Friday, June 03, 2005
The Nixon/Clinton analogy
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?
And he answers it:
Oh, now I remember. He lied. He was a politician who lied. How remarkable. He lied to protect his subordinates who were covering up a ridiculous burglary that no one to this date has any clue about its purpose. He lied so he could stay in office and keep his agenda of peace going. That was his crime. He was a peacemaker and he wanted to make a world where there was a generation of peace. And he succeeded.
That is his legacy. He was a peacemaker. He was a lying, conniving, covering up peacemaker. He was not a lying, conniving drug addict like JFK, a lying, conniving war starter like LBJ, a lying, conniving seducer like Clinton -- a lying, conniving peacemaker. That is Nixon's kharma.
Stein goes on to imagine a counterfactual world in which Nixon did not resign, and concludes that all sorts of bad things, including the Cambodian genocide, would not have happened. That much strikes me as strained. It is easy to blame the Holocaust on Woodrow Wilson by similar "logic."
However, the analogy to Clinton's demonstrable lie is interesting. It was thoroughly vetting during the BEA ("blogging era ante"), but Felt's confession has reopened the Nixon/Clinton comparison so it is worth putting it to our readers. My position:
1. Clinton's lie was to cover up a petty matter, but it was under oath, so that made it a crime. Nixon's lie was to cover up fundamentally subversive activity, which made the circumstances of it worse, but it wasn't under oath so it wasn't a crime. Clinton degraded the rule of law by, in effect, making light of perjury. Nixon degraded our democracy by undermining the process by which we elect our presidents. Clinton's lie, in and of itself, was "worse" than Nixon's lie, but Nixon's offense was worse than Clinton's offense. (I appreciate that Nixon probably committed obstruction of justice at least to the extent that it has been applied to corporate defendants by federal prosecutors, but so probably did Clinton.)
2. Nixon resigned, which was ultimately the honorable thing to do. Clinton did not, which was not the honorable thing to do. However, both were acting like the politicians they were. Clinton had the votes in the Senate, and Nixon did not. This was in part a function of their personalities -- Clinton is inherently more likeable than Nixon was (who would you rather spend a night in Vegas with?). It is also a function of the attitude of the press -- the mainstream media loves Clinton, and definitely hated Nixon.
3. Nixon accomplished far more in his shortened presidency over the obstacle of a much larger opposition majority in the Congress than Clinton did in his two terms. It isn't even close. However, Nixon had a lot of troubles on his hands, and Clinton did not (except, of course, for al Qaeda, the threat of which he grossly underestimated, as Richard Clarke unwittingly made clear).
Discuss.
2 Comments:
By 
ScurvyOaks, at
Fri Jun 03, 10:01:00 AM:
Don't forget that Nixon also had serious federal income tax problems. I don't have time right now to confirm this, but my recollection is that he ultimately was found to have committed civil tax fraud. I'm reasonably confident that the tax issue was listed in the House's articles of impeachment. (Caveat: I'm relying on what I saw on TV when I was 11 and 12.) A president who flagrantly violates the Internal Revenue Code (even if it is a civil, rather than criminal violation) also degrades the rule of law.
By Lanky_Bastard, at
Fri Jun 03, 11:21:00 AM:
Well argued. I think comparisons between the eras are difficult though. I hear people say "Nixon was a crook." and I think "Of course he was, he was a politician". My generation has lower standards than yours...in most meanings of the phrase. Public standards drop, and each morally bankrupt President drops them even further.
I'll ask this, since I don't pretend to know the answer. Had Watergate never occurred, might Clinton have been found guilty by the Senate?
If Clinton had taken accountability, might we see some more of it in the White House today?
Oh I'll also toss in that the issue with Stein's speech (fabulous by the way)is that the people believe it was more than just lying. They believe he was involved in the criminal event (and by virtue of his position, probably ordered it). That raises allegations of abuse of power and scary stuff. Maybe I have it wrong, I wasn't around then. But that's the belief that has come down to me. Banging an intern may be an abuse of power, but it's not so scary, and it's far far easier to put oneself in Clinton's shoes than Nixon's.
