taking sides: lyndon baines johnson vs. richard milhous nixon

thought of another thing LBJ and Nixon shared: bottomless wells of self-pity

They both loved their mamas.

long-suffering spouses

First or last names that are also slang terms for a penis.

42 years since Dick left

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32GaowQnGRw

Very glad to see the spirit of Black Friday everywhere.

http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?u=1b467fe3b2c9cbc8c7ded8810&id=e298ba760a&e=ee11fe0254

Yet another smoking gun:

During a phone call on the night of Oct. 22, 1968, Richard M. Nixon told his closest aide (and future chief of staff) H.R. Haldeman to "monkey wrench" President Lyndon B. Johnson's efforts to begin peace negotiations over the Vietnam War. Nixon long denied giving such an order, but Haldeman's notes, which were quietly made public in 2007 and were recently discovered by the historian Jack Farrell, prove he was lying.

Gets better too:

Time has yielded Nixon’s secrets. Haldeman’s notes were opened quietly at the presidential library in 2007, where I came upon them in my research for a biography of the former president. They contain other gems, like Haldeman’s notations of a promise, made by Nixon to Southern Republicans, that he would retreat on civil rights and “lay off pro-Negro crap” if elected president. There are notes from Nixon’s 1962 California gubernatorial campaign, in which he and his aides discuss the need to wiretap political foes.

forever a Dick

I had never heard that apparently Tricky Dick and Zsa Zsa Gabor had a fling together, at least according to a couple articles on the ladies life a couple weeks ago. I hadn't really heard of Nixon having affairs, but I guess that is another power trip too.

If poor old homely Wilbur Mills could have an affair with a stripper, then surely Nixon, the goddamed President of the United States of America, had a decent shot at an affair with no-talent opportunist like Zsa Zsa Gabor.

good grief I could totally hear that in Nixon's voice.

Richard M. Nixon ‏@dick_nixon Jan 1

The key term is "monkey wrench." It is used to fix things. President Nixon sought to improve the yield and efficacy of the peace talks. - RZ

wow smh

My deal was that Tricky Dick seemed more like a guy that would get his rocks off making lists and counting money than doing the nasty. Sex seems way too personal and sticky. It actually humanizes him a bit.

nixon's erotic side comes out when he talks about his enemies

that's how they play it and we're gonna play it just as dirty. get them on the ground where we want them. stick our heels in hard. twist.

Nixon supposedly came out of WWII working with a bank roll that helped get him into Congress. In the rear with the gear could be quite profitable.

Won most of it playing poker according to Nixonland

nixon's erotic side comes out when he talks about his enemies

― difficult listening hour, Monday, January 9, 2017 12:22 A

real lol (and true)

http://i.imgur.com/DNiIIPx.jpg

Won most of it playing poker according to Nixonland

seems like politicians who excel at poker do better than those who excel at chess

Slate: That also sounded to me like a chess player’s analysis. You’re the greatest chess player ever. Is Putin playing chess, or is he playing a different game?

Kasparov: No, I always wanted to defend the integrity of my game—when people said, Oh, Putin played chess, Obama played checkers. Putin, as with every dictator, hates chess because chess is a strategic game which is 100 percent transparent. I know what are available resources for me and what kind of resources could be mobilized by my opponent. Of course, I don’t know what my opponent thinks about strategy and tactics, but at least I know what kind of resources available to you cause damage to me.

Dictators hate transparency and Putin feels much more comfortable playing a game that I would rather call geopolitical poker. In poker, you know, you can win having a very weak hand, provided you have enough cash to raise the stakes—and also, if you have a strong nerve, to bluff. Putin kept bluffing. He could see his geopolitical opponents—the leaders of the free world—folding cards, one after another. For me, the crucial moment where Putin decided that he could do whatever was Obama’s decision not to enforce the infamous red line in Syria.

https://twitter.com/APIC_USA/status/834534585799053312

Farrell's Nixon bio is out.

“The press is the enemy,” Nixon told his aides. “Write that on the blackboard 100 times and never forget it.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/books/richard-nixon-biography-john-a-farrell.html?_r=0

Didn't realize till a FB post just now that today's the 43rd resignation anniversary. Trump seems to taken his Madman-Nixon mask off the shelf to commemorate.

The Farrell bio, by the way, is excellent, and he gives the fullest account of his "monkey wrenching" the '68 peace talks.

Don't have it. I bought Tim Weiner's One Man Against the World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon recently, but haven't read it yet.

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

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

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

https://i.imgur.com/O81x9cV.jpg

"Well I'll be damned – your birthday's the day before mine!"

RMN shares a birthday with Joan Baez. Guess where Joan was when Nixon bombed Hanoi at Xmas '72... Yep.

Graceland?

Hanoi Joan

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.

Nixon didn't do that shit in public the way Trump does afaik

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.

Nixon definitely obsequious in a way Trump has never had to be

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.

Happy Earth Day.

http://phildellio.tripod.com/planting.jpg

every picture tells a story

"Goddamn it, Pat, is this really necessary?"

I wonder who on the shit list is under the dirt.

Just posted today--your dreams have been answered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hOqnG9UHLE

http://phildellio.tripod.com/resignation.jpeg

Does anything say Valentine's Day better than Richard Nixon?

https://phildellio.tripod.com/nixon-2.jpg

somewhere, Roger Stone just got hard

You just sent me to therapy.

Screenshot I took from Versailles '73: American Runway Revolution.

https://phildellio.tripod.com/fashion.jpg

CNN starts an LBJ series tonight (yeah, I know, "Turn Turn Turn"):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pND1mP0Rwpo