Yeah, Nixon had 4 brothers. Two of them died young and it devastated the family. I know Oliver Stone tried to speculate on the psychological damage it caused Nixon. I think more damage was inflicted on him by the media. Here was a self-made man, came from virtually nothing, had seen real tragedy, and he became the lifelong enemy of the media and the left beginning in 1946 when he knocked off their boy, Jerry Voorhis, a Socialist Democrat Congressman. He did again with exposing another golden boy of the left, Alger Hiss, as a Communist. He did it again in ‘50 when he beat another Socialist paragon in Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas, the Barbara Boxer of her day. This guy HAD to be destroyed by the media, and the relentlessness for which they have attacked him, even after his death, for 64 straight years, has been nothing short of insane. It’s remarkable he was able to function as well as he did under their constant attacks.
If the Kennedy family (or LBJ) had ever been pilloried and personally attacked at the level of Nixon, those guys would’ve folded like a cheap suit long before they ever reached the Presidency. Although I never agreed with all of Nixon’s positions (the irony is that Nixon was more a moderate, even liberal, Republican - his positions on economics while in the White House were simply awful), I’ve always had sympathy for him in the unhinged, personal way the media went after him that went beyond the pale of fairness and into the realm of “get the bastard at all costs.”
I see the way Gov. Sarah Palin gets attacked today as EXACTLY the same with which Nixon was, viciously personal and outright deranged. Nixon also was able to perfect the strategy of going around the elites, bypassing the Marxist media thugs, to take his message to the people and to win office, especially his 1972 landslide. Yet another reason why they loathed him so. He wouldn’t kiss their ring, and neither will Palin.
Agree with everything you say. They ravaged him; they ravaged his wife. The difference between him and Palin is that she seems to be psychologically tougher. Take her at her word that she keeps falling back on her family for support. As I see it, she is ambitious and what is more thinks she measures up to the other guys. How good she is, remains to be seen.
I read that they even hated Nixon’s “Checkers” speech. The libs dumped on it relentlessly as being sappy and corny, from what I remember, and I think it contributed to him being uneasy on television debating Kennedy.