Watergate: S & D

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.

And even though I find Nixon infinitely more interesting than Reagan, I'm certainly not going to argue against the idea that Reagan's presidency was more successful--that'd be silly. Nixon was, as I saw Bernstein say once, less suited temperamentally to hold the office than any man ever--not even close. Reagan had the perfect temperament. Kind of like the guy in there now, I'd say.

Here's the passage I had in mind, from an earlier politic thread:

Ehhh. I'm gay and don't think it's as reprehensible as you claim, considering that it took the death of Rock Hudson to mobilize any sort of mass public interest in the disease as an epidemic. Reagan was as blinkered as Walter Mondale would have been; nothing in that generation's DNA suggests they would have been comfortable discussing condoms, gay sex, blood transfusions, etc (that's why congressman and senators around when Roe v Wade was upheld get a pass from me; do you think FDR's second generation of New Dealers were prepared to discuss a woman's right to an abortion?).

To be fair, a little later in the thread you did say "Which is not to exonerate him." You do seem more willing to look beneath the surface of Reagan's actions (or inaction, as it were) than you are with Nixon. And, as I did at the time, I disagree totally about Mondale; I say he would have done a much better job of handling the first few years of AIDs.

t 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.

I still believe this, but it doesn't exonerate Reagan either.

Basically, at its core, I don't think Nixon's handling of Vietnam was any less generational than Reagan's handling of AIDs. And, yes, with Nixon, his own personal failings compounded the problem.

You do seem more willing to look beneath the surface of Reagan's actions (or inaction, as it were) than you are with Nixon.

Did you mean "less willing"? I'll assume so. At any rate, not at all! I've probably read more about Reagan than any other modern president, with the possible exception of Nixon. In the case of Dick, he had a long record of malicious behavior, which Reagan simply didn't have and was incapable of (a long record of stupidity and callowness though).

But I trust you're not assuming my categorizing means I don't find Nixon an awesome character and worth endless study.

No, I did mean "more"--i.e., you'll attempt to explain mitigating factors when it comes to Reagan, whereas you won't with Nixon.

Anyway, we can probably bring this to a close. We seem to all agree that Nixon was fascinating. We also all agree he did horrible things. Everyone except me views him as evil. I stop short of that.

crossposted on Pakula thread re All the President's Men (the film):

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/3148

Bernstein: "What I took away from watching the movie six years ago was that most of the good work was done at night. I think, and there are certain exceptions, that you get the truth at night and lies during the day."
cracking line that.

i watched all 30 parts of thi slast year. fascinating stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzRM3l5TwRU

August 9, 1974: And then, you destroy yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfNjpHAMy2E

That he never once mentions Pat but chooses to languish in his habitual self-pity makes this a particularly gruesome watch.

It's the most public descent into abject self-pity that I can think of--almost stream-of-consciousness when he starts talking about him mother and father. (His mother, anyway--he'd been using the line about his father being the poorest lemon grower forever.) But I do think those two or three lines that begin with "Always remember" are improbably poetic.

Anyway, the whole speech runs eight or nine minutes--are you sure he doesn't mention Pat somewhere?

I checked the full text of the speech, and if search is to be trusted he doesn't. He acknowledges his family a couple of times in his resignation speech, but doesn't mention Pat by name.

I haven't seen the whole thing so it's possible. He wasn't particularly interested in mentioning Pat. In the Pat chapter of a history of modern First Ladies I browsed through at the library a couple of months ago (wish I could remember its title), we learn that while president Dick, stepping off Air Force One, walked right past an open-armed Pat and greeted local dignitaries. According to the author, he had never seen such a look of desolation on a woman's face.

Pretty sure her look of desolation on wedding day was worse

http://thenewnixon.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/richard_nixon_new_dad.jpg

He treated his wife miserably. I don't know much about presidential wives before Jackie O, but I figure Pat was the template for that awful scene that gets replayed over and over now of the wife standing by stone-faced as the husband publicly admits to whatever transgression he's committed (captured very well by Joan Allen in the Stone film).

How pathetic that the one president who needed wifely interaction preferred the warmth of Brezhnev and Chou En-Lai.

I believe that's the first time ever the phrase "the warmth of Brezhnev" was typed or uttered.

the quiet humor of Chernenko.

The Pillsbury Dough Boy cuddliness of Haldeman and Liddy.

xp Well, he was pretty funny in the "Two Tribes" video...

the mirth of Mao

The lilting timbre of Kissinger.

the wife standing by stone-faced as the husband publicly admits to whatever transgression

No, she sat stonily by in the Checkers speech while he protested his innocence. (The cutaways to her in the chair are WTF)

Charles Colson, dead as a tree stump.

I was at a screening of All the President's Men last week. One of the funniest bits in the film is Jack Warden's exasperation when Redford asks him who Charles Colson is: "The most powerful man in the country is Richard Nixon--you've heard of him, right?"

always find it amazing how he was cracking gags and swearing and such just minutes before giving his final televised broadcast from the WH

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9l37RTZcJ0

search also John Dean's "lying, vengeful testimony" (as Hunter Thompson called it)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmD00OmakM0

Nixon ordered it, Ron Rosenbaum sez.

after reading the older column he links to i kinda think rosenbaum's probably OTM on this one.

Don't think I watched any of this, although I have vague memories of it airing:

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTg2MjYzNzI4MV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNTc1MjA2Nw@@._V1._SY317_CR6,0,214,317_.jpg

It's just out on DVD. Twelve hours long--Berlin Alexanderplatz for wild gossipy political horserace fiends like me. Pricey, though, so I'll wait it out a bit.

Strange, the image seems to come and go.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075597/

it's pretty soapy, tho Robards is great.

40th anniv of break-in imminent!

There and back, and back again.

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/magazine/103940/watergate-richard-nixon

Both sides agree!

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/302288/blast-past-michael-potemra?toggle=y#comment-bar

It was the NRO thing that alerted me to its re-release.

The movie ends with a Watergate-style major turning point, and the final shot is of an American flag briskly waving: as if to assure the 1977 TV audience that America is a great country that will always prevail over its evil Nixons, and that everything’s going to be just fine now that a really decent guy like Jimmy Carter is president.

I can think of one or two (or more) people on the political thread who'd be fine substituting Bush and Obama into that formulation.

not a particularly close parallel.

The WaPo had a party at the Watergate the other night, I kid you not. Oh, the irony of 2012 vs 1972 Bob Woodward.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/11/watergate-remembered-four-decades-later-at-washington-post-party.html

except that bush was worse than nixon and obama worse than carter! xpost

don't make me go to who might be worse than Nixon....

I think W:BCD might play a lot worse for me today after exposure to all the years of Oval Office tapes. There's no topping 'em, especially with broadcast-friendly dialogue.

i'm sure this must have been in American papers but The Independent in the UK is doing an 'Untold Story' thing by WoodStein just in time for the 40th anniversary

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/special-report-watergate--the-untold-story-7844900.html

anyone ever rifle through the online Nixon tapes? i had no idea there was so much of it on the net
http://whitehousetapes.net/transcript/nixon/i-want-brookings-institute-safe-cleaned-out

Nixon's whole bit on those about how everyone is too much of a 'nice guy' and needs to be more of a 'son of a bitch like me for a change' really is pretty vomit inducing.

Woodstein were on Face the Nation on the weekend, talking about a shared byline they had in the Post last week (first in 30+ years). Haven't read the piece, but I gather the gist of it is that Watergate was much worse than anything that's ever been reported; that virtually from day one, a full-scale criminal operation was being conducted inside the White House. (Please resist dragging Obama into this.)

None of the info was new; what made it notable was Woodstein cobbling the info into a chronological narrative. I was surprised Woodward had it in him.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/woodward-and-bernstein-40-years-after-watergate-nixon-was-far-worse-than-we-thought/2012/06/08/gJQAlsi0NV_story.html

It's a measure of the enormity of the fallout from Watergate that the suffix "-gate" is by now well-understood to denote a scandal, not only in the USA, but almost worldwide, even in several different languages.

I did kind of suspect that, Alfred--even in the movie, they make it pretty clear that bad stuff started very early.