If I were enduring a lawsuit, I would want the shrewdest lawyer in the land to represent me. And whoever represents my country must be shrewd too. Just about every president I can think of was a master at cunningness. They were artists of triple entendre; of evasion, persuasion, and the percipient shell game of power diplomacy.
One notable exception of the shrewd president is Jimmy Carter, the 'Sorrowful President,' who treated his job like he was the Psychologist-in-Chief. I joke sometimes that President Carter should've been impeached just because he was so stolidly honest. How many times did he give away our nation's hand at the poker table?
European leaders are guileful too. Are the EU and countries like France and Germany built on a foundation of truthful, soul-rending and confessional leadership? Hardly. Chirac and Schroeder's impeccable political credentials are dripping with deceit and power mongering. Those guys are even playing against each other, not just us. And really, I hardly expect less. That's The Game. Their oily credentials made them the powerhouses that they are. For better and for worse.
Nixon's executioners, Woodward and Bernstein, and Clinton's, Drudge and Isikoff, received their journalistic pedigrees by skillfully shooting off the presidential fig leaf. Since then, that seems to be the hunting sport of journalist and citizen alike. They each have gold plated fig leafs mounted on plaques in their offices. They're lucky opportunists who got the scoops of their lifetimes, at any cost. Who among us really eschews opportunism, personally? We all do it. Competing in this world has a lot to do with figuring out how to cut ahead in life's implacable lines. Journalism aside, one can only imagine the guile and wit required of Woodward and Bernstein to obtain their golden presidential fig leafs, which must've been downright presidential in intensity.
Awards can be so hollow.
Applying the impeachment standards established by the Boomer generation, presidents like Franklin D. Roosevelt should've been impeached a dozen times over. Kennedy and LBJ too. Oh, and I almost forgot Reagan the warmonger, romping mindlessly in Central America on his Hollywood bronco with cakes for the ayatollahs. Yep -- haul Ronnie down, boys. Lord knows, they tried.
I suppose it would be nice if, in the serious game of global power politics -- where every entity really is out for its own interests -- that honesty, forbearance and just plain niceness was the ripest policy. A lot of people believe earnest shoulder shrugging makes the best foreign policy. Sometimes it is. But mostly, it isn't.
The real question to ask of any president's truthfulness is: Is he fighting for our country's inviolable sovereignty, or instead, some other extranational interest? Is he an American, first and foremost, with America's health and vital interests at heart? Or is he putting his religion first? Or his softness for transnationalism, corporations, or NGOs? The current and last president have me feeling itchy on those issues. I haven't been quite clear if Presidents Clinton and Bush have been batting for my country unreservedly, or instead for God or some globalized community of digital sharecroppers.
President Clinton's speeches often made me feel like he was trying to coax me into a broader vision of America, reduced -- like he was my helpful guide to America's descent into a postmodern political Pangea. And President Bush makes me suspicious in the same way, from a religious perspective. Any group that once used the monicker "Moral Majority" in politics gives me severe hives. President Bush flirts with those people, supposing that the Earth might be flat after all. If the people and ideals that motivate the president serve some higher cause other than American sovereignty and the Constitution, that's treasonous, not just impeachable. Political Christianity and One World Transnationalism has my radar blipping.
I'm sure it's way more complicated than this, but it seems to me that Nixon was disliked simply because he was Nixon -- the Red baiter who waxed Alger Hiss. He was the guy who sweated profusely on TV and had a ski-slope nose, and who made that disingenuous Checkers speech in '52. He was the little ugly man who hated the golden Kennedys. And the Commies. The fella who was scared of hippies. The guy everyone called Dick.
While Tricky Dick was busy opening talks with a reclusive Mao and trying to get us out of Southeast Asia with some modicum of international respect, he got sliced in his underbelly. Not only did Southeast Asians fill the American power vacuum with a few old fashioned, prolonged bloodbaths; America-as-global-heel lost a lot of clout on the international scene. We were damaged; unhinged. And who knows? Perhaps that was a major contributing factor to the rise of the militant, in-your-face political rat nests we're crossing swords with today, who seem to find empowerment from our weakness and lip-biting. Just maybe.
I would've much preferred it, in retrospect, if President Nixon could've stayed on and finished out his vision for a just peace in Asia, and engaging China. Instead, we got Gerald Ford, the presidential pixel. Slipping on the tarmac, Apollo-Soyuz, a girl named Squeaky, helicopters on the American embassy in Vietnam -- that's about all that sticks out in my memory of his presidential half-life. Thanks, Woodie. Thanks, Bernie.
And I would've preferred it, in retrospect, if President Clinton could've spent more time concentrating on terrorism, Saddam, WMD proliferation, the surplus and the whole advancing penumbra of millennial chaos that was descending upon us in the 90s, now having become umbra. Instead, his days were full of Monica and Ken Starr. Thanks Drudge. Thanks Isikoff.
And thanks to all of us for lapping it up. Presidents are mortals who are lead by their talents and weaknesses, like the rest of us. Personally, I think Nixon and Clinton did their best with the talents and weaknesses that life gave them, and did nothing impeachable. Since Nixon, perhaps Johnson, the presidency has become the bullseye for a national therapeutic mud slinging contest. America is the loser in the process.
For pathetic fornicators like Clinton, I wouldn't really care if part of the unofficial presidential perk package simply included ladies of the night, if that's what keeps the Commander In Chief's eyes on the road. Just don't ask or tell. And for paranoids like Nixon, extra microphones and liquor in the cabinet, and a hippy voodoo doll with lots of rusty pins for some midnight presidential therapy.
But please, all you presidents -- just keep your eyes on the road, OK? If a few vices help you do that, then vices you shall have. And please, everyone else -- let them drive. Don't forget that treason and human weakness are not the same thing.
All of this points to the rise over the last 40 years of the newest and truest power center in this world: Unbounded media -- "investigative journalists" and their Internet-inspired cousins, bloggers. Controlling the media is power play number one, from time in memorial. The Whitehouse lost that control sometime in the 60s to the MSM; and now the MSM is losing it in the Millennium to the Blogosphere. We applaud that here, but it comes with a heavy burden of responsibility.
That is why, blogger that I am, I have a tremble in my typing. I know that one day, someone in this expanding sphere will be the next Woodward, Bernstein, Drudge or Isikoff. And like them, they probably won't have a crystal ball to predict how the waves they make will form history.
Here's hoping it serves our country.
Look, no offense or anything, but Watergate and Nixon's attempts to firebomb the Brookings Insitution (and make it look like his political enemies did it) are just a bit more serious than consensual oral sex, and it's just ridiculous to suggest otherwise. You may have forgotten the amount of revulsion that mounted against Nixon as his scandals came crashing down upon him. Suffice to say when a Republican president loses Barry Goldwater, it's about damn time for him to go. In contrast, the decade long crusade against Bill Clinton could turn up nothing even close to that magnitude (not to mention in contrast to the Gulf of Tonkin and Iran-Contra). Conflating the actions of Nixon and Clinton and the investigations that brought one of them down (remember Clinton's approval at the time of his impeachment was in the mid-upper 60s) is simply not supported by history.
That's not to mention the fact that Nixon's criminal actions were wrong, wrong without excuse, wrong without mitigation. I'm quite angered to find, at a site so ostensibly (and genuinely) committed to the idea of democracy the idea that what he did was possibly defensible. It wasn't. In any way. At all. Nixon was the heretofore subterranean point of modern American democracy, its horrid, ghoulish low ebb. Nothing, nothing he did or could have done can change that. Had he not resigned his impeachment and removal would have been the only just outcome. So where's the clairity on that today?
FDR, a Democrat, put Japanese Americans in camps. Where were the reporters then?
Cicero makes an excellent set of points in general. I'll quibble on one point, but grant that he has an argument.
Nixon was a bit beyond the usual standards of political dishonesty - there's a reason Truman had a very special and particular dislike for the man, and there weren't a lot of people on his list. Nevertheless, an argument can be made (as Cicero did) that America would have been stronger on the world stage had he stayed in office.
Whether that's worth the domestic cost is another issue. He would certainly never have been impeached in most European countries. But then, Europe isn't exactly a political model I hold in high esteem.
Speaking of issues, SamAm would be more honest if he acknowedged that Clinton's actions went beyond consensual oral sex and 'standard' political dishonesty, too.
Personally, I think Clinton should have been impeached for giving the store away to China following major lobbying contributions and letting North Korea go nuclear on his watch. But the seriousness of those moves was not properly understood at the time in America, which was on a very costly vacation from history.
As for Monica Lewinsky et. al., I've said many times to friends that he could have banged Cindy Crawford every Thursday for years, and they could have run it on the page of every paper, and he probably would have picked up votes (for extra votes: a threesome with Cindy & Claudia Schiffer in Air Force One). Maybe he'd have been more willing to admit it, too, which would have taken care of the non-trivial stuff.
I'll add an insight into HOW American Presidents need to be sneaky, partly as a result of America's more focused executive selection system - for maximum effect, they need to be sneaky in ways that match their image.
Clinton got away with it all because he embodied 2 American archetypes, with all their strengths and weaknesses: Southern good ol' boy (think Dukes of Hazzard), and slick Daniel Webster lawyer. Being under attack for his indiscretions and for being untruthful with legislators (which is serious) played right into both archetypes, and they were a big part of why he was elected in the first place. Hence Derangement Syndrome in his opponents.
If Slick Willie had put even half as much effort into using these talents on the global stage, America would be a much safer place today. But, as Heather Hurlburt notes, that was never in the cards. He clearly didn't have the interest, and when he did, his mental framework neutralized his greatest talents.
BTW, Nixon, Ford... no archetype. Carter had one, but it didn't wear well after the initial glow (small-town country religious - and hectoring). Reagan had 1 1/2 (Cowboy and half Golden age movie star). George H.W. Bush didn't, really (couldn't really do American East Coast Patrician due to the Texas thing, and that stopped working after JFK anyway), nor did Gore or Kerry.
W. has 2: Cowboy and Average Joe. Like Clinton's archetypes, they seem to be most effective against his opponents attack vectors, leading to their derangement. But he has limited room to be sneaky unless he's being "misunderestimated." Fortunately, his second archetype and speaking style really help with that.
Thanks for the thoughtful article, Cicero.
So clinton was impeached for reciving oral sex ?
Lost his law license, the purjury fine etc. ...
Well if you have to LIE, and thats what that is ... a LIE ... you blow your argument, and that places the reast of what you put forward in doubt.
Heres some names, Hazel O Leary, Loral, Los Alamos, Mena, China PLA money, Wannita was Raped, Wiley was assulted, some had death threats, The Pelican, ohh and lots of jail terms I noticed, using the IRS, false FEDERAL charges against the innocent in the travel office (enough by itself)
And thats a quick skim off the top of my head.
Dishonest democrats,, how typical.
Helps you understand watching them shrug past mass graves of kids ... right or wong dont matter, its all atvantage ... and they project their dishonesty onto the rest of us.
Must really suck to be them ....
And Marcus, Carter didnt tell us he was a communist, that he would look with love at every socialist thug that comes along.. even onto Hugo Chavez
M Moore was NOT out of place next to Carter .. they are the SAME ... the same kind of socialist creap.
No .. I like honesty just fine.. honest convictions. transparent motives. fine with me... but you need to have more than that, you better belive in something and it better not be the leftist religion of the greates inhumanity to man that the planet has ever seen, so what you believe IN is just as important.
How about the principles of America, Freedom, Liberty, Limited govt authority.
A govt that does its consitutional function, national defense, Forein Policy, settling interstate disputes. Advancment of the sciences and the arts ... patrents and copyright.
Enforcing the bill of rights. (2nd being violated by the commies in california and new york etc )
How about that . and those wanting commie hellholes can vote with their feet and leave America alone ...
The issues Clinton was impeached for were of the utmost triviality, far below the standard of improper conduct of almost every president before him (none of which with the exception of Nixon even came close to being impeached, including Reagan and LBJ). While it's true Clinton failed in more than a few efforts of great importance, and I would grant that what he left undone in foreign policy is certainly one of them, impeachment was nothing more than a partisan witch hunt whose demonstration of Republican overreach looks more asinine by the day. As a political move it paid off for the GOP, but the oppertunity cost to America sure was high.
Ohh and Marcus, I share some of your reservations about Bush, he is weak in areas that are important to me, and on some items, against me.
The LOST treaty is part of the global govt scam for example.
I dont like his immigration stance.
So, yup, plenty of fault to find, in who is otherwise, quite plain to see. a good and decent man.
The moral clarity is perhaps his most redeaming virtue, the most un-democrat trait he has going, to his great credit.
This moral clarity does not need to be the sole posession of the right (Bush isnt very Rightish really), example Tony Blair.
Who, on the clarity thing, is even more forthright that George Bush, His address to congress left me panting in a post erotic swoon. His case put to the people of Britain focused on the moral and humanitarian. the Suffering of the people of Iraq at the hands of a Baath Socialist facist butcher.
Heavy on morality, light on the platitudes and slogans, its perhaps the clearest and straight honest direct messages since Reagan and Goldwater.
What has this country in a fix right now is the leftist media, commie leftist, mass murder excusing, moonbat image polishing, double standard American Christian hating media.
I suppose when thats what they have to work with, where the informtion is controled by humanities demonstrated evil of evils of murder mountain.... then ability to act can be limited.
To those that shrug pass mass graves of kids, yes its trivia.
My standards are higher.
What I dont understand is why they chose purgery. alone when they could have included the treason. Rape, Civil rights violations,,,,
O well they dont call em slick willy for nuttin.
Imagine the leftist media if a Republican has been cought taking chinese money from the PLA, who operate Chinas Gulag system.
Gotta love that double standard.
I agree with Joe wrt Clinton and GWB's strengths and weaknesses and Derangement Syndrome they produce.
I'll say that the personalities of each man is rather uniquely Southern, each man seems to genuinely like the other, or at least understand him, as far as that happens across the partisan divide.
Clinton was/is the "let the good times roll" kind of guy the way Bush himself was when he was younger, now facing ruined health and mortality.
The big difference is that Clinton ruthlessly cut off any involvement in foreign affairs and national security beyond the bare minium, while gambling hugely in his personal life for very little payoff. Nothing he risked was in the end worth the prize.
By contrast, GWB seems to be rather boring in his personal life now, but very gambling post 9/11. It was not always so, before 9/11 he was very placid and unimaginitive in what he wanted, and fairly isolationist. Regardless, he seemed transformed by his visit to the site and determined to remake by attrition if need be the entire Middle East. You can't say he won't gamble. He's also the mirror image of Clinton, ruthlessly cutting off domestic efforts that impinge on his national security stuff.
The difference is, the prize may actually be worth it.
SamAm -
The point tends to be lost today, but Nixon had nothing to do with the Watergate break-in, or plots to have hippies urinate on George McGovern's shoes, etc. What he did do was cover up these things, and in that sense, his crime was exactly analogous to Clinton's.
Both Nixon and Clinton were to blame for their own problems, because they were both the number one cause of their problems and they could have avoided them. But what they got nailed for was not what they did, but what they did to dodge responsibility for it. The funny thing is, almost any president (of this country or any other) would have tried to cover up in their situation. Not every leader would have gotten into the kind of messes that Clinton and Nixon did, but almost any of them would have done their best to bury it. Much bigger things are buried every day in proud Europe.
Granted that leaders have to dissemble at times, but both Clinton and Nixon lied when it served no purpose. Nixon lied out of paranoia and spite. Clinton lied out of paranoia, vanity, and spite. They both felt justified because they valued their own self-pity over the truth and over the country they were supposed to be serving.
SamAm,
It was precisely because the attacks on Clinton had so LITTLE effect that we got the derangement syndrome. I'd venture to say the GOP mostly made gains in SPITE of that, thanks to a popular and well-articulated platform of principles and the usual mid-term drop. Because of where Clinton put his risks (sharp point, Jim), his coat-tails for his party weren't all that long.
He used his guile in the wrong places for a President, and it cost him a legacy. He may yet get a second chance, we'll see. Personally, I doubt it.
I would have impeached Nixon (a fairly general sentiment among many Republicans at the time, which is why he resigned instead), and I probably wouldn't have impeached Clinton. But the latter is a political calculus, and what he did was not "of the utmost triviality". When directly questioned by Congress there's a thin line between guile and openly lying, but a President must not cross it. Jump out the window like Abe Lincoln if you have to, but don't cross it....
There does need to be a built in accountability mechanism for that sort of thing, or the system is seriously damaged. And impeachment was designed for that sort of instance. It isn't the only political mechanism, however (nor should it be), and I tend to think it wasn't a good political choice given the chosen grounds.
In terms of what it did for/to America, since we've established that Clinton's interest in foreign stuff was near zero (hence, the possible gains on that front were likewise near zero), the effects were minor. Heck, anything that distracts a statist from his domestic agenda is probably a net plus - and welfare reform, Clinton's biggest success and long-term legacy, got passed.
To the extent that there was a minus to it, it lies exactly where Cicero said it does - in the political culture and trends it perpetuated. A legacy, note, that stetches back to Reagan and Bork, and wasn't just some modern eeevil Republican invention.
SamAm: Nixon was the heretofore subterranean point of modern American democracy, its horrid, ghoulish low ebb.
You know, if you really believe this - and I personally would rather have been Nixon's enemy than an enemy of Woodrow Wilson or Andrew Jackson or LBJ - you might stop to think how ideas like this will bring democracy to more low tides in the future.
I just saw Josh Marshall on "The Al Franken Show" on Sundance talking about Deep Throat. Franken put on his best serious face when he said "Felt saved the Republic." (He didn't say which republic - I guess he meant our republic, and not the Republic of Vietnam.)
If Felt saved the republic, I guess that means Linda Tripp tried to save the republic and failed. So the republic is, like, all gone now.
All of which is silly, but the idea of vast sinister right-wing forces destroying all life as we know it ("Turning back America," the idiotic Reid says) was a major motivation in the mind of Bill Clinton when he likewise abused his authority and the public trust. So were Nixon's crimes used to aid and abet Clinton's crimes. That's some history that will probably be played out again.
It's difficult to be honorable and be the leader of a national crime syndicate. The biggest problem isn't the man, it's the job. The job is an evil one, and one that shouldn't be done.
Ahem Might I point out that Nixon in power wouldn't have changed a damn thing in either RVN or Cambodia? The Vietnamization program that was doomed to failure as long as there was the NVA waiting across the border was Nixon's work. There is no way that it would have been possible to convince the American public, "Hey, let's start the war up again!" in 1973. None.
Cicero makes an excellent point. Clinton was in that sense a pretty good president. He was a hell of an obfusticator, and that is valuable. But he could never be great, because no-one ever believed a word that came out of his mouth. No promise he made or policy he set was ever seen by friend or enemy as definitive or final. That was a problem.
To be a truly great leader, you need to be devious while never seeming devious. It has been said that many of the great military minds, men such as Washington, Jackson, Lee, or Rommel, had in common the strange paradox of being extremely blunt and honest men, yet retain in some dangerous place the ability to utterly manipulate the minds of others. The ability to decieve while not appearing deceptive at all. Robert E Lee is the perfect case in point. He was known as the most honorable and beloved leader on either side, yet there was no-one in the war more deft at political manuevering (not to mention battlefield manuevering).
I think Bush, with the help of Karl Rove, is blessed with this quality. Being known as a straight shooter, and if nothing else a man who carries through with his threats, allows him to manipulate people and events in a way that Clinton would never get away with. People just dont expect it. Even the reputation of being a stupid cowboy has helped Bush immeasureably. Look at the way Mushariff was backed into a corner and forced into the role of America's marshal in the region, that will be seen as a critical victory in the war against AQ in years to come (Pakistan has by far captured the most senior AQ leaders). It didnt have to be that way, Pakistan made a living of playing both sides for decades. No more. Bush's strength is that he wins battles like that without ever fighting them. Of course that means you dont get credit for them very often, but thats not whats important at the end of the day.
"What he did do was cover up these things, and in that sense, his crime was exactly analogous to Clinton's"
Clinton perjured himself in a civil lawsuit. Nixon, among others things, directed the CIA to stop and FBI investigation. Without getting into the question of whether what Clinton did was impeachable, what Nixon did, in terms of obstruction of justice, was far more serious.
And quite frankly it does conservatives no service to be defending Nixon. And why? George Will and others long since concluded the man was no conservative anyway, and have distanced themselves from both his specific crimes and his sleaziness.
"And quite frankly it does conservatives no service to be defending Nixon"
Amen. Nixon was a scumbag and everything that is wrong and scary about having a powerful executive branch. Nixon ran his reelection based on ending the Vietnam war, so i cant really see how he could be lamented as the potential savior of victory. He has only himself to blame for getting run out of town and handing the democrats enough power to stab South Vietnam in the back.
Let's just look at the some of the waves of Nixon still breaking...
Since tricky Dick, or perhaps more obsequiously President Richard Milhous Nixon, seems to be in the news these days, howzabout you and me and Mr. Peabody set the Wayback Machine for about thirty two years ago and let's us just talk a little about the China card. You remember the China card, don't you?
The United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics faced each other in every region of the world. The USSR was aggressive, expansionistic and, what's worse, seemed to be winning.
When you find yourself in that kind of a pinch, you want to look for help, and Tricky Dick and Hank "I'm Too Sexy for My Shirt" Kissinger did just that, and they looked to China.
"Let's just us," said Hank the K, "test the limits of fraternal socialism and see if we can't exploit any of those inherent contradictions Marxists love to talk about." Well, he must have said something like that, anyway.
Well, damn. Looks like Pooty Poot has read some history.
(El Skirto note to self: when I am emporer of all the world, I shall not give foriegn leaders nicknames that sound like fart noises, at least not in public.)
---Russia and China will work together to counter destabilisation in Central Asia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday after meeting his Chinese counterpart Li Zhaoxing in Russia’s Pacific port city of Vladivostok. Speaking after talks with Li, Lavrov said the two countries would step up cooperation within the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a regional security body, to bolster stability and "combat terrorism in light of recent changes in the region."---
Cicero is already a denizen of the "postmodern poltical pangea," in fact he's beckoning us in. I've come across some relativism in his other posts but nothing as radical and (if carried out) dangerous as this.
Like a true pomo academic piece, what we have here is the correct identification of a real trend and then harvesting of all sorts of false-equivalencies and "possible" connections from it.
In a way this is refreshing, because it stands against the silly, childish notion of moral causality that conservatives have bandied about since 9/11. But, the claim that all presidents are sneaky and dirty, while having some truth to it, would be disastrous if put in to place as an established ethic.
Would Nixon have stopped at Watergate? I doubt it. So here's a couple question's for you, Cicero: Did Nixon know what he was doing was illegal, and could lead to the end of his presidency? Why, if Nixon cared so much for keeping the innocent of SE Asia from genocide (a prospect I doubt from the start), why then would Nixon willfully endanger his ability to defend them?
Clinton had his internationalist third-way pre-occupation. Bush's revivalist pretences may come before his patriotism (although I'd add "Christian" to "Cowboy" and "Average Guy" in Joe's earlier estimation). Nixon's pre-occupation was pure power. Somehow, I doubt that bothers you.
SAO, Nixon knew he was doing what, the breakin, or the cover up ?
And was instructing others do the same.
You sure ? I doubt the SVA would have been cut off, by the "we are commies and want the communists to win" Democraps.
Taking PLA money etc,, he was involved with Enron too, he provided the loan garrantes for the Koyoto - Enron linked India nat gas generator project etc lots of them ...
You should see all the Enron Junkets on Air Force ONE ... When it was Clintons Jet, Enron NEVER, flew with the Bushies,
And wasnt it Ruben, Clintons man, that called the white house for favors for .. who Yip,, Enron. He didnt get nothing, cause democrat dishonesty had left the white house...
Gotta love that double standard.
Second reading... until now, I've confined my comments to the big picture, and Cicero's points about the PResidency, foreign, policy and guile are all spot on. But stepping to the smaller picture, let's look at the journalism side.
American Journalists should be Americans (ditto in other countries). There are some things they genuinely shouldn't do, therefore, and Tim Russert explains the distinction well.
There are times when he declines to go live with a story his team has worked on for a while, for instance, because someone convinces him that it would harm national security (others clearly have different standards these days, but Russert is a patriot). Some people tell him that, however, and they really mean "their political security." He sees his job as telling the difference - because the second group doesn't get a pass.
Woodward and Bernstein should not have been thinking about the political consequences to Nixon when they went after their story. Not their job. And shouldn't be.
Journalism has done itself immense harm, however, by attempting to use that anomalous story as its default template. More harm still by becoming, as a group, so out of step with the society they purport to cover. And the "tabloidization" of news has oft been remarked on.
But it would be facile to blame journalists for the bitter partisan atmosphere that turns every issue into (often literally) a federal case, which is definitely part of the picture here. Or for the boomers' narcissism, as translated into political standards and behaviour.
There are bigger aspects of Cicero's story than the journalists.
To pick up on Joe's point, there is a line to patriotism. Lying and lies of ommission is that line. Journalists should never decieve or pretend something didnt happen 'for the good of the country'. Once you start down that road you rapidly become a propagandist. On the other hand, there are perfectly valid ways to report a story that protect sources and dont hand weapons to the enemy. Journalists should not be in the business of telling the enemy that the ammunition dump at Camp X is unguarded between 3 and 5. But neither should they spike a story on lax security because of some nubulous 'damage to morale'. There is a medium.
A lot of gutless reporters have gone to far the other way, for instance those that got declare their integrity would prevent them from telling fellow American soldiers about an impending attack. Would they fail to tell fellow concert goers there was a fire in the lobby so they could report the story neutrally? I doubt it. That is hypocracy, and the classic 60s era view of the military as some strange threatening organization not to be trusted.
Joe.
Nor are the stakes in the fight small issues, this isnt the debate about who decides and where the next traffic signals go up.
If the country was not under attack by socialists,,, frankly the Fed isnt sipposed to even have the power that makes it so important who runs things these days.
That, before the destruction, was the perview of the states, power was more local, and people in one state to the other didnt have to agree on how they wanted to live, California could go pure communist, and who would care, from here, their problem as long as i dont have to fund their folly.
Sadly, that isnt the case any more, the struggle for power is the struggle to increase it and those like me that wants them to have far less.
Freedom vs leftist slavery, Germany and france can socialize themselves into the ditch of misery and dispair, we want no part of it, the democraps want to follow them.
Its contentious because the stakes are huge, I wish they was trivial, before I began to feel the effects of leftism, there was a time when i considered them trivial, I sure wasnt interested in politics, it seemed noise and stones, over nothing...
I was right to a certain extent, but I was also ignorant, it still makes me angry to recall what i learned, after the fact, once the pols got my attention.
And Im not the only one, that sat it out while bad things happend.
Now I see a fight litteraly between good and evil, and half of it has nothing to do with 911 or any of the conversation that springs from the war(s)
I dont want my offspring to live as leftist slaves any more than have them bow to mecca.
I can see both from here, and it sucks.
So if its contentious, its because the stakes are huge, important and they matter.
And the leftist media is no different than Pravda or Tokyo Rose. The enemy.
And they dont even bother to try to hide it, any more. ... Deny Yes, Hide, No.
On another reading of my essay and the posts that followed, I agree with Joe that our poisoned political atmosphere has not only to do with journalists. Perhaps the toxic atmosphere was ever thus, except the past 40 years or so it has been magnified by the media and the stresses of the industrialized, high tech world.
SAO's post is especially well considered. Yes, Nixon's preoccupation with power does disturb me. I find it hard to believe that people become presidents without such preoccupations. So I'm not sure why that's an issue in Nixon's case -- except perhaps that where he focused his power is less than desirable to some. Fair enough. I'd wager that Clinton was no less preoccupied with power. Carter -- perhaps he was preoccupied with deconstructing power. Not sure.
As to relativism, your point stands. I may in fact be a relativist on some issues -- impeachment being one of them. I agree that if the merits of the Nixon and Clinton cases were to be weighed, Nixon's impeachment has more meat. Clinton's impeachment was highly frivolous compared to Nixon's. But what I was apparently not articulating competently was that, in retrospect, I don't believe either presidential impeachments served this country well in the long term. And I think the forces that brought both presidencies down were as preoccupied with power as they claimed to be beacons of justice.
I appreciate SAOs thoughts because I am here to learn. I have a long way to go. So thanks, SAO.
I said "modern" American democracy because nothing pre Civil Rights Act, Vietnam, Watergate or Southern realignment can really be considered modern (or whatever word you've have signify "fundamentally the same era as the present day"). LBJ, for all his failings and misdeeds never tried inflict the damage on our democracy at home that Nixon did. He may have talked about firebombing in America, but I'd guess in a slightly different context.
Maybe we needed to lose in 'Nam with the subsequent Killing Fields in Cambodia and the Boat People so that some lefty's would learn their lesson.
Bush got my vote this year because of what I learned then.
OTHO it is a stain that will haunt me. I actually believed Kerry in '71. He fooled me once.
Besides we know for sure that Nixon's hatchet man Agnew was a crook. Yet he was Nixon's choice. What are the odds despite Nixon's "I'm not a crook" speech, that he was a crook?
Nixon's mistake was trying to use his foreign policy skills (burglary, espionage, etc.) domestically. In a word, he lacked nuance.
And to hear him say to Haldeman that he was cranking up the drug war, not because pot was worse than a martini he was drinking, but as a tool to smite his enemies?
Nixon got what he deserved.
Did I mention wage and price controls? From a Republican? There was a man who didn't understand the concept.
Uh, Joe,
Just to set the record straight every time Clinton said Osama the Repubs said wag the dog and then proceeded to wag the dick.
Much of the reason Clinton only sent cruise missles after Osama was that he couldn't get a domestic consensus for anything else because of Rebublican obstructionism.
I voted for Bush. But the Rs in Congress dropped the ball on their watch. Their outraged sense of morality did us much harm.
And now look at what the Terri S. case has done to the legislative foundation of Bush's second term. It is in tatters.
Some people never learn.
"Just to set the record straight every time Clinton said Osama the Repubs said wag the dog and then proceeded to wag the dick."
Of course there wouldnt have been a dog to wag if Clinton hadnt of done the latter. Or if he didnt care what political capital it cost to do the right thing. I dont think the excuse flies that you couldnt protect the country because it costs you and your party too much political capital is a very compelling defense. Why did Clinton care what the republicans said?
"Or if he didnt care what political capital it cost to do the right thing. I dont think the excuse flies that you couldnt protect the country because it costs you and your party too much political capital is a very compelling defense. Why did Clinton care what the republicans said?"
Perhaps because going to war with a divided country is a bad way to go war?
Hell, why didnt Bush go to war against Osama in February 2001?
"Perhaps because going to war with a divided country is a bad way to go war? "
No question, but to claim it couldnt be done because Lewinski was taking up too much energy is hardly a defense.
"Hell, why didnt Bush go to war against Osama in February 2001?"
I have a slight amount more understanding for the guy in office for 8 days compared to 8 years.
Simon,
Republicans said "wag the dog" because lobbing a couple cruise missiles into Sudan is little more than political theater. When he stood up and actually made a serious case for serious intervention, in Kosovo, the vast majority of neocons backed him strongly. As they would have done if he hadn't decided to flinch and crawl before North Korea and Saddam. Or if he had actually made a serious case about Sudan and made it a focus, then continued to take action instead of dropping the issue (q.v. the Sudanese offer to hand Bin Laden over, and what happened - or didn't, rather).
Go look at when (if ever) special forces were used in the Clinton administration. Basically, they weren't. Then go read Hurlburt. Then try to convince me that this guy was in any way serous about foreign policy, but obstructed by Republicans. Guy couldn't even get a speech on foreign issues out of his own damn cabinet for how long? Maybe the Republicans were in there too.
And then there was the huge brouhaha after he took decisive action following the Cole attack, and the Embassy bombings. Oh, wait a minute....
Like I said, if the guy had put even half of his guile to occasional use abroad, America wouldn't be in the fix it's in today.
liberalhawk: it does conservatives no service to be defending Nixon.
I agree, especially since Nixon wasn't much of a conservative. Or much of a man, either. But it would do everyone a service put Nixon into some kind of perspective. Like Vietnam, Watergate has supposedly taught us a bunch of lessons. So what were those Lessons of Watergate again?
When I was an earnest young rug monkey in school, our teachers told us Watergate Lesson #1: "Nobody is above the law."
That theory turned out to be pure Cold Fusion. Supposedly it worked once (some people tell us) but nobody can reproduce the results. A better statement would have been "Richard Nixon is not above the law - or at least, not far enough above it to remain President of the United States."
Given the relentless hatred that the liberal and media establishments had for Nixon, that's not much of a surprise. Hardly one of Mankind's Great Discoveries. Obviously not universal enough to apply to Clinton, because when Clinton committed perjury everyone decided that perjury in civil court is kinda-sorta legal.
What am I leaving out? Another grown-up (not a teacher) told me that Nixon was chased off so Gerald Ford could make Nelson Rockefeller the Vice President of the United States. That's crazy, but it makes more sense than the Cold Fusion thing.
We did learn that perjury about sexual relations may not be an impeachable offense... what?... Oh yeah, Clinton was impeached but not convicted. So, we've learned that perjury about sexual relations may not be grounds for removal from the office of President.
Of course this all played out legally via a political process as prescribed by the Constitution, so Clinton was again shown not to be above the law.
I'm confused. What were you saying again?
lurker: Clinton was punished for his perjury.
Not by the mighty hand of the Republic, he wasn't. Not by the Heavenly Hosts that arrayed themselves against Richard Nixon, he wasn't. Much against their wishes, he was "punished" by record-keepers in Arkansas, while the Heavenly Hosts were chasing Linda Tripp.
The point is that neither Nixon or Clinton got exactly what an ordinary citizen would have gotten, under the law - if the law had anything to do with it. So be it. Rank has its privileges, whatever my school teachers thought.
Both Clinton and Nixon felt justified in their machinations because they imagined that vast conspiratorial forces were stage-managing their personal destruction. Both refused to take any personal responsibility for the criticism they faced. Fundamentally they were both wrong, and both were too self-serving to admit it.
Finally, let me note that Nixon's sickness has been mostly purged. Thank God for that. What about Clinton, then?
I read the Starr Report. I read the testimony of the Clintonista slime-meister Sidney Blumenthal, who reported that Clinton was plotting to sell out Monica Lewinsky by accusing her of being a stalker. That, after she had told him that she would commit perjury and risk going to jail for him. What a guy.
So condemn his critics all you want, and justify his presidency all you want, but don't tell me about Clinton the Man. Cicero is much too kind when he calls him a "pathetic fornicator".
Glen
Tame compared to what they did to the poor man working in the travel office.
Or to those he sent the IRS after,,,,
Or to the country by arming the chinese after taking the miliaries money.
Did he tell us ,, "better put some ice on that" ?
I dont remember exactly
Glen,
From my prespective, Clinton and Nixon each had their own persecuters. The only issue that I take with your statement is that the law was abused to provide them special privilege. I disagree with that.
The office of the President provides it's holder with certain perogatives, under the law. That's why Clinton wasn't prosecuted for perjury until he left office.
In Nixon's case, Ford pardoned him, also under the law. He lost his next election. Perhaps his decision WRT to Nixon played a part in that.
The law is what it is. Not what we wish it to be... unless maybe you're a Supreme Court Justice.
You are not correct, lurker. The office does not provide immunity although there are good reasons for a prosecutor to seek impeachment of a sitting President before indictment.
In the case of President Clinton, independant counsel Robert Ray and Clinton reached their plea bargain for the obstruction of justice charge in the last days of the Clinton administration before Clinton actually left office.
Joe,
I will grant that Clinton was not serious. He only made gestures if he thought real action would cost him too much political capital.
The Kosovo bit was a hard fight to get the Rs on board. Maybe he was not up for another fight for a threat that seemed to affect so few Americans.
But Clinton mentioned Osama several times.
Why weren't the Rs pushing him into action was my question.
Too busy wagging the dick is my answer.
My point is that neither the Rs nor the Ds saw the seriousness of the situation.
I will add that every time Clinton said Osama I thought he was trying to distract from impeachment. I was on Clinton's side on the impeachment question. I thought it was just a case of Rs trying to get back for Nixon.
My point is: there was no support in America for action against Osama. Left or right. No one wanted to take the lead.
Bush gets a lot of leeway on how he prosecutes the war because of 9/11. Clinton had no such galvanizing event to work with.
Even the Cole bombing didn't get people excited. My take on that at the time: excellent job by the crew. If "they" don't want us in their neighborhood we should avoid them.
The situation politically re: the Cole resembled the sinking of the Reuben James in the Atlantic in October of 1941. It didn't rouse the country. It took Pearl Harbor a few months later.
In 2000 I was an isolationist. In 2002 I was an interventionist. Something changed my mind. Same dynamics 1940 vs 1942.
Life.
The short answer.
Clinton had his eyes on the polls.
The Rs had their eyes on his dick.
Of the two I'd say the Rs were more peculiar.
#27,
What was more important Osama or Clinton's dick?
Clinton made the Rs lose their sense of proportion and their responsibility to the country. They got on a train they couldn't get off. And these days we had the Terry S. case to distract the Rs from their responsibility.
A man in a battle has to prioritize his targets.
In hind sight Osama was more important than some Clinton lies.
Funny thing was Clinton was supported by 60%+ of the voting public during impeachment. The public saw it as a distraction. Why couldn't the Rs in Congress get it?
Answer: they love their morality plays even more than they like governing.
Guess what? 60%+ of Americans thought of the Terri S. bit in Congress the same way. They thought Congress had more important things to do.
Joe,
I didn't say the Republicans obstructed Clinton re: foreign policy except as stalwart anti-interventionists.
What I said was that the Rs lost their focus because Clinton's sexual escapades made them mad. As in angry. As in mad as a hatter.
It was the mood of the country. And for that we have not just politicians to blame. We didn't know what was important. But we did know it wasn't Clinton's lies in the sex harrasment case. Wrong to be sure. He got punished for it. That does not take away from the fact that the focus of the Congress was wrong.
I loved the impeachment circus. I got to talk about BJs at work without fear of a sexual harrasment case. Them was the days.
But it was a distraction. I knew it then, the country knew it then. But the Rs just had to finish what they had started instead of quitting while they were behind.
Glenn,
Cold fusion is real. It may not be a source of energy but neutrons are produced. The Navy is studying it.
Cold Fusion is Back
Glenn,
Monica was a stalker.
She said she went to Washington "with her kneepads on".
My kinda girl. Jewish too. I gotta tell my wife about this one. Um, what was my point? Oh, yeah.
It may have been caddish to say it, but it was true.
My favorite story of the time was Monica on her kneepads while Clinton was talking to Arafat.
What a stupid thing for you to say ..
We Usually get better from you ...
his disregard for the office,,,, Reagan and Bush never enter the office without the Tie and coat, Clintoon would hang out in his sweats ...
Basically how he treated the whole country ...
But anger with Clinton begand was his social engineering of the millitary, putting Comminist American needs to be opposed so chine needs Nuke thech Hazel O Leary in charge of our nukes, arming china for PLA-com money, and so on...
Using the IRS, false FEDERAL charges against the innocent,
Republican aid got jail for mishandling an FBI file, Clinton pulled 900 FBI files to dig up dirt, and so on...
The list is long, and its bad ....
The came the Purjury, in light of Rape, Assault, etc, the Bob Packwood Standard became the Clinton standard.
Frankly if you are asserting we was upset over getting a few free Monicas ...
As I said, I expected better.
The impeachment was another thing.
With the media going so far as to withhold and sit on Clintons Rape of Brodrick, and sending the Pelican to knife the tires and kill pets as warnings to his discards to keep their mouth shut ... did they really think they could do it ?
Stupid ... it would have been better to accept the star report .. spend 2 weeks talking about the other stuff in the evidence room .. and announce that in the interest of the country its better to let it go because this Cad dont have the Honor of Nixon ...
Its better to have the democraps do their Anita Hill lynchings,, and not join them..
But it wasnt even the Purjury . it was the rape of the country (put some ice on that), and they thought they finally had something.
But with an enemy press that depicts them as NAZIs 24/7,,,
Foolish ... all our gains have been the power of our ideas .. to divert from that .. is to lose the plot,, and they did.
M Simon: She said she went to Washington "with her kneepads on". My kinda girl.
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Nixon Standard : Republican Congress,, man you suck, and we dont want your stain on us ... step down, or we will vote to impeach and remove you.
Clinton Standard : Democrats in Congress,, Rape ? Assault ? but he is a he man with an appetite that needs to be attended to, all that Feminazi stuff only applies to republicans, the Travel office, FBI Files, Chinagate, IRS, Hazel O Leary, Sandi Berger, Ron Brown, obstruction of Justice and Purjury, we dont care. you are a democrat so nothing applies, and besides, Al Gore Scares the crap out of us, You da man, right or wrong? never heard of the concept.
Raymond, You suffer from Clinton Derangement Syndrome. That's the point that Simon was trying to make about the "R's".
The modern strain of [fill in president] Derangement Syndrome got it's start with Nixion, though LBJ seems to have provoked a milder strain. Neither political party is immune from it either.
You are a prime example. If you want to understand how the lefty moonbats feel about Bush, then all you have to do is remember how you, as a righty moonbat, felt about Clinton. Clinton should have worn a tie? Puleeez!
It's all very ammusing to this moderate when comtemplating it, all the while sitting on my pile of 100 million skulls.