Carter's appointment of Paul Volcker 1979 as Federal Reserve Chairman was huge -
he began the work of getting inflation and interest rates under control. This problem actually was caused by a combination of policies enacted by Federal Reserve chairman Arthur F. Burns during the Gerald R. Ford administration, the 1973 Oil Crisis - and President Nixon's inept handling thereof.
Ronald Reagan's economic polices, though preferable to me, would not have had a chance to work if it were not for Paul Volcker - who continued polices begun in the Carter administration, and served until very near the end of Reagan's term.
A note also about the Iranian hostage crisis - Later president GHW Bush was running the CIA at the time of the coup that toppled the Shah and led to the hostage crisis. Carter was "blamed" for the crisis - as if he could really do anything about it. The hostages were released when Reagan was inaugurated. However, Reagan was not magic - the Iranians had nothing to fear from him. There were rumors about a back channel deal to make this happen, which the later Iran Contra scandal seems to support....
"deep throat" who betrayed the Presidency of Richard M. Nixon. God bless him and may his soul rest in peace. My prayers go out to him and his family.
Nonetheless, I cannot help he was only a pawn behind a conspiracy to bring down a noble man who fought for this country and had his best interests at heart. Richard Nixon if he was a Democrat would be eulogized as a great president who:
1. Ended the Vietnam war and kept his promise to achieve peace with honor.
2. Reunited over 600 hundred of our heroic Prisoners of War with their families.
3. Overhauled the Department of Defense under Melvin Laird. Lyndon Johnson and his asshole Robert McNamara nearly ruined the ARMY.
3. Started the Environmental Protection Agency and worked to clean up our air and water.
4. Started the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Before Nixon, coal miners, construction workers had limited safety and health protections and many died. To this day we still live on his legacy.
5. Started the Federal Railroad Adminstration and reformed the Department of Transportation for safer roads and rail. He worked endlessly to for a safer and healthier America.
6. Started the Office of Management and Budget and achieved a balanced Budget. Lyndon Johnson had left behind a bloated budget from his gun and butter policies and had nothing to show for it except and ruined economy.
7. Achieved the first meaningful peace negoiations in the Middle East. Remember Shuttle Diplomacy and Henry Kissinger.
8. Enacted the Volunteer ARMY.
9. Began detente with the Soviet Union that eventually helped bring down the fall of communism.
10. Met with Mao Ts Tung in China and helped them enter the League of Countries.
There is more, but it is late.
Stop sucking Nixon's dick. Yes, he did some good, but he also fucked up and got himself evicted from the White House. I got canned after being caught in my office with a sexy ass intern bent over my desk. Do you think HR gave a damn that I brought the entire company out of the dark ages? No, because the company code of conduct says not to fuck college girls in your office on company time (that's paraphrased of course).
He was psychologically unstable and anti-semitic to boot. Watergate was a criminal act; It might have been only a taste of things to come in his second term. Plenty of other criminal acts came to light when Watergate was investigated; he was damaging the office. Yes, I know he was midway through with his second term when he resigned, but he was kept straight while being investigated. It would have been dangerous to keep him in office.
Also, he was responsible for that horrible Pinochet regime, and the tape of him giving the orders to overthrow Allende are chilling.
It aggravated his paranoia that manner wasn't likable; people could sense his worst traits immediately, but in contrast, a twisted personality Mao Tse Tong apparently liked Nixon, and that says something.
Yes, he had a tireless work ethic, and accomplished a lot of good things, but despite all that, you could sense calamity.
He was the beginning of the radicalization of Republicans, and horrible tone of politics that took over the Reagan adminstration. He sewed resentment, and his worst abuses and paranoia became a model of how Republicans would conduct the Presidency since. Furthermore, Republican voters overlooked obvious disqualifying flaws in Presidential Candidates starting then. George H. W. Bush is a result of Nixon. Meanwhile, these presidents nullified many of his accomplishments, using his duplicitous tactics; the EPA and OSHA, to cite a few examples, have been totally undone by his successors; they ruined all of them they could ruin.
So, as a whole, I believe Nixon was a terrible setback for the US. His worst legacy: while carrying on outlaw presidencies, the Republicans who followed Nixon didn't have near his talent and vision.
The description of a president as "manipulative, vindictive, power-hungry" wouldn't be limited to just Nixon. Some would say that those are almost requirements of the job.
but he was a ten times better POTUS than LBJ. The words "manipulative, vindictive, power-hungry" are some of the kindest words I can think of to describe him.
Of course I bet Zin can find some redeeming qualities about LBJ considering the fact he was a Dem. It must be tough to be loyal to a political party, it constantly makes you defend the indefensible.
All right Zin, let's hear how great LBJ was. I have heard you defend Carter. Defending Johnson can't be too much more difficult.
Hey was a very honest, nice guy. Oh, you mean in terms of effective? Yeah, I'm drawing a blank there. LBJ...hmmm; nope, coming up empty there too.
Carter's appointment of Paul Volcker 1979 as Federal Reserve Chairman was huge -
he began the work of getting inflation and interest rates under control. This problem actually was caused by a combination of policies enacted by Federal Reserve chairman Arthur F. Burns during the Gerald R. Ford administration, the 1973 Oil Crisis - and President Nixon's inept handling thereof.
Ronald Reagan's economic polices, though preferable to me, would not have had a chance to work if it were not for Paul Volcker - who continued polices begun in the Carter administration, and served until very near the end of Reagan's term.
A note also about the Iranian hostage crisis - Later president GHW Bush was running the CIA at the time of the coup that toppled the Shah and led to the hostage crisis. Carter was "blamed" for the crisis - as if he could really do anything about it. The hostages were released when Reagan was inaugurated. However, Reagan was not magic - the Iranians had nothing to fear from him. There were rumors about a back channel deal to make this happen, which the later Iran Contra scandal seems to support....
Carter was a very intelligent man. As a nuclear submarine commander, you would expect nothing less. He was also kind, generous, with strong religious beliefs. But as POTUS, he was a disaster. He was out of his element. He had basically no support from the Democrat Congress for any of his programs. The best that can be said of him is the Camp David Accord of 1979. The SALT II Treaty with the USSR, which he and Brezhnev signed, was never approved by the Senate. A July, 1980 poll, had his approval rating at 21%. That's in GWB terrority. At his urging, the Shah gave up in Teheran. Carter sent USAF Gen Huyser as one of his emissaries to convince the Shah that the US would guarantee his safe passage from Iran. He agreed, and we flew him, his family, and his fortunes to Paris. As for the hostage rescue attempt, when the helicopter hit the C-130 while repositioning to be refueled, at the landing strip, and the whole operation went up in flames, 5 of my friends were burned alive in the C-130. Because of the manner in which Carter had decimated the military, they knew there was minimal chance for success, as they had very little joint forces training for the operation. May he rot in hell alongside, LBJ, and McNamara.
This just in...Reagan's economic policies did NOT work. He started the era huge budgets deficits that the Bushes both took to unprecedented levels.
keep in mind that Reagan had to coexist with a strong democratic congress led at the time by the formidable Tip O'Neill. Both had their agendas. In order to get what each wanted they gave free reign to the other to spend. Bad combination. I consider the spending on our military forces and capabilities to have been worth it - as it lead to a vast decrease in the dangers the US faced as well as a cessation of the financially expensive military competition with the USSR. And, the tax cuts worked - just as they did in 61 when JFK followed the same formula.
If you are a true believer in one party over the other, you have to keep it simple. "Us good, them bad" is about as deep a thought as most partisans are able to muster on their own.
I must suck to go through life having career politicians do your thinking for you, but it's hard to reconcile partisan politics with independent thought.
first, subtract all of the knee jerk voters from the population
then subtract all of the moderates who wait to see which way the wind is blowing and have no principles of their own
don't leave much.....
Same with relgion - by the way. Oh please tell us what to think, what to believe so I can have my piece of pie in the sky bye and bye.
Whatever was the God(dess) thinking....
same shit applies. When you are either too stupid or too lazy to think for yourself it is much easier to believe that someone smarter than you has the answer.
But he did pass the Civil Rights, Voting Rights Bills. Considering he came from far below the Mason-Dixon line, that is surprising.
He also did something, or rather didn't do something that commands my respect: he didn't run for office in 1968. No, he knew he had failed.
and dropped out of the race. There was nothing noble or self sacrificing about it, he just wanted to spare himself the embarrassment of being a sitting POTUS that lost the nomination of his own party.
I will grant you the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. Those were the only highlights in an overall dismal presidency. Nixon, while dishonest and full of personal faults was by far the better POTUS.
-- Modified on 12/20/2008 7:57:07 AM
Yet, it stunned people when he did it. If a sitting president wants the nomination enough, he will get it. Also the conventions then were just as important to choosing the candidates as the primaries.
It wasn't a good combination, and few politicians were worse in person at hiding their flaws than Nixon. It's a surprise he ever became president.
Peace with Honor in Vietnam. The North Vietnamese did not respect LBJ and his Secretary of State and is why they refused engage with the United States in peace talks. Nixon was another matter ,the North Vietnamese knew they now had to deal with a crazy son of bitch who was prepared to do anything to get his way. Guess what Zin, it worked. It is how 600 POWS were reunited with their families.
Was he manipulative and calculating...sure he was and that is how he was able to enact and bring efficiency to the United States government. Like I said before during the LBJ administration, the government was bloated, running huge deficits with inefficiences especially in regards to the US ARMY. Talk to the grunts who were in country during the TET offensive and they will tell you horror stories of shortages of, ammmo, weapons, but plenty of bombs.
Again, Mark Felt betrayed his commander-in-chief and ruined a great presidency.
You scare me. In spite of your intelligence, you are so caught up in your worship of all things military that it defines your views and responses. All the things Zin mentioned are valid points, but you spin it all around to make it look like Nixon was the level of what many think of Reagan, and you make Felt, who was serving the best interests of the ENTIRE country, not just the power cabal Nixon represented, into some monster, when he had serious cajones to do what he did.
Flower power to you.
Nixon WAS a crazy son-of-a-bitch who was prepared to do anything to get his way. How soon before he couldn't turn off "the act" anymore? I mean, if it was bringing him success . . . ?
When the leader of a dominant nation begins to do illegal, and anti-social things, somebody on the inside who isn't trained as a career criminal is going to get very uncomfortable with it. Mark Felt was the one that time.
To me, it was better to turn Nixon in while he's doing burglaries rather than wait till he's committing murder. If he thought he could get away with it, that enemies list might not have stopped at mere coercion. (And I'm stunned that you, as a conservative, would apologize for somebody who illegally sent the tax man against people!) I mean Nixon didn't have an moral objection to what Pinochet was doing; why not import the tactics for his own hated enemies? Keeping an enemies list was what Nixon thought of as standard operating procedure for somebody in power. He didn't see it as odd. That says something.
He brought 600 POW's home: I applaud him. How many people did he kill in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, over and above that? including our soldiers and the innocent? How about destabilizing Cambodia which led to that horrid Pol Pot regime? Just saying, getting 600 men home from that clusterfuck has to be regarded as partial pay back.
He brought efficiency in government: Without a doubt, the man knew how to manage, which made him even more dangerous.
Liberals weren't going to be won over to Nixon, but to be fair, they weren't won over to Johnson, either, and not by Humphrey or McGovern as well. The fact that the war was unsolvable for the Democratic leadership caused bitter disillusion in liberals to anything like American politics; they wanted something else, any fantasy of something else, and even Mao Red Book served that desire. The young liberal constituency (not including the actual radicals) felt no identification with either Democratic leaders, nor with the government. To have gone over to Nixon, though, would have been embracing the system as is, and it didn't help that Nixon couldn't charm them, couldn't charm anybody (but Chairman Mao), so nothing Nixon could have done would have won them over.
It is funny in one way that Nixon is popular with conservatives. His public policies were very liberal, and he interfered into the economy with impunity; I conclude that conservatives admired the way he used presidential power behind the scenes. . . and in foreign countries. I've already pointed out how it has been their style in the White House since.
He wanted to dump that candy assed pussy John Dean in the Potomac where he belonged.
After the break-in was discovered, which shows this couldn't go anywhere good.
Naw he would have just disappeared and it would have been done with.
Breaker, I'm with you. Nixon wasn't a 'nice guy', but he was an effective president. He laid the ground work for future foreign affairs, and started much needed programs at home. His biggest crime was, he got caught. If truth will out, I'm certain many, if not all, presidents have had some underhanded dealings while in office.
Yea whats funny is listening to the pussy John Dean on Kethie saying Cheney should be charged for torture 
wire taps that allowed William Ayer’s gang to walk free. How’s that for irony? He also committed felonies acting as the "sainted" Deep Throat. Working for J. Edgar Hoover, Felt was definitely no saint.
He did not commit treason, a crime covered in the Constitution and punishable by death.
He did break a number of laws but he was not a traitor.
Just a basic piece of shit like Jimmy Carter.
He committed some of the very same crimes that he ratted on Nixon for covering up.
BTW, traiterous can apply to more than treason against the U.S. He WAS a traitor to Nixon.
-- Modified on 12/23/2008 6:44:31 PM
of course the word "traitor" can be used to mean betraying even a friend. But given that this guy violated a number of criminal statues ,
it is a little confusing to brand him a "traitor" in the legal sense.
Right or wrong, he apparently believed what he did was good for the country.
Actually I mean to post under the OP.
Sorry for the confusion.
A traitor for pointing out corruption at the highest level of government? To me he was an unsung hero, who put the interest of the country ahead of personal glory or compensation!