he was a REPUBLICAN HERO, a PARAGON of REPUBLICAN VIRTUE, a FUCKING PART TIME BURGLAR who LIED THRU HIS TEETH so he could KILL MORE THAN HALF OF ALL AMERICANS IN VIETNAM.

That's the Republican idea of a "good man".   We're so proud that they've outdone themselves, and come up with an improved version, GW BUSH.

Vote for the Republicans, help them turn America into a pathetic 3rd world cesspool.

Johnson was the screwup.  Nixon got us out.  He inherited a big mess from Johnson who handed the Tet Offensive battle victory banner to the North Vietnamese after we kicked there ass into hell.

Better than what we will be with fucking bitch Nancy Lugosi at the helm

like who could be worse than Tricky Dick, "I am not a crook" Nixon?

How about Dick "Go Fuck Yourself, I had Other Priorities" Cheney?  How about George "DOn't Know Where I was, but I sure was high" Bush?

Johnson and Kennedy combined.

the rest of us think he's a crook

Sorry JACK, but your not giving President Nixon his due.
1. He normalized relations with China.
2. Set up the Enviromental Protection Agency and enacted the Clean Air Act.
3. Got Israel and Egypt to talk.
4. Started the Office Management and Budget to rein in government spending. His Presidency actually had balanced budgets.
5. Set up the Occupational Safety and Health (OSHA). When the Demnocratic Congress passed legislation to limit the power of OSHA, Nixon vetoed it.
6. Got the Right for 18-years old to vote.
7. Set Up PELL Grants for college students,
8. Actually enacted Keynesian principles to manage economic growth.
9. Got us out of Vietnam. He did it. What! you think Brown and Root, General Dynamics, and Lockhheed who have let American troops out in his first term. He would never have been re-elected. Big Business runs America buddy.
10. Normalized relations with the Soviet Union.

and the rest of his fambly too.

When somebody says "big business" or "liberals" or "Jews" run this or that, ya gotta ask what they mean.  Usually people dealing with such generalities are just steaming, not doing anything useful.

There are many identifiable interests in US politics, and the question is, what's the mechanics, and can you support that?  

Vietnam was initially a popular war, because it was seen as fighting communism.  There were always critics, but it became clear as we went along that the VC were not Soviet puppets, and more the point, what's our remedy?  Johnson and McNamara realized by Tet that this was not a WW2 style war; that it was politics with guns, and Americans can't tell Vietnamese how to runs their villages at the point of a bayonet.

IMHO, McNamara and Johnson might have, should have realized it earlier.   Just as a workman measures twice, cuts once, a strategist should think twice to save the damage of doing it wrong.

Nixon - like many Americans do - was listening to the voices in his head, and not watching what was happening on the ground.  He may have actually believed that he could get peace with honor, but he had no reasonable basis for that.   He was in fact resposnible for the clear majority of American deaths, which is one hell of a way to get us out - very much like saying that we got out of an ambush by dying.

I doubt that Nixon was responsible, eg for getting 18 year olds the right to vote.  As I recall, that was a Democratic initiative, and the Republicans opposed it.

Whatever else happened on Nixon's watch is overshadowed by the critical events that he personally was involved in.   Nixon's fatal persistence in Vietnam, against his representations and common sense; and his burglary of Watergate show in fact that his character is indeed that of a crook and used car salesman, and whatever the wisdom of some actions, he is not a person one can trust in any way, nor somebody that should be held out as a role model, any more than Cunningham or Agnew should be.

Interestingly, he came from a very strict, conventional background, and who knows what lesson should be taken from that.

what they should do in RVN, and led them in doing it.  Nixon should have done that; maybe even LBJ.  They should have stayed the fuck out and let the VN fuck their own country up.

Lugosi will set this country up to be attacked. Shes is the most dangerous form of pinko panty waist

and then sent the army to iraq, because if he sent it to Agfhanistan, he might catch his good buddy OBL

In January, 1969, President Nixon became commander-in-chief. Agree.

Do you really think, that Nixon could have realistically pulled out all our troops (560,000)in a year, after a decade of military buildup. You were in the military, a chaotic withdrawl would have been suicide. He inherited a flawed policy with flawed plans. Give the man some slack. Johnson cut and ran, because he and asshole McNamara (Harvard Alumnus) knew they had an untenable situation in Vietnam and couldn't figure out what to do.

Nixon began by reducing troop levels 50 percent in two years and increased bombing of North Vietnam targets to force the Vietcong to the Peace table. The VC knew they had the bargaining power. Our political will was weak and do you forget we had POWS in Hanoi. Nixon also began to set up talks and normalization of relations with China. Not an easy task when you consider America and China had a tussle over North Korea, who technically are still at war with us.

Johnson did not even come close to what Nixon did. You have to be rational. Nixon got us out of Vietnam permanently, and he succeeded. President Nixon did the best he could given the political and economic forces of the time. Yes, at one time, the communists were our hated enemy.

By the way the 26th Amendment to the constitution giving the right for eighteen year olds to vote was a bi-partison proposal. God Bless America.

IMHO, people should have known years in advance what the nature of the VN conflict was, and that it was a misguided idea from the beginning.   McNamara's experience and approach was not applicable.

BUT the country was clearly not ready for that idea.  The pols should have seen it and sold it; but they did not do either.  In fact, the country reacted to the right; and perhaps we got what we deserved with Nixon.

Nixon did not have LBJ's excuse of experience.  He disregarded LBJ's experience and moved ahead as if he was a newbie.  The result was predestined - we more than doubled our casualties, and acheived nothing.

Nixon - especially with Kissinger at his side - was a master tactician, but he had no concept of goals (morals) or strategy.   That's like saying he was a great shot, but wasn't sure what to shoot at.

So he didn't know that you don't burglarize political offices unless you're a fucking 3rd worlder.  He had a mind like a very good tinhorn dictator.

Johnson understood that domestic policy came 1st, and he dealt with the civil rights issues that Nixon ignored - if Johnson had not dealt with them, Nixon would have had a country in flames on his hands.  A lot of the draftees were black, and you cannot ask a man to fight, then send him back and watch his own family get mistreated.

Yes, the 26th amendment was bipartisan; not Nixon's accomplishment.   Nixon was very astute, but also so fundamentally amoral that he simply did not recognize that Americans don't like burglars, and don't like pointless deaths.

Did I mentioned Nixon, got us off the gold standard, balanced the budget. Keep unemployment below 5 percent while millions of military personnel were discharged. If Nixon, had not have had a jobs program, unemployment would have risen and we be having a lot pissed off, grunts and jarheads. I could go on, but its late.

Here:  "Legacy
Presidential scholars, both liberal and conservative, rank Richard Nixon near the bottom of the list because of the scandals, but most agree that he presents a special problem because his foreign policy and domestic policy successes stand in dramatic contradiction to the corruption of his top aides and Nixon himself. Political scientist Walter Dean Burnham noted the "dichotomous or schizoid profiles. On some very important dimensions both Wilson and L.B. Johnson were outright failures in my view; while on others they rank very high indeed. Similarly with Nixon." Historian Alan Brinkley said: "There are presidents who could be considered both failures and great or near great (for example, Wilson, Johnson, Nixon)." James MacGregor Burns observed of Nixon, "How can one evaluate such an idiosyncratic president, so brilliant and so morally lacking?"[21]"

Now, in my world, IMHO, talent is not hard to find, but it's a 2-edged sword - the real issue is, how will it be applied?   So I tend to be very harsh about the misuse of talent.  You could say Stalin was a brilliant man, but so what?

The man was a politician, and responsible only to the nation.  A colorless bureaucrat who merely followed orders would have been better in that situation.