obviously shakespeare would have just written the yeats poem himself. and not said "this country stands at such a juncture" at the end like a stupid dope.

i'd like to see some of you guys in stalin's place, what would YOU have done?

It seems to me that national power has a perverse logic of its own that makes it impossible to identify and maintain 'national interests' without sacrificing human lives and happiness in their name. Put all that power in one person's hand's and they must either grapple with that perversity and frequently lose out to its strict internal logic (as Obama usually does), or they will happily fall into step with it, commit its atrocities without conscience, and sleep like an innocent child (as Stalin did).

In Stalin's place, most of us would have failed, if failure is defined as allowing the nation to sink into impotence and irrelevance, as the price we'd pay for keeping some scraps of our own integrity. Stalin obv wasn't like that.

P.S. Nixon was a lot closer to Stalin in this regard than to any ilxor.

That's another reason why I don't think Nixon rises to the level of evil: the idea that evil has no conscience and no guilt. I realize that for most people, Nixon easily passes that test, too--no conscience, no guilt. I think he did harbor lots of guilt over his career, however, and even though he kept it hidden from view almost always--to do otherwise would be to give in to all the people he hated--it would manifest itself occasionally. I'm sure most everyone's seen the footage of him at Pat's funeral. I don't think I've ever seen a public figure so devastated, and I have to believe that a lot of that was tied into guilt over what he put his wife through--and that, I believe, was an extension of his guilt over what he put the country through. I also think you can see it in part one of the Frost interviews, towards the end when the camera zooms in slowly as he kind-of sorta apologizes for Watergate. His words tell one story--lots of legalisms and qualifiers--and his face tells another.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkcZAB4_wd4&feature=related

enjoyed laughing at him at Pat's funeral tbh

One day I'll write my own version of "Campaigner"--I'll call it "Poster" or something like that--and the key line will be, "Even Dr. Morbius has got soul."

That's another reason why I don't think Nixon rises to the level of evil: the idea that evil has no conscience and no guilt

I dunno about that -- evil has many faces. Literature is replete with them. So is life.

Also: Nixon's famous I-gave-them-a-sword line isn't even close to an admission of guilt. The Watergate crimes weren't THEMSELVES illegal and vile acts against the Constitution and hence the body politic: they were opportunities for Nixon's enemies to stab him.

(according to Nixon)

Sincere question for Alfred: how is it that you brush aside Reagan's inability to utter the word AIDs (much less do anything about it) until 50,000 deaths had occurred as a generational blind spot, but Nixon's reckless mindset on Vietnam, which he shared with most politicians of his generation (I realize not all, especially as Vietnam worsened)--America doesn't lose wars and all that--is something different? I don't see one as any more inherently evil than the other.

This is a whole separate thread, but I've never believed that even the most complex characters from literature, films, or wherever can ever be as complex as actual human beings.

you brush aside Reagan's inability to utter the word AIDs ... until 50,000 deaths had occurred as a generational blind spot

I must have missed it when Alfred did this. Are you sure this is an accurate characterization of his position?

I've barely discussed Nixon's Vietnam record, so your question relies on a false binary. And I've never brushed off Reagan's AIDS record. But whatever Reagan's many failings as president, he didn't descend to Nixon's vindictiveness.

on the other hand, Reagan's almost sociopathic distance from people and events he set in motion made him a much better president than Nixon, who never fundamentally understood the office.

It was in the presidents poll: when I brought up Reagan and AIDs, you sort of shrugged and said that you couldn't expect anyone of his generation, at that particular point in time, do react any differently. As Casey Stengel would say, I'll look it up.

I narrow down Nixon's supposed evilness to Vietnam because I don't know where else it would reside. Unless you think all the dirty tricks and red-baiting qualifies as evil.