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 (nineteen 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 (nineteen 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 (nineteen 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 (nineteen years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 May 2004 04:19 (nineteen years ago) link
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, 27 May 2004 04:32 (nineteen years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 May 2004 04:37 (nineteen years ago) link
― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Thursday, 27 May 2004 05:45 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ian Johnson (orion), Thursday, 27 May 2004 06:17 (nineteen years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 27 May 2004 06:44 (nineteen 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 (nineteen years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 May 2004 16:15 (nineteen years ago) link
― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 27 May 2004 16:18 (nineteen years ago) link
― DV (dirtyvicar), Thursday, 27 May 2004 16:23 (nineteen years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 May 2004 16:24 (nineteen years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 May 2004 16:25 (nineteen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 27 May 2004 16:26 (nineteen years ago) link
― Michael White (Hereward), Thursday, 27 May 2004 16:31 (nineteen years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 May 2004 16:31 (nineteen 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 (nineteen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 27 May 2004 16:47 (nineteen years ago) link
― DV (dirtyvicar), Thursday, 27 May 2004 16:55 (nineteen years ago) link
― dave225 (Dave225), Thursday, 27 May 2004 17:04 (nineteen years ago) link
― suzy (suzy), Thursday, 27 May 2004 17:59 (nineteen years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 27 May 2004 18:09 (nineteen 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 (seventeen years ago) link
― My Vileness Is a Dream (noodle vague), Tuesday, 2 May 2006 17:52 (seventeen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 2 May 2006 18:02 (seventeen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 2 May 2006 18:07 (seventeen years ago) link
― kingfish doesn't live here anymore (kingfish 2.0), Tuesday, 2 May 2006 18:11 (seventeen years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 2 May 2006 18:12 (seventeen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 2 May 2006 18:17 (seventeen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 2 May 2006 18:22 (seventeen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 2 May 2006 18:32 (seventeen years ago) link
― Eisbaer, Thursday, 29 March 2007 20:53 (sixteen 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
damn, we missed the party yesterday.
http://lbj100.org/
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 28 August 2008 13:12 (fifteen years ago) link
Last night I was listening to an interview on the radio (NPR program: On the Media) with an author who has just released a book about the newspaper columnist and muckraker, Jack Anderson, a guy who broke a lot of scandals involving Nixon, starting in 1952 and continuing for a couple of decades.
It seems this author interviewed E. Howard Hunt before Hunt's death. There, on tape, Hunt discussed a plan hatched by our hero, Richard Nixon, to assassinate Jack Anderson. Hunt and that other great American hero, G. Gordon Liddy, apparently spent a couple of weeks tailing Anderson, trying to figure out how to cause a fatal auto accident or else break into his home and slip poison into Anderson's medicine.
Nixon: so much more than batshit insane, he was one baby step from serial killer.
― Aimless, Tuesday, 5 October 2010 18:10 (thirteen years ago) link
that is also cited in Summer's "Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon"
― crude interloper of a once august profession (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 5 October 2010 18:23 (thirteen years ago) link
May God bless you all, and may God bless the United States of America! Nixon was raised a Quaker, too.
― Aimless, Tuesday, 5 October 2010 18:27 (thirteen years ago) link
You can bet I've got a ticket for this:
http://www.hotdocs.ca//film/title/our_nixon
― clemenza, Wednesday, 20 March 2013 12:57 (eleven years ago) link
Deeee-lighted that declassified documents show Nixon interfered with the Paris peace talks.
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 20 March 2013 13:35 (eleven years ago) link
Hasn't that been known for a long time--that he was mucking around in the background just before the '68 election? Or maybe he was just gumming things up with public pronouncements, I can't remember.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 20 March 2013 13:53 (eleven years ago) link
So much body language. It's like they're all saying "The fuck?"
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/Lyndon_Johnson_and_Nixon,_withAgnew.jpg/1024px-Lyndon_Johnson_and_Nixon,_withAgnew.jpg
And who knew that LBJ inspired the dictatorial jumpsuit/sunglasses combo.
― pplains, Wednesday, 20 March 2013 14:01 (eleven years ago) link
Hersh and Hitchens, among others, have mentioned it. Now apparently we know memos written by Walt Rostow, LBJ's NSA, confirming this happened.
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 20 March 2013 14:10 (eleven years ago) link
I just got done reading The Presidents Club, and there's a big part about all this in the LBJ/RMN chapter.
LBJ let Nixon know that he knew about his spoiling the talks. LBJ called it treason, but never said anything public about it.
Once Nixon got in, he started getting paranoid and wanted to know how LBJ had bugged his plane (he hadn't) and how they could turn this around on Johnson.
Kissenger suggested they could say Humphrey was in on it, and Nixon laughs and goes "Aw hell no. Who'd believe that?"
Haldeman mentions that LBJ bugged HHH too, they all laugh again, and then go bomb Cambodia. Great book.
― pplains, Wednesday, 20 March 2013 14:15 (eleven years ago) link
I alluded to that book (a good read) in the Watergate thread, but if I'm remembering correctly it doesn't link the Plumbers to Nixon's obsession with what LBJ knew.
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 20 March 2013 14:30 (eleven 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 (three years ago) link
every picture tells a story
― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 22 April 2020 23:21 (three years ago) link
"Goddamn it, Pat, is this really necessary?"
― clemenza, Thursday, 23 April 2020 00:16 (three years ago) link
I wonder who on the shit list is under the dirt.
― pplains, Thursday, 23 April 2020 00:24 (three 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 (three 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 (two months ago) link
has already fired the special prosecutor in Hell
― Disco Biollante (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 9 January 2024 18:31 (two 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 (two 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 (two 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 (two 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 (two 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 (two 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 (two 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 (two months ago) link
― Pat Methamphetamine Trio (is this anything?) (Boring, Maryland), Wednesday, 10 January 2024 01:00 (two 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 (two 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 (two 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 (two 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 (two 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 (two months ago) link