Nixon

So I was on the road last week, and caught a little television. Whaddaya know, thanks to Mark Felt's admission that he was Deep Throat, all the Nixon bagmen had come out to remind us what a great President Tricky Dick had been, too bad he got wrapped up in scandals like Bill Clinton was. Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings sets us straight. He summarizes the apologists.

I have encountered a few people who have tried to argue that Nixon didn't do anything that LBJ and Kennedy hadn't done before him. Some, I think, were not old enough at the time to recall, and have just heard, vaguely, that he did some bad stuff and concluded: well, most politicians do bad stuff; so what?

Then he gives us a few reminders of what Nixon was caught doing.

This is planning murder, arson, and of course burglary. In addition, there was a lot of financial corruption, and the use of the entire machinery of government -- the FBI, the IRS, you name it -- to go after those Nixon thought of as his political opponents.
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This is not just "what all politicians do". This was different: a completely lawless White House whose corruption went way beyond normal.

I'd add how my personal theory about Nixon --- that he resigned because he feared that investigation would ultimately lead to his orders to illegally and secretly bomb Cambodia --- seems sort of quaint today. That story would never stick to the Bush administration.