Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Richard Nixon: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
nationalview ^ | 08.11.2024 | Jack Butler

Posted on 08/12/2024 11:39:30 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27

Fifty years after he resigned the presidency, Richard Nixon is back. At least, some people on the right would like us to believe that he is and that it’s time for conservatives to embrace his legacy wholeheartedly and to reject the stale leftist narratives about Watergate (among other things) that have sullied his reputation.

It is necessary to reject the standard left-wing gloss on Nixon. But doing so hardly absolves Nixon of his sins. From a conservative perspective, there was good to the man and his presidency, but also bad — and ugly. Conservatives will only learn the right lessons from Nixon by looking at all three.

To admit that there might have been anything good at all about Richard Nixon is to set oneself against the guardians of post-war leftism, for whom Nixon was a chief antagonist. That antagonism may have begun in Nixon’s own upbringing. His relative poverty and lack of initial contact with the elite institutions of American life (though he earned a scholarship to Harvard, he attended college in his hometown of Whittier, Calif.) may have helped breed in him a lifelong discomfort with America’s upper echelons.

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


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: bad; badgoodnixonugly; bloggers; good; jackbutler; nationalrepuke; nationalreview; nationalview; nixon; ugly
Nixon's problem was beating McGovern so badly in 1972.
1 posted on 08/12/2024 11:39:30 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]


2 posted on 08/12/2024 11:43:28 AM PDT by Who is John Galt? ("...mit Pulver und Blei, Die Gedanken sind frei!")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ChicagoConservative27

I don’t want to read the article badly enough to need sign up for National Review. X.x


3 posted on 08/12/2024 11:52:02 AM PDT by Kriggerel ("All great truths are hard and bitter, but lies... are sweeter than wild honey" (Ragnar Redbeard))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ChicagoConservative27

The Legend of Tricky Dick


4 posted on 08/12/2024 11:56:38 AM PDT by Macho MAGA Man (The last two wen't balloons. One was a cylindrical objecwhots Trump is being given the Alex Jones tr)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ChicagoConservative27

I voted for the first time for President Nixon against George McGovern and am still proud of it.


5 posted on 08/12/2024 12:12:52 PM PDT by higgmeister (In the Shadow of The Big Chicken! )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ChicagoConservative27
His relative poverty and lack of initial contact with the elite institutions of American life (though he earned a scholarship to Harvard, he attended college in his hometown of Whittier, Calif.) may have helped breed in him a lifelong discomfort with America’s upper echelons.

And rightly so.

6 posted on 08/12/2024 12:14:05 PM PDT by higgmeister (In the Shadow of The Big Chicken! )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Who is John Galt?
Nixon's problem was beating McGovern so badly in 1972.

Also nailing Alger Hiss and ending the political career of Comrade Helen Gahagan Douglas. Not even the EPA, OSHA, SALT I, Harry Blackmun and AMTRAK can offset these evil deeds.

7 posted on 08/12/2024 12:15:35 PM PDT by Fiji Hill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: ChicagoConservative27

Read the book Mao - the authors claim that Nixon and Kissinger knew that Red Chinese troops were in Viet Nam - but Nixon wanted to meet Mao and didn’t say anything.

Our guys were sacrificed so Nixon could have a Photo-Op with Mao.


8 posted on 08/12/2024 12:21:13 PM PDT by EC Washington
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: higgmeister

“the elite institutions of American life”

that Satan rules.


9 posted on 08/12/2024 12:26:35 PM PDT by alternatives?
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: ChicagoConservative27
If there had not been a Nixon presidency we would not have gotten to see this ...


10 posted on 08/12/2024 12:52:47 PM PDT by plain talk
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: plain talk

“The New Dick......short, sweet and everybody wants to see it!”


11 posted on 08/12/2024 12:53:13 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: EC Washington
"Read the book Mao - the authors claim that Nixon and Kissinger knew that Red Chinese troops were in Viet Nam - but Nixon wanted to meet Mao and didn’t say anything. Our guys were sacrificed so Nixon could have a Photo-Op with Mao."

I will try to be temperate with you:

1. The Chinese did have advisors in the South - I know, because our sniper killed one near us. The Chinese also funneled supplies, munitions, and other support to the enemy - as did the USSR, the Warsaw Pact, and even some of our "allies". Nixon's gambit to open China to the US and establish relations with us caused China to reduce their support of the North Vietnamese and pushed the NVA towards negotiating with us.

2. Nixon's "perestroika" overtures to Brezhnev had the same effect with the USSR as well as opening a rift between the Soviets and the Chinese. For the first time since the end of WWII, the Cold War was ratcheted away from imminent thermonuclear war.

This article reminds me of the two-faced sleaziness of the "professional conservatives".

12 posted on 08/12/2024 12:54:35 PM PDT by Chainmail (You can vote your way into Socialism - but you will have to shoot your way out.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: dfwgator

Well, that was queer of you.


13 posted on 08/12/2024 12:55:12 PM PDT by Chainmail (You can vote your way into Socialism - but you will have to shoot your way out.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: dfwgator

Ah yes ... and the Jan Curtin retort - “yes it’s short and sweet but no one wants to see it.” :-)


14 posted on 08/12/2024 1:04:29 PM PDT by plain talk
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: EC Washington

There are some Vietnam vets here who may give you a better perspective on what the Chinese were up to over there at that time than a book about Mao does, if you are not old enough to remember Vietnam...


15 posted on 08/12/2024 1:38:59 PM PDT by Texan5 (`"You've got to saddle up your boys, you've got to draw a hard line"...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: higgmeister

I have always had discomfort “about America’s upper echelons!”
How can we trust the Ivy League graduate?
The average performance record grade for them should be, “D-.


16 posted on 08/12/2024 2:07:43 PM PDT by BatGuano (Dem's guilty of Election Fraud in 2020, stand by for 2024.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: ChicagoConservative27

Watergate was a lie. Nixon was forced to resign because he ended the vietnam war and the war profiteers ( bankers and the media) didn’t want it to end.

The official story is garbage. Presidents don’t resign over a minor burglary committed by someone else.


17 posted on 08/12/2024 5:00:48 PM PDT by Diversity Is Our Weakness
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson