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In the interest of accuracy (if not fairness) I would urge you to reconsider your terminology.

Nixon was an extremely moral guy. Even his critics acknowledged this about him.

Nixon (by virtue of his underlings) indulged in "extracurricular" activities, and then tried to bluff their way out when caught. These activities were not inspired by his morality (or lack thereof) but by a misplaced pragmatism and political expedience.

What he indulged in was 10% of what his opponents committed on a regular basis. His "problem" was that they weren't very good at being bad (more of a natural inclination for democrats).

Nixon was a decent guy who largely did a good job. To his everlasting shame he is regarded as a crook and a screwup for doing things the democrat way.

"Nixon was a decent guy who largely did a good job. To his everlasting shame he is regarded as a crook and a screwup for doing things the democrat way."

I'm disagreeing w/ you.

1. This guy was a social lib, who brought about massive inflation w/ his economic policies. To cover that, he tried Wage and Price controls, which led to massive shortages of almost everything. Carter's economic "malaise" was due to Nixon's policies.

2. Second, this guy's paranoia got the best of him. Nixon was rightly impeached for using the tools of office (IRS, FBI, et al) along with his CREP (plubmers, burglers, etc) to negate a fair election. Granted, it had been done before, but that "been done before" excuse should never be used as a legal defense.

You are correct that Nixon did some great work in his area of Cold War operation, and was a helluva baseball expert. He was certainly one of the best policians of our era.

These activities were not inspired by his morality (or lack thereof) but by a misplaced pragmatism and political expedience.

That's why I described him as amoral. Not immoral, not someone who was evil (the way liberals often describe him). But when the chips were down, his "morality" played second (or third, or fiftieth) fiddle to political pragmatism.

Granted, he's not the only politician to do that, and he doesn't hold a candle to Clinton. Nevertheless, if he had been less paranoid and/or more principled, he would have gone down as a modestly successful president. (Not my opinion - I gave up on him over wage and price controls. But the liberal historians would not have minded that.)

I rate him above Clinton because he at least finally had the shame to resign.