RICHARD NIXON'S REVENGE

HofT wrote:

"Subverting the Constitution" hasn't been tried since Mr. Franklin Roosevelt threatened to pack the Supreme Court with dozens of new judges supporting his treasonous activities.

For those unaware of these long-past events may I recommend the memoirs of an honest and brilliant president, Herbert Hoover

ROFLMAO

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Laugh, PDiddie, laugh - since nobody except you thinks treason a funny subject. See the constitutional amendment passed after Franklin Roosevelt's death, limiting everybody to 2 terms as president.

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HofT wrote:

Laugh, PDiddie, laugh - since nobody except you thinks treason a funny subject.

No, I don't think treason is a funny subject.

I think they ought to hang the person who leaked Valerie Plame's name to Bob Novak (and Bob Novak right beside him).

But as far as FDR and your interpretation of the word treason, you're psychotic.

Stop drinking that Kool-Aid they're giving you every morning (for starters).

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KOOL-AID????

Facts, not fantasy - doubt you'd know the difference, PDiddie.

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See the US House resolution posthumously reinstating Admiral Kimmel and General Short, if you want more facts about treason - the federal deficit (many multiples as a percentage of GDP than today's) during that traitor's administration is the least of his activities in that regard.

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HofT wrote:

KOOL-AID????

Facts, not fantasy - doubt you'd know the difference, PDiddie.

I just read some of the best fiction of the day in your post, Hel.

Thanks for the bellylaugh.

Did you ever muster those statistics that show smokers cost their insurance companies less than non-smokers?

Laughing

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And - finally, I have work to do in addition to stating the obvious to PDiddie - please look up the definition of "psychotic" and see how it may be met by those who deny demonstrable facts like constitutional amendments.

Not to mention Truman never running for a 2nd term even though the amendment was specifically worded to exclude him.

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HofT wrote:

And - finally, I have work to do in addition to stating the obvious to PDiddie

Well then, my suggestion is to get back to it, since you're making a complete fool of yourself here... Laughing

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ah, I am beginning to see the light, Truman not seeking a second term is evidence of FDR being quilty of treason (or of Pdid being psychotic) now looking up DSM. (confused)

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Did I say somewhere that I had lost the ability to see in color or even shades of gray? Not that I remember.

Quote:

Some good things happened under the Nixon administration and those things should be acknowledged. Some bad things happened and those too should be acknowledged.

Golly gee. Good and bad happened during Nixon's terms in office, tell you what. I'll start naming all the good things, the Nixon supporters must chime in with an equal number of bad...... okay...go:

the opening of direct relations with the People's Republic of China.
the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.
the institution of wage and price controls to combat inflation.
Henry Kissinger (The Early Years)

Okay? Now you:

Joe (try to avoid mentioning Kent State, the FBI and enemy lists)Nation

Hey, this is fun.

PS: I love yu, HelenofTroy, and I know subversion when I see it. Packing the court has to be the most egregiously transparent attempt in history, it was crude, clumsy and a failure, but, as Foxfyre might say, other things went rather better in FDR's three and half terms, but not good enough for the American people to trust another President with four, or even three terms. If we had we might have had Ronald Reagan in his third term in the midst of his tragic, tragic illness. So lucky us.

PSSs: and I don't think I was being particularly hard on Richard Nixon, I wondered what would happen if I made a face or two at a conservative demi-god and what happened was what I thought would happen: those who see things only in black and white try to make the claim that I am afflicted with the same kind of bi-opia. I'm not, but they think if they make the claim first, then it's true. Kind of a good trick, Huh?

Joe(Three posts for the price of one)Nation

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I'm glad to hear that Joe. Perhaps some would not draw wrong conclusions if you didn't suggest others have to agree with what appeared to be your unqualified black and white assessment of a particular point in history in order to have appreciation for our Republic.

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Joe Nation wrote:

Did I say somewhere that I had lost the ability to see in color or even shades of gray? Not that I remember.

Quote:
Some good things happened under the Nixon administration and those things should be acknowledged. Some bad things happened and those too should be acknowledged.

Golly gee. Good and bad happened during Nixon's terms in office, tell you what. I'll start naming all the good things, the Nixon supporters must chime in with an equal number of bad...... okay...go:

the opening of direct relations with the People's Republic of China.
the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.
the institution of wage and price controls to combat inflation.
Henry Kissinger (The Early Years)

Okay? Now you:

Joe (try to avoid mentioning Kent State, the FBI and enemy lists)Nation

Hey, this is fun.

PS: I love yu, HelenofTroy, and I know subversion when I see it. Packing the court has to be the most egregiously transparent attempt in history, it was crude, clumsy and a failure, but, as Foxfyre might say, other things went rather better in FDR's three and half terms, but not good enough for the American people to trust another President with four, or even three terms. If we had we might have had Ronald Reagan in his third term in the midst of his tragic, tragic illness. So lucky us.

PSSs: and I don't think I was being particularly hard on Richard Nixon, I wondered what would happen if I made a face or two at a conservative demi-god and what happened was what I thought would happen: those who see things only in black and white try to make the claim that I am afflicted with the same kind of bi-opia. I'm not, but they think if they make the claim first, then it's true. Kind of a good trick, Huh?

Joe(Three posts for the price of one)Nation

I love you too, Joe. Foxfyre - from other sources I know Joe to have served with distinction in the USAF in Vietnam, so leave him out of of the main line of fire - thanks!

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LOL Hoft, I figure Joe can take care of himself. I didn't put him in the line of fire did I?

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Just a small, but significant, correction: I served by attending DLIWCB Monterey 1967-1968 and as the Intelligence Coordinator for the 6948th Security Squadron 6940th Security Wing 1969-1971 stateside only.

Once they flew me to Puerto Rico to listen to the Cuban Air Defense Nets as they tested some ultra-high altitude spycraft, but that was my only out of country action.

Joe( I also ran a off-base coffee house where we performed a variety of subversive activities, like voter registration drives in Chicano neighborhoods and conscientious objector counseling. )Nation

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Thanks, Joe, "during" instead of "in" is what I should have said.

Returning to the topic: I too remember the bombshell of the Butterfield testimony and the vilification heaped on Nixon for taping his conversations. Very little such criticism seems to have been directed at his predecessor, Johnson, who also taped a great deal - though Robert Kennedy, among others, was able to use countermeasures:

__________________________________________

"...One recording appeared to have been "jammed." On April 3, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy and Ted Sorensen met with the President in the Cabinet Room. Although Johnson's recording system was a closely held secret, Albright and Juanita Roberts believed that Robert Kennedy knew about Johnson's system. [83] Roberts mentioned an earlier Oval Office meeting between Robert Kennedy and Johnson in 1964. Johnson had a speakerphone on his desk with a button that glowed red when activated. Roberts believed that when Kennedy saw this button glowing red, he assumed it was recording their conversation. [84] Apparently, for their April 3, 1968, meeting, Kennedy brought a briefcase with him and kept it at his feet during the entire meeting. The recording of this meeting is completely unintelligible. There is a constant "buzz" sound for the duration of the meeting. After listening to the tape, Albright told the President that Kennedy must have jammed the recording of the meeting "with an electronic buzzer."...."
__________________________________________
http://whitehousetapes.org/pages/tapes_lbj.htm

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There is a very good reason why there is not as much criticism directed towards LBJ over his taping versus the amount of doo-doo poured over rmn's head. It has to do with amounts. Mrs. Jay's son albee recorded (mostly) official meetings, Nixon recorded EVERYTHING. There's probably seven or eight hundred hours of LBJ on tape and about Four Thousand hours of Richard (expletive deleted) Nixon.

And that stuff about LBJ having mics all over the place is bunk, passed down by a bunch of true believers. Nixon's guys went all over the White House looking for bugs, both foreign and domestic, and didn't find any.
The real difference lay in the deniability factor. Staffers of US Congressmen who were investigating the Watergate break-in were aware that some kind of recording had been done in Nixon's White House, but they did not know, until Butterfield spilled the beans in a private inquiry session, that the recordings were voice-activated, that any time the President was in a conversation with anyone it was recorded. If he greeted the White House steward bringing him a ham sandwich, it was recorded.

Once the House investigators realized that any and all conversations were on record, they knew that conversations relating to the break-in and the subsequent cover-up were right there on the Sony reel to reels. (Maybe Ampex, I don't know.) So there was no longer any chance for someone to deny that some conversation was on tape. No deniability. (The only thing to do was get Rosemary to say she accidently erased about eighteen minutes of tape. MY mY my.)

And the rest as they say....

Joe (recorded were a couple of sneezing fits and John Dean's laugh)Nation

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Joe - for what it's worth I met with the late President Nixon in the 1980's on several occasions in connection with a legal matter involving the company I was then working for in NYC. His office was at the Federal Tower downtown. Knowing he was a former President, the only background info I asked was whether he's addressed as "Mr. President" and was told yes, that's a title like "Senator" or "General" which outlives the actual office. He invariably got up from his chair and came to his office door to meet me, directed me to a chair and never sat down at his own until I was comfortably seated and organized with my paperwork on his desk.

I realize this is a personal snippet of info possibly unrelated to the thread, but he struck me as a decent and honorable man in all dealings I had with him during that time. Say again: I met him while in a very minor professional capacity but appreciated his courtesy - not by any means a decisive factor, I know.

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What an honor. Good for you.

I think American Presidents as a group are as complex and enigmatic as Taoist monks and Richard Nixon in particular strikes me as multi-sided as A. Lincoln, (all recent references to Abe being an original member of the Log Cabin Republicans aside). I haven't studied Nixon very deeply, I only know what I've read in magazines, but he never struck me as someone who liked either the campaigning necessary to become President or being the President once he had arrived. I would have liked to ask him about that. I don't think the President thought that people liked him. He seemed not to trust in anyone with the possible exception of Pat, oh and Henry Kissinger.

I think he went to his grave thinking that life had given him a raw deal when, if he had been just a little more believing in the American People's faith in their leaders, he could have rode out in a blaze of glory as Richard the Straight Talker.

Joe( History is supposed to get dimmer with distance, sometimes though the edges get sharp and focused.)Nation

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I think you're absolutely right, Joe. I met the man only once, when he gave a speech at the Overseas Press Club in NYC in the early 1960s (don't ask what specific year; the '60s are a blur in my memory) before he had announced he would run again. In his speech he outlined a strategy for getting out of Vietnam, a strategy which, in retrospect, is exactly the one he carried out a few years later when he'd finally attained the Oval Office. When I say I "met" him, I mean only that I got to shake his hand. He seemed awfully diffident, as though doing a chore that was incumbent on him, not something he really enjoyed doing.

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Those missing 18 minutes will forever be a controversy and some will forever speculate what was on that segment. Based on what was released on the tapes, however, it is entirely possible that those 18 minutes were 1) an honest error--it has happened to me when doing transcriptions in a former era-- or 2) actually erased because they were incriminating or 3) were erased because there were personal comments from or about a friend or friends so embarassing that Nixon could not in good conscience let them out. (Given what was released on the tapes, and the context within which the missing 18 minutes appeared, I would guess the latter scenario may even be the most plausible.)

Again I in no way condone or defend those areas in which Nixon was clearly wrong. I acknowledge he was not much of a people person and was perhaps excessively paranoid. But then again, he was the first president to have to deal with a mostly hostile, critical, accusatory, and less-than-professional press and, having not had the conditioning for that, maybe that's why he was overly paranoid and/or overly secretive.

That is after all, the thesis of this thread.

I know people who worked in and for government during that period and none hold him in particularly poor esteem as a human being and/or as a president. He did wrong. He paid for it in spades. What he did was pretty tame compared to some of his successors.

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RICHARD NIXON'S REVENGE

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