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Column: What I learned about myself at the Richard M. Nixon museum
latimes ^ | 01/16/2023 | NICHOLAS GOLDBERG

Posted on 01/17/2023 1:23:26 PM PST by ChicagoConservative27

In the house where I grew up, President Nixon was a villain. My parents voted against him every opportunity they got, and we all cheered when he resigned during his second term, flying off in ignominy from the White House lawn to a life outside the public eye.

That he was a criminal, a warmonger, a bigot, a vicious redbaiter, a threat to the Constitution — these were unquestionable truths.

So for me, a recent visit to the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda was a head-turning, mind-bending experience that challenged my assumptions and forced me to test my long-hardened opinions against a very different narrative.

Some people don’t like having their assumptions challenged. I decided to embrace it.

I didn’t go to the museum because of this month’s historic anniversaries. But for the record, January 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the Paris Peace Accords that led Nixon to withdraw American troops from Vietnam, and the 50th anniversary of the trial of the Watergate burglars before U.S. District Court Judge John J. Sirica.

Vietnam and Watergate were central issues of my political formation. I was young in the Nixon years — only 16 when he resigned in 1974 — but I marched against the war and followed the Watergate hearings on television, with appropriate revulsion.

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: california; communism; losangelesslimes; nixon; richardenixon; vietnam; yorbalinda
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You finally learned your parents were full of BEEP?
1 posted on 01/17/2023 1:23:26 PM PST by ChicagoConservative27
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>> these were unquestionable truths

Uh, no. You’re an idiot, Nickie


2 posted on 01/17/2023 1:26:15 PM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: ChicagoConservative27
God knows President Trump never said anything so thoughtful.

Stopped reading right there.

3 posted on 01/17/2023 1:27:21 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum (The worst thing about censorship is ████ █ ██████ ███████ ███ ██████ ██ ████████. FJB.)
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To: ChicagoConservative27
Hi is a villain, just not for what the Left thinks about, like Watergate (now clearly a minor faux pas compared to the intel coup attempt against Trump by the Democrats).

He is among the worst President we've ever had for two things: a) taking us off the gold standard for foreign exchange, which enabled unlimited imports and transferred control of the currency from Congress to the Federal Reserve via interest rates; b) the slew if alphabet agencies that intimidate citizens and strangle American businesses like EPA.

His corpse should be dug up and burned just for those two things alone.

4 posted on 01/17/2023 1:27:48 PM PST by pierrem15 ("Massacrez-les, car le seigneur connait les siens" )
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To: ChicagoConservative27

“You finally learned your parents were full of BEEP?”

Not really. He learned that maybe Nixon wasn’t quite as awful as he believed growing up — a slightly nuanced anti-christ instead of Satan himself.


5 posted on 01/17/2023 1:28:00 PM PST by ModelBreaker
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To: ChicagoConservative27
I too celebrated Nixon's removal, I was 19 years old and had a lot of growing up to do. I changed my mind on Nixon, long before I went to his library a few years ago. He was a very good President, with some serious personality afflictions, that fogged his mind, paranoia being one of them.

But just because one thinks people are out to get him, does not mean they aren't.

6 posted on 01/17/2023 1:28:46 PM PST by Michael.SF. ( The problem today: people are more concerned about feelings than responsibility)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

Well, he gave us abortion, so there’s that.


7 posted on 01/17/2023 1:30:20 PM PST by Romulus
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To: pierrem15
Do you think that if Nixon had known how the Democrats would abuse the EPA, for their own purpose, he would have supported it's creation?
8 posted on 01/17/2023 1:31:32 PM PST by Michael.SF. ( The problem today: people are more concerned about feelings than responsibility)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

No he didnt.

He is still the same leftist asshat he was at 16


9 posted on 01/17/2023 1:32:29 PM PST by Chickensoup (Genocide is here. Leftist extremists are spearhheading the Genocide against conservatives. )
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To: ChicagoConservative27

Nixon’s greatest crime was beating McGovern in a nationwide landslde. No one in the media voted for Nixon or knew anyone who did, so he had to be punished.


10 posted on 01/17/2023 1:34:51 PM PST by Bubba_Leroy (Dementia Joe is Not My President)
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To: Gene Eric

You’re supposed to read on.

It’s the perspective of his family life days.


11 posted on 01/17/2023 1:35:42 PM PST by the OlLine Rebel (Common sense is an uncommon virtue./Federal-run medical care is as good as state-run DMV)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

Nixon was a saint compared to present DC Deep State


12 posted on 01/17/2023 1:36:24 PM PST by PGR88
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Kind of funny, because at the start he states that he decided to challenge his views.

Perhaps you should, too - at least swallow your view long enough to get the point of the writing.


13 posted on 01/17/2023 1:37:35 PM PST by the OlLine Rebel (Common sense is an uncommon virtue./Federal-run medical care is as good as state-run DMV)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

So will he be calling for Biden to end the war in Ukraine, or is that the next Republican’s responsibility just like Viet Nam?


14 posted on 01/17/2023 1:38:03 PM PST by chrisser (I lost my vaccine card in a tragic boating accident.)
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To: ChicagoConservative27

Nixon was an American nationalist and a fierce anti communist. He was not a “movement” conservative, such as Barry Goldwater. In that regard he was a pragmatist much like Donald Trump.


15 posted on 01/17/2023 1:45:16 PM PST by hinckley buzzard ( Resist the narrative.)
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To: Romulus

What?


16 posted on 01/17/2023 1:48:32 PM PST by the OlLine Rebel (Common sense is an uncommon virtue./Federal-run medical care is as good as state-run DMV)
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To: Michael.SF.

What is ironic is that Nixon’s paranoia was fueld from the 40s to the 60s by the same group that the article’s author became a part of - the U.S. press corps.


17 posted on 01/17/2023 1:50:31 PM PST by 7thson (I've got a seat at the big conference table! I'm gonna paint my logo on it!)
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To: ChicagoConservative27
Yes, Nixon inherited the Vietnam War from his Democratic predecessors — and eventually ended it. But he also bombed urban areas, mined harbors and presided over a cross-border troop incursion into Cambodia. It shouldn’t have taken him five years to end the war.

Because he was trying to win it?

Nixon was recorded on the famous White House tapes saying Washington “is full of Jews,” and “most Jews are disloyal” and “you can’t trust the bastards.” But if those recordings were mentioned at the museum, I missed them.

Just as you will miss the "F'ing Jew Bastards" quote at the Clinton Museum.

I couldn’t help but think about Nixon’s cheerleading role in the McCarthy era — a period of blacklists, loyalty oaths, the naming of names and the persecution of people for their political beliefs.

And a real communist infiltration of the Arts and Sciences.

What about the Republicans’ cynical “Southern strategy” to win over white voters in the South using coded language to play on racial fears?

Against the likes of George Wallace and Bull Connor?

And finally, Watergate. In the run-up to the 1972 campaign, Nixon’s cronies burgled the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, broke into Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel, engaged in “dirty tricks” and campaign finance abuses. They targeted political enemies, including weaponizing the IRS against adversaries.

That's the Democrat playbook now, thanks to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

-PJ

18 posted on 01/17/2023 1:51:48 PM PST by Political Junkie Too ( * LAAP = Left-wing Activist Agitprop Press (formerly known as the MSM))
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To: Michael.SF.
He was a very good President, with some serious personality afflictions, that fogged his mind, paranoia being one of them.

They really were out to get him. One of the things the Kennedy clan did in the 1960 election is get a hold of Nixon's accountant and got him to spill the beans about Nixon's private financial records.

They used the information they obtained from Nixon's accountant to damage Nixon any way they could.

I believe Nixon said at the time "So that is how the game is played." He was betrayed and exploited, and of course we know the media was out to get him in the 1960 debate with Kennedy.

They deliberately put Nixon under hot lights to make him seem sweaty and uncomfortable.

19 posted on 01/17/2023 1:54:00 PM PST by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: the OlLine Rebel

Fair enough, and thanks. The author did write “were unquestionable truths”, and not “are unquestionable truths”. But I went no further than the excerpt which ends with a description of his “revulsion” seemingly towards Nixon.


20 posted on 01/17/2023 1:57:28 PM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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