Posted on 02/05/2004 12:50:07 PM PST by presidio9
had not expected to be involved in this year's presidential campaign. But almost daily my name is mentioned by some commentator, usually as a warning of what candidates should avoid. One gets the impression that the campaign of 1972 is the only one whose shortcomings are worth noting.
Is the central lesson of '72 that George McGovern lost everywhere except Massachusetts and the District of Columbia? If so, what is the lesson of 1984, when my friend Walter Mondale lost everywhere except Minnesota and the District? Is the lesson of these campaigns that Midwestern liberals can never reach the White House?
I don't think so. Mondale and his Minnesota mentor, Hubert Humphrey, who, like me, was defeated by Richard Nixon, were U.S. patriots of unquestioned integrity and ability. (They might say the same about me.) I wonder whether even a Jefferson or Washington could have defeated Ronald Reagan in 1984 or Nixon in '72. Any Democrat running against these heavily financed incumbent presidents would probably have lost (though some still think that the Democratic contenders Mondale and I defeated in winning the nomination would have been stronger than we were in the general election).
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I didn't realize he was a decorated bomber pilot in WWII.
Talk about gilding the lily.
No, the lesson is that you and "tax their ass off" Mondale are losers who were and are so totally out of touch with America that nobody would trust you with this country's most important job.
Regards,
The man was and still is an a$$hole. Shouldn't a liberal who makes this point at least acknowledge that, as a practicing Quaker, Richard Nixon religiously opposed to war? McGovern may have protested the Viet Nam War, but Richard Nixon ended it. McGovern attacks only those who can not defend themselves because he knows he doesn't have a leg to stand on. If it weren't for Fritz, history would remember McGovern as the biggest loser in American political history. I hope that keeps him awake at night.
Perhaps the worst was switching VP candidates -- Thomas Eagleton was apparently dumped for having gone to a psychiatrist ... nowadays we might wonder about a candidate who has not gotten treatment. Anyway, the switch undermined the public estimate of McGovern's ability as a judge of appointees, his loyalty, his decision-making (especially because he dawdled before making the wrong decision), and so forth.
Probably the second worst blunder was the scheduling of his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention. Somehow dozens of (liberal) pressure groups - Latino, African-American, anti-war, feminist, etc. etc. - persuaded McGovern and his people to give each of them a shot at national TV - in prime time, no less - (as if they would cross over to Nixon if they didn't get their way!!) so they were ALL alloted what was supposed to be no more than two minutes speaking time before McGovern's speech. At the very best this pushed his speech up to around 10 pm Eastern time. But, of course, none of these special interest spokemen could keep himself/herself down to two minutes, so McGovern made his acceptance speech ("Come Home America") past midnight to a half empty convention hall and a lot of cold TV sets. The most crucial speech of his campaign was a total FUBAR.
This would indicate that he has ABSOLUTELY NO idea what Jefferson and Washington stood for. He should read some of their quotes... Those guys stood for individualism, freedom, self-reliance and opposition to a powerful federal government. Those guys couldn't win an election for dog-catcher these days, much less President!
But he was hoisted on his own petard--Choosing nut-case Thomas Eggelton as veep then nut-case Sargent Shriver, followed by a disaster campaign full of flower-children. It will be interesting to see if Kerry follows suit. I suspect Kerry, though, a bit smarter, better politician, and it will be a closer contest...
During the final week of Richard Nixon's life, I often imagined how he would have reacted to the tide of concern, respect, admiration and affection evoked by his last great battle. His gruff pose of never paying attention to media comment would have been contradicted by a warm glow and the ever-so-subtle hint that another recital of the commentary would not be unwelcome. And without quite saying so, he would have conveyed that it would mean a lot to him if Julie and Tricia, David and Ed were told of his friends' pride in this culmination to an astonishing life.
When I learned the final news, by then so expected, yet so hard to accept, I felt a profound void. In the words of Shakespeare: "He was a man. Take him. For all in all, I shall not look upon his like again."
In the conduct of foreign policy, Richard Nixon was one of the seminal presidents. He came into office when the forces of history were moving America from a position of dominance to one of leadership. Dominance reflects strength. Leadership must be earned. And Richard Nixon earned that leadership role for his country with courage, dedication and skill.
When Richard Nixon took his Oath of Office, 550,000 Americans were engaged in combat in a place as far away from the United States as it was possible to be. America had no contact with China, the world's most populous nation. No negotiations with the Soviet Union, the other nuclear superpower. Most Moslem countries had broken diplomatic relations with the United States, and Middle East diplomacy was stalemated. All of this in the midst of the most anguishing domestic crisis since the Civil War.
When Richard Nixon left office, an agreement to end the war in Vietnam had been concluded, and the main lines of all subsequent policy were established: permanent dialogue with China; readiness without illusion to ease tensions with the Soviet Union; a peace process in the Middle East; the beginning, via the European Security Conference, of establishing human rights as an international issue, weakening Soviet hold on Eastern Europe.
Richard Nixon's foreign policy goals were long- range. And he pursued them without regard to domestic political consequences. When he considered our nation's interests at stake, he dared confrontations, despite the imminence of elections and also in the midst of the worst crisis of his life. And he bore, if with some pain, the disapproval of longtime friends and allies over relaxing tensions with China and the Soviet Union. He drew strength from a conviction. He often expressed to me the price for doing things halfway is no less than for doing it completely. So we might as well do them properly. That's Richard Nixon's greatest accomplishment. It was as much moral as it was political -- to lead from strength at a moment of apparent weakness, to husband the nation's resilience and, thus, to lay the basis for victory in the Cold War.
Shy and withdrawn, Richard Nixon made himself succeed in the most gregarious of professions, and steeled himself to conspicuous acts of extraordinary courage. In the face of wrenching domestic controversy, he held fast to his basic theme that the greatest free nation in the world had a duty to lead, and no right to abdicate.
Richard Nixon would be so proud that President Clinton and all living former Presidents of the United States are here, symbolizing that his long and sometimes bitter journey had concluded in reconciliation.
I wish that in his final hours I could have told him about Brian McDonald who, during the Cambodian crisis, had been fasting on a bench in Lafayette Park, across from the White House until, as he said, "President Nixon redeemed his pledge to withdraw American forces from their anguished country in two months" -- a promise which was, in fact, kept.
Across the chasm of the decades, Brian called me the day Richard Nixon fell ill and left a message: "When you talk to President Nixon, tell him that I'm praying for him."
So let us now say goodbye to our gallant friend. He stood on pinnacles that dissolved in the precipice. He achieved greatly and he suffered deeply. But he never gave up. In his solitude, he envisaged a new international order that would reduce lingering enmities, strengthen historic friendships, and give new hope to mankind -- a vision where dreams and possibilities conjoined.
Richard Nixon ended the war. And he advanced the vision of peace of his Quaker youth. He was devoted to his family. He loved his country. And he considered service his honor. It was a privilege to have been allowed to help him.
Compared to today's politicians...they ALL were. Washington goverened without an income tax, no SS, no Medicaid, no Prescription drug benefit, no war on poverty (or drugs), etc...
Sorry, Washington was a Conservative, not a Libertarian.
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