Posted on 10/26/2006 2:02:03 PM PDT by rob777
Dispirited conservatives and Republicans rightfully appalled at the Cunningham, Abramoff, and Foley scandals should remember history as they contemplate not voting in the 2006 elections because of disillusionment.
In early 1973, the Dow approached new highs in a booming economy. In the 1972 election, the new left was rejected in almost every state. The Paris Peace Treaty was concluded with North Vietnam memorializing its pledge not to interfere militarily in the affairs of South Vietnam. The nation was prosperous and at peace.
Worst President
Within a short time, the mainstream media were able to dismember and destroy the Nixon Administration, using as their sword the Watergate affair. In the congressional elections of 1974, Republican candidates were pounded, losing 48 House seats and five Senate seats.
Until the 1990s, the so-called “Watergate Babies” (i.e. left-wing Democrats) ruled Congress. As its first act after the 1974 election, the new Congress cut off all aid to South Vietnam. Within a short period of time, this led to Communist conquest of all of Indochina, the massacre of at least 4 million of our friends in the killing fields of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, and the displacement of millions of “boat people.”
In 1976, the left wing captured the White House with the worst President of modern times—Jimmy Carter. By 1979, the U.S. economy was in shambles with 12% inflation, 11% unemployment, and vast deficits. Our military was reduced to a shadow. With even our embassy officials held hostage in Tehran, the United States became a powerless joke to the world. It may be fairly said that but for Ronald Reagan the days of our democracy might well have been numbered by the consequences of the 1974 election.
It is not clear why the voters of 1974 thought it wise or just to indirectly cause the destruction of millions of allies in Southeast Asia because of the cover-up of a minor burglary at the Watergate. They certainly did not know that by their votes they would punish themselves severely, leaving, by the end of the Carter years, a U.S. economy that was a burned-out hulk and a nation that was humiliated.
I wonder whether history will repeat itself this year. Despite mainstream media distortion, the economy is in its strongest condition since the Reagan years with low unemployment and inflation rates and diminishing fiscal deficits. We have recovered from the implosion of the Clinton Internet bubble and the shock of Sept. 11, 2001. We have crippled al Qaeda, assembled an international coalition to deal with North Korea and made reasonable progress in defeating at least the foreign insurgency in Iraq. We have seen no terrorist attack on our heartland in more than five years.
Despite the second-guessing by Democrats who have no military experience and by a few veterans who question the Iraq policy, an overwhelming majority of active-duty personnel support the Bush policies and the Republican administration. For example, in 2004, an Army Times poll of active-duty military personnel showed less than 15% voting for Kerry and more than 80% voting for Bush. Despite the token military veterans trotted out by the Democratic Party as Trojan horses in Republican areas, it is clear that a large majority of veterans and active-duty personnel reject the “cut-and-run” policies of the fringe element now in control of the Democratic Party.
In the spring of 1975, I watched in horror our refusal to aid our South Vietnamese friends and their collapse. I watched our friends die by the millions in the gulags of Cambodia and Laos and in frenzied attempts to escape on the high seas, and I remembered my friends, who died in Vietnam, and whose sacrifice was so casually discarded by the “Watergate Babies.” I lost faith in the United States for many years.
I wonder now if we are so blind and ignorant of history to actually allow a new crop of “Watergate Babies” to install clearly unfit leaders such as Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.), John Conyers (D.-Mich.), and impeached Alcee Hastings (D.-Fla.) as the guiding force in our nation. Considering that a Democratic win could mean the rise of John Murtha (D.-Pa.) from Abscam to majority leader, and Hastings from impeached federal judge to House Intelligence chairman, it is no exaggeration to say both parties have bad actors. The distinction is that the Democrats promote them and the Republicans fire them.
Finally, I wonder if voters (like those in 1974) are going to actually vote for the betrayal of our Iraqi and Afghan allies and the sacrifices of our troops. I wonder if our Iraq War veterans will watch the mass execution or flight of those who fought with them and believed in us. If so, history teaches us that in the end we will suffer terribly ourselves. This is particularly true here, where we face adversaries who have said they will not stop at the waters’ edge but have already reached across the ocean to destroy our nation’s largest buildings and thousands of our people.
"First, the blame for Watergate is Nixon's alone."
Agreed, but the blow out for the party as a whole in its wake is what I think is the point of this article. The party was taken down with Nixon and the result was absolute disaster. That is where I think the MSM was complicit.
I know that I also lost some personal friends and quite possibly, several acquaintances (who worked with/for us and placed their faith and trust in the US) I got to know from my 18 months tour in Vietnam--as a direct result of the Demo-Lib-Rat Congress cutting off all funding, IN SPITE of our having a signed agreement (The Paris Peace Accords) which stated we would support South Vietnam Militarily should the North attempt a takeover.
When that wuss Ford failed to exercise the oath of office he swore to uphold I burnt (symbolically) my Republican Membership Card and since then, have been a Patriotic Conservative.
I also became very disillusioned and did not even bother to vote until Ronald Reagan ran for the Presidency.
I usually end up voting R because it has been some time since I've encountered a D who was a true Conservative (the last being Zell Miller) although (like on the 7th) I will have to hold my nose and vote for the lesser......
Of course, the "lesser" in this instance is definitely better than the "actual" EVIL which awaits us if the DhimiCrats regain control.
God Bless All, God Bless Our Military, God Bless America and see y'all at the pols on the 7th.
"I take by your reply that you view our first president, George Washington, as a bad president, naming only Carter and possibly FDR and LBJ as worse."
It may of sounded that way, but that is not the way I took it. I think he referred to Washington as the first president to mean that Carter was the worst of all Presidents, rather than merely the worst modern day President. I took the reference to Washington as a time frame reference, not that Washington was included in the list of bad Presidents. If so, it would have been simpler just to say that Carter was the worst President of all time as opposed to the worst modern day President.
Not with the burglary itself. John Mitchell (who was, when all was said and done, hung out to dry in the whole affair) answered thus when asked by Len Colodny and Robert Gittlin for Silent Coup (he spoke to the two writers before his death in 1988): "It's just the way you put it. It was Nixon's personality and mode of operation that did him in." That was an allusion to Nixon's penchant for intrigue, a penchant that created the environment in which John Dean could and did mastermind the events that became Watergate.
But Nixon also destroyed himself by taking at face value Dean's implications that Mitchell had sanctioned the Watergate break-in, and by never even thinking to question Mitchell himself---Nixon's purported closest friend in the administration---about whether or not what Dean (or H.R. Haldeman, who was likewise getting it from Dean) was suggesting about him was true.
Taking his information from Haldeman, who had it from Dean, Nixon had come around to the belief that Mitchell had sanctioned the break-in. That belief had been bolstered by the attribution to Mitchell of the suggestion that the CIA be used to stop the FBI---which, we now know, was a lie planted by Dean. Nixon may also have been informed of a third Dean lie---that Mitchell had approved the payment of support money to the burglars. In any event, believing that Mitchell had a role in the break-in and understanding that the Watergate trail would soon lead to (Committee to Re-Elect the President) employee Liddy, Nixon wanted to put distance between himself and the head of the reelection committee . . . Nixon asked (Mitchell) to resign as head of the CRP but to continue in a private capacity as the leader of the campaign. Mitchell was taken aback by this suggestion, and had no intention of resigning when he had entered the White House for lunch (on Friday, 30 June 1972), but he felt he had to bow to his chief's wishes in this matter. Shortly, he resigned. Thus did Dean's tricking of the president into the cover-up claim as its first palpable victim the man whose name Dean had so often invoked without permission, John Mitchell.---Colodny and Gittlin, Silent Coup, p. 214.
[Dean] had succeeded beyond his expectations. He had deceived the President of the United States into joining a conspiracy to obstruct justice in order to cover up a crime that Nixon had not committed, and to conceal Dean's own crimes. And the president, once again reacting to a crisis without gathering the facts (emphasis mine---BD), willingly slipped the noose Dean had handed him around his own neck.---Silent Coup, ten pages earlier.
Reacting to real or alleged crises without facts was the way Nixon destroyed himself. With no little help from his (actual or alleged) friends.
Probably not. It was the Olympics that marked the turnaround. The US hockey team. Electing Reagan gave the country 8 years to recover, and Bush another 4. That made even 8 years of Clinton surviveable.
Yes, quite well. I apologize for coming off so brash in my reply. My reply was a knee jerk reaction. Of all our presidents, it is Washington I most admire. Oh what love of God, freedom and country he possessed!
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