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June 02, 2005
Ben Stein Turns On A Hanging Curveball
Ben Stein lays it on the line about Deep Throat, Watergate and Richard Nixon (thanks to Little Green Footballs):
Can anyone even remember now what Nixon did that was so terrible? He ended the war in Vietnam, brought home the POW's, ended the war in the Mideast, opened relations with China, started the first nuclear weapons reduction treaty, saved Eretz Israel's life, started the Environmental Protection Administration. Does anyone remember what he did that was bad?
Oh, now I remember. He lied. He was a politician who lied. How remarkable.[...]
When his enemies brought him down, and they had been laying for him since he proved that Alger Hiss was a traitor, since Alger Hiss was their fair-haired boy, this is what they bought for themselves in the Kharma Supermarket that is life:
1.) The defeat of the South Vietnamese government with decades of death and hardship for the people of Vietnam.
2.) The assumption of power in Cambodia by the bloodiest government of all time, the Khmer Rouge, who killed a third of their own people, often by making children beat their own parents to death. No one doubts RN would never have let this happen.
The emphases are mine. I've long believed that the true tragedy of Watergate was that it allowed the backlash of the 1974 elections--landslide victories for the Democrats in Congress. As David Horowitz notes:
When the fires of Watergate consumed the Nixon presidency in 1974, the left's newly won control of the Democratic Party produced the exact result that Hayden and his comrades had worked so hard to achieve. In 1974, a new class of Democrats was elected to congress, which included anti-war activists like Ron Dellums, Pat Schroeder, David Bonior, and Bella Abzug. Their politics were traditionally left as opposed to the anti-Communist liberalism of the Daleys and the Humphreys (Abzug had even been a Communist). Their first act was to cut off economic aid and military supplies to the regimes in Cambodia and South Vietnam, precipitating the bloodbath that followed. Though it is conveniently forgotten now, this cut-off occurred two years after the United States had signed a truce with Hanoi and American troops had been withdrawn from Vietnam.
We are just now digging ourselves out of the slough that resulted from the Watergate backlash. And it was all for nothing.
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Comments
But I don't get it. Should a President have been allowed his draconian usurpation of power simply because he was doing it for the right reasons? I don't necessarily disagree with Ben Stein, but the man was doing things wrong. I mean, like, crazy wrong. You can't tie that to the "consequences" of catching him. If anything, the fault for the loss of faith in the Republicans in the elections of 1974 lies squarely with Nixon.
Posted by: Fargus at June 3, 2005 06:14 AM
Oh, I absolutely place the primary blame on Nixon. That's why I called it a tragedy--it's so maddening that all that damage (from my point of view) was done for such trivial and unnecessary reasons.
And as much as I agree with Stein, he is on shakey ground if he's trying to excuse Nixon's behovior by citing Kennedy, Johnson, et. al.--you can't excuse one person's bad behavior by citing someone else's. But I do agree with his point that said actions by Nixon were judged with a much harsher eye than any of those by St. John Kennedy.
And if Nixon can't abuse his power for the "right" reasons, neither can Felt.
Posted by: Jeff at June 3, 2005 08:22 AM
One thing that is coming out is the incredible disparity on how the media handled (and made money off of) the Nixon and Clinton debacles. Watergate was a 3rd rate burglary. And Nixon did nothing more than try and bury something he had not been involved with.
But with 30 years behind us and the Clinton example sitting there, it is clear Watergate was not as a big a deal as Clinton's use of the administration to cajole and intimidate citizens in his cover up and other acts.
Historic perspective is an interesting force in any society.
Posted by: AJStrata at June 3, 2005 09:00 AM
I agree. What Nixon did would not "rise to the level" of impeachment, trial, and removal from office. Just as Clinton's commission of perjury "didn't rise to the level."
Times sure have change since Nixon left office...
Posted by: EdWonk at June 4, 2005 02:03 PM
