having a welfare system.

republicans coming out of the woodwork enraged about someone else getting a free ride on their dime. Even if the pubs themselves got the same amt of money. It would be Commie, I tell ya!

back in the early 1970s.

Make no mistake, Nixon had the soul of a cheap, corrupt ward-heeler, the ethics of a hyena and the personal style of a poison toad. He was also either paranoid or had a persecution complex.

That said, the essence of your post is, sadly, quite correct. Richard Nixon never spent two seconds of his life trying to figure out how to destroy the Fair Deal, the New Deal and the Square Deal.

that crook and partied when he got thrown out. Those of us who have lived through these times can only be dismayed and depressed about how FAR RIGHT this country has gone. Sleazy Republicans like that crook Nixon proposed an ACA-like program! And a national income! NO ONE is even mentioning anything like that now. We can't even get every Democratic officeholder to agree that a decent minimum wage is good!

It's a mess.

. . . he lied about having any sort of plan to end the Vietnam War. Instead, he'd told the South Vietnamese during the end of Johnson's presidency to hold out and not negotiate an end with the North Vietnamese. He then extended the war four more years only to end it on the same terms Johnson would have gotten in 68.

At the end of 1972, he knowingly massacred civilians in Hanoi, bombing hospitals and schools in order to impress the South Vietnamese that the US would not abandon them. (He did end up abandoning them, as it turned out.)

He sent thugs to beat up Vietnam War protesters. He infiltrated anti-war organizations.

He put wiretaps and surveillance on reporters and on members of the administration he thought were insufficiently loyal.

He attempted to exempt the presidency from the law by using the CIA to keep the FBI from investigating the Watergate scandals.

He created a culture around himself of lowest common denominator politics in which enemy lists were kept, opponents were subject to spying, blackmail and other dirty tricks.

He had enough fascistic characteristics to more than make up for a few leftward pivots he made (often for cynical reasons).

We're still in Iraq.

Thugs beat up OWS protestors, and other protestors.

NSA wiretaps many people without a warrant.

The former President will not be tried for torture, and is called a patriot.

we have drones bombing and killing innocent people

So what could it be? "DU still has this magical thinking about the Presidency..." I will guess that you are insinuating that this is a bad thing and that you don't have the magical thinking about the presidency. Therefore, you must be a lot smarter than DU.

Seems you may also be disputing the OP and suggesting that Nixon shouldn't get any credit for what happened during his presidency.

is pretty much the dictionary definition of "smarter than nobody." Magical thinking pretty naturally, and unfortunately, follows.

PS - Is "I bet you have a point hidden in there somewhere, don't you?" another example of your patented "discussing issues," or do I have as feeble a grasp of "discussing issues" as you seem to?

on edit: The point wasn't at all hidden if you think about it it. In fact, it's abundantly obvious.

That was a bold step nobody had considered before.

Congress into a rubber stamp body.

That's not what the founders wanted. Even though I hate Republicans, it is not what I want.

Nobody in their right mind could EVER call him a liberal.

All of those environmental and other "liberal" acts were forced upon him by a Democratic Congress (Democrats had close to 60% majorities in both houses) that passed these bills with veto-proof majorities, and overwhelming public pressure on the heels of his re-election campaign and the highly unpopular Vietnam War.

Nixon vetoed the Clean Water Act (it passed at the end of the campaign; no more feel-good PR moves were needed anymore), and after it was passed again, he withheld funds necessary to implement it. The EPA was really just a consolidation of existing responsibilities that had been spread across various agencies. The Clean Air Act that Nixon signed was HIGHLY watered down from the original bill. He fired his Interior Secretary, Wally Hickel, for criticizing the Vietnam War. He gutted or dismantled many of the Great Society programs.

To say that Nixon was our "GREATEST LIBERAL" (seriously? a greater liberal than FDR?! greater than MLK?) and "to the left of Obama" is so absurd it seems like it has to be parody.

Domestic policies were "to the Left of our current President"? Incredibly laughable. Nixon didn't give a shit about civil rights or the environment.

I was with a group of Yippies who threw thousands of dead rats at him on his second inaugural parade. He was no liberal by any stretch of the imagination.

But, I will concede that he was more liberal than our last two, and maybe three Democratic Presidents.

I just gotta call 'em like I see 'em. Nixon was always worried about being tied to "big business". Our last couple of Democratic Presidents (and I'm not omitting the Republicans) kowtow to Wall Street and all the other big monopolies.

and you are absolutely correct.

This top post is full of nonsense.

shit" to whine about President Obama?

Thank you for some reality on Nixon, NYC

I miss UNREC.

Nixon and the Generation Gap

In the 1960s, as drugs became symbols of youthful rebellion, social upheaval, and political dissent, the government halted scientific research to evaluate their medical safety and efficacy.

In June 1971, President Nixon declared a “war on drugs.” He dramatically increased the size and presence of federal drug control agencies, and pushed through measures such as mandatory sentencing and no-knock warrants. Nixon temporarily placed marijuana in Schedule One, the most restrictive category of drugs, pending review by a commission he appointed led by Republican Pennsylvania Governor Raymond Shafer. In 1972, the commission unanimously recommended decriminalizing the possession and distribution of marijuana for personal use. Nixon ignored the report and rejected its recommendations.

http://www.drugpolicy.org/new-solutions-drug-policy/brief-history-drug-war

He was also a racist POS, but he really hated the Jews, which is why I believe he is making a "comeback" with some circles as a supposed liberal.

Nixon established the EPA by Executive Order. Congress then came along and ratified it. The same with OSHA and the PBGC which protected workers pensions. Congress came after not before. Nixon has been called the last New Dealer president and I agree with that.

Yes, it was. But the authority to do so was established under US Code Title 5, passed by Congress in 1966, and NEPA, passed in December 1970. Nixon also had to submit his plan to Congress and it had to be approved by Congress.

OSHA was not established by EO. Don't know where you got that. Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act in 1970. It passed 83-3 in the Senate, and 310-58 in the House. Nixon had very little choice in signing it with those votes.

PBGC was also not established by EO but by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. That one passed unanimously in the Senate and 407–2 in the House. Again, Nixon didn't sign it because he really supported it; it signed it because he was forced to by incredible veto-proof votes.

Nixon did these things not because he was a "liberal" or gave two shits about the environment. He did it because public opinion almost unanimously demanded action, because Congress was overwhelmingly controlled by Democrats, and because he needed some good PR going into his re-election campaign amidst the Vietnam War.

You forget why the PBGC happened in the first place. Teamsters and other unions were stealing pension funds for their gangster buddies. Teamsters would get fired a month or two before they would become eligible for a pension and they would lose everything. Teamster and other corrupt unions controlled many in Congress who tried to stop the law.

Chomsky has called Nixon the last liberal president.

In contrast, when Richard Nixon—in many respects the last liberal president—declared a drug war in 1971, two-thirds of the funding went to treatment, which reached record numbers of addicts; there was a sharp drop in drug-related arrests and number of federal prison inmates, as well as crime rates.

http://www.chomsky.info/articles/200006--.htm

The political dominance of the liberal consensus, even into the Nixon years, can best be seen in policies such as the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency or in Nixon's (failed) proposal to replace the welfare system with a guaranteed annual income by way of a negative income tax. Affirmative action in its most quota-oriented form was a Nixon administration policy. Even the Nixon "War on Drugs" allocated two-thirds of its funds for treatment, a far higher ratio than was to be the case under any subsequent President, Republican or Democrat. Additionally, Nixon's normalization of diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China and his policy of détente with the Soviet Union were probably more popular with liberals than with his conservative base. Nixon also successfully supported a cost of living adjustment for Social Security recipients.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism_in_the_United_States

Your Wikipedia link says it in the first sentence: "The political dominance of the liberal consensus". That does not mean Nixon was a liberal. Nixon was forced to act by overwhelming pressure from the public and from Congress. He did not give two shits about the environment or pretty much anyone other than straight white men.

But he compartmentalized that from his governing personality.

You provide various quotes given us because of the tapes. We don't know what other presidents said in private because they did not tape themselves. I can give you racist quotes from everyone from Lincoln to Wilson and beyond, so what? I look at what they did, not what they said.

His actions were in no way those of a liberal. At all.

It does a huge disservice to all the liberal activists and the real liberals in Congress who made those things happen to give Nixon all the credit.

Truth will out!

nothing liberal about those stands.

The damage Nixon did to his own party, not to mention the rights of African Americans and the cause of racial comity, has lasted long after the stench of Watergate dispersed. It not only persuaded blacks that the Republican Party was inhospitable to them, but it, in effect, welcomed racists to the GOP fold. Dixiecrats moved to the right.

none of that negates the point that, on many issues, he was to the left of recent Democratic Presidents. Personally, I don't think anyone in their right mind could call the last two Democratic Presidents liberal, either.

Which says a great deal about how the Democratic Party has evolved.

Nixon did not give a shit about the environment or any other of the liberal bills he signed. To call those Nixon's achievements or even his causes is an insult to the many REAL liberal activists and members of Congress; THEY were the ones that pushed these issues and FORCED Nixon's hand. NEPA, the bill that authorized Reorganization Plan No. 3 that created the EPA, passed unanimously in the Senate and 372-15 in the House.

The idea that Obama is NOT a liberal is, frankly, absurd.

Obama also said he was LESS LIBERAL which does NOT mean he is Conservative.

So the President was working within a much more liberal framework. Big ships steer slow.

to the left.

Some of that legislation passed over Nixon's veto.

Superficial, inaccurate pig manure.

Congress then ratified it. Quit trying to re-write history. Congress did NOT take the initiative in the Nixon years. He created OSHA and the PBGC which protected workers pensions. He created the PBGC because of the corruption in the Teamsters Union who tried to rip off Teamsters members by getting them fired when they neared 30 years of service making them eligible for pensions. Many in Congress who were bought off by gangster Teamster Union money tried to stop the creation of that agency. Why are you defending them?

In 1967 the Task Force on Environmental Health and Related Problems submitted its recommendations to President Johnson. The final ten called for legislation to be sent to Congress to establish an Environmental Protection Act.

In July of 1969 the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) made its way out of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs and onto the Senate floor.

The bill was actually strengthened before it was approved. Maine's Edmund Muskie was a primary proponent of strengthening NEPA and it was approved by the House and Senate in December of 1969 and signed into law on January 1st 1970 by Nixon.

The groundwork was laid during the Johnson Administration, and fine tuned by a Democratic Congress.

Following such environmental calamities such as the polluting of the California coast by oil well blowouts off Santa Barbara and Lake Cuyahoga catching fire off Cleveland the American public was ready for a comprehensive approach to the environment. Both of these events occurred in 1969.

Nixon had never displayed much interest in environmental concerns but for him to have vetoed this bill that had such public and bipartisan Congressional support would have been folly and Nixon was no fool politically


The Clean Air Act was amended in 1965 to establish and enforce air pollution standards for new motor vehicles, the first time the automobile industry was held accountable for air pollution.

The Clean Water Restoration Act, passed in 1966, authorized federal grants for building water and wastewater treatment facilities.

The Solid Waste Disposal Act was passed in 1965.

And also during the Johnson Administration the Wilderness Act was passed in 1964 and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act was passed in 1968.

These two acts were truly preservationist in nature. At present the Wilderness Act has set aside over 106,000,000 acres where no hunting,logging,or building of roads is allowed.

President Johnson did far more towards environmental causes than Nixon, who merely signed a bill that was long overdue in its creation.

Ruckleshaus was one of the few republicans who had experience fighting pollution. He'd done it for more than a decade in Indiana. Imagine that! A republican who provided real leadership fighting pollution by coal burning power plants!!!

Ruckleshaus actually took the job of protecting the environment from damage by human activity seriously. Ruckleshaus' was commited to enforcing new environmental legislation, which caused the agency to confront industry and inevitable controversy and political backlash which ultimately greatly curtailed the environmental movement.

Having been convinced by his work over the previous decade, Ruckleshaus over-ruled recommendations of a select panel and banned DDT use in the US. Under Ruckleshaus leadership the EPA also moved to stop the Tellico Dam project to protect the endangered snail darter which became an iconic struggle over the balance of endangered species protection and development.

The early history of EPA actions put the agency at odds with politicians, particularly sen. Howard Baker and contributed greatly to the creation of openly hostile anti-regulatory rhetoric we associate with the Right's view that environmental regulation is unreasonably obstructive to industry.

Anyone who truly believes that and wonders what's wrong with the Democratic Party...

I suggest taking a look in a fucking mirror.

But, certainly a few have...well, not really.

The OP can own that sad title thread. Nixon was the original ratfucker.

Here that DU? NIXON WAS THE ORIGINAL RATFUCKER. Nothing liberal about that.

EOM

I thought I had wandered into some sort of alternative universe where Nixon didn't say that abortion was good for a black/white mixed child.

Thank you thank you thank you - you're far too kind.

"in some ways" when O'Reilly asked him on the superbowl interview if he thought he was the most liberal president of all times! Obama was like NOOOOOO!

see video at this link at around 4:14 to hear his Nixon comment!

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/197334-obama-nixon-was-more-liberal

....instead, just continue to debase the guy. The guy is dead and gone and is never going to be re-elected to any office. But you can use his policies to advance an argument.

Can you imagine if Dem told his Repub opponent...."you're to the right of Nixon and Reagan"....and then cite actual actions? A Repub complaining about environmental actions and then a Dem says "I think the EPA is one of Republican President Nixon's greatest achievements, I can't understand why my opponent want's to disavow a crown jewel in Republican policy" <insert head's exploding>


Frothing at the mouth hatred doesn't get votes...other than the base. But pointing out just how whacked out the Republicans have become...probably will.

since they had different political realities. Congress is a big fucking deal in Washington. I wonder how much different President Obama's reign would be if he had a filibuster proof Congress. Might have been pretty sweet.

to convince the American people of its agenda?

Good grief, Wonkette.

Come on now...you know Nixon was a liberal, he loved the hippies and led drum circles.

Good morning, Rex!

Actually its late here better get my butt to bed. Just can't pass up making fun of Tricky Dick.

I googled.

......not mine; but, the Wonkette blogger's.

A golden turd is still just a turd.

Despite the anti-communist rhetoric, America seemed to be much more friendly to liberalism back then than now, partly because of FDR and the liberal wave (basically the idea that government is a force for good and can deal with and solve society's problems) that he created that ended with Reagan.

We need presidents like Ike that would create another GI Bill, protect social security and call those who would attack it "stupid" very appropriately, warned us about the military industrial complex, and many other good things that candidates for the corporate beholden parties of today aren't taking stances though.

shreds of intellectual respectability attached to it (dating from Edmund Burke, imo), but that was before the Christo-fascists and racists appropriated it.

Ike actually didn't like Tricky Dick much, IIRC, not because Nixon was a flaming liberal or raging conservatard, but because Nixon was shifty and beneath the dignity of the office of POTUS as Ike viewed it. Been awhile since I studied this, though, so I'm certainly open to being corrected

At least by today's political baseline. But what a vile twisted man.

HBO is out with "Nixon On Nixon" or something like that, playing the released tapes of him in action. I had to laugh at some of it as he went after Blacks , Jews, liberals in the most crass way. All in the midst of other stuff like blowing safes to get at evidence.

I recommend Hunter Thompson's brilliant eulogy to Tricky Dick, he nails it in his unique gonzo style.

A big, mean, battle-scarred alley cat, it seems. My intent was never to praise Nixon; but, to bemoan how far to the right our own party has drifted.

Nixon proves Shakespeare's adage: "The evil that men do lives after them; the good oft lies interred with their bones!"

He's a funny guy but his politics suck and he gets off on making fun of Dems. I'd be very wary of putting any stock in any political idea foisted by Harry Shearer.

What an unbelievable load of trip you serve, casually and without any basis in fact. Very incorrect and down right shitty.

Seriously.

Last edited Tue Nov 11, 2014, 07:42 AM - Edit history (1)

There isn't a single liberal achievement by Nixon (to the extent that there are any) that Carter, Clinton or Obama haven't improved upon.

Saving America's environment? As already pointed out repeatedly, Nixon vetoed the Clean Water Act. His role in the creation of the EPA reflected a political equation (he feared Muskie would get out ahead of him on environmental protection issues in 1972) less than policy decision. It took an embarrassing story in the newspapers about political contributions from Armco Steel to get the Nixon White House to back down from trying to soften EPAs first major enforcement action. And it took action by the DC Circuit to get the Nixon EPA to consider banning DDT and it was only after an initial decision not to ban DDT blew up in the administration's face did they get around to implementing a ban. Nixon proclaimed the first official Earth Day? Whoop de do. It was a year after the first earth day, without a presidential proclamation, had drawn participation by 20 million people. Nixon didn't lead on these issues, he followed. Recent Democratic administrations have struggled to keep EPA's budget up after devastating cuts made during the Reagan years, but apart from sequestration related reductions, the fact is that EPA has around 16,000 employees compared to less than half that number during the Nixon administration. Obama in particular has sought to expand, not contract clean air and clean water protections and has expanded, not contracted, the amount of protected territory compared to the Nixon years.

Civil Rights. Which Civil Rights acts of the Nixon era did the Carter, Clinton, and Obama roll back? And leaving aside Nixon's rabid bigotry in private, its public manifestations were pretty obvious too. How many women were in the Nixon cabinet? How many African Americans? How many Hispanics? How many women did Nixon appoint to the Supreme Court? To the Court of Appeals? To the District Courts? The answer to all these questions is zero. Nixon did appoint a handful of African Americans to district court positions, but from 1967 to 1977 (i.e., the Nixon/Ford years) not a single African American was named to a federal appellate court judgeship. In just one term, on the other hand, Carter named more African Americans to the federal judiciary than all of his predecessors combined. Clinton appointed 48 African Americans to the judiciary compared to less than 10 by Reagan. And Obama has appointed more women, and more minority women, than any other President.

And if were going to talk about "liberal" actions regarding Civil Rights, what steps did Nixon take to open up federal protections and benefits for gay Americans? To suggest that Carter, Clinton, and Obama have a worse record than Nixon is sheer nonsense.

Other Nixon liberal actions? Child care assistance? He vetoed the Comprehensive Child Development Act of 1971 and a pro-child care plank in the 1972 repub platform was put there over his objections (and those of his super-liberal advisor, Pat Buchanan). Similarly, while Nixon campaigned as a supporter of the ERA, he didn't lift a finger to help it's ratification and stood silently by while his right wing supporters, like Phyllis Schafly, distorted and lied about the amendment's meaning.

Minimum wage? That's typically a liberal cause. Nixon? Vetoed a minimum wage increase (eventually he signed the same increase when it became apparent he couldn't stop it).

Native Americans? One of Nixon's few forward looking policy achievements. But it's not as if the past few Democratic administrations have tried to roll back policies Nixon started. In fact, they've generally taken them further than Nixon did, with many tribal leaders crediting the Obama administration, which has returned land to the tribes, for doing more than his predecessors combined.

Nixon spent more on non-defense spending than defense. Yes as the Vietnam War wound down, defense spending dropped, getting as low as around 30 percent of the budget. Of course, it stayed relatively low during the Carter administration and dropped down to the 20 percent level during the Clinton and Obama years -- a better record than Nixon.

The list goes on and on. We have Richard Nixon to thank for William Rehnquist. His other three appointments to the Court (Blackmun, Burger and Powell) were more moderate than he expected (to his chagrin) and in the case of Blackmun, only got to the Court because Congress couldn't stomach Carswell and Haynesworth, the bozos Nixon tried to get confirmed. Carter didn't get any Supreme Court vacancies to fill, but he named two future Supreme Court Justices -- Ginsburg and Breyer -- to their first judicial seats. Clinton later elevated both to the Supreme Court. Ginsburg, Breyer and Obama's two SCOTUS appointments, Kagan and Sotomayor -- all are more liberal than any of Nixon's appointees.

I could go on, but the reality is that the OP is a pile of crap. And anyone with actual knowledge of history from history books rather than from a television personality knows it.

"I could go on, but the reality is that the OP is a pile of crap. And anyone with actual knowledge of history from history books rather than from a television personality knows it."

See post #72.

that Nixon helped fund the overthrow of the democratically elected Chilean president in 1973.
So yeah. I don't care how "liberal" he might appear, he gets no accolades from me. Fuck that criminal and his sidekick Kissinger.

going back to the Credibility Gap comedy group during Nixon's day? He's done hours about Nixon and Kissinger and Chile.

Nixon came into office at a high tide point of liberal politics which began with the New Deal & the defeat of RW fascism in Europe. There's no question that, given the fact there was a large minority of liberal Republicans with influence in the party, for his time, Nixon was a hard right-wing conservative.

The premise is absurd. Like Rush saying that JFK was to the right of Reagan because he proposed bigger tax cuts. The take away here should be to show how far we've come, even with the RW tidal wave over the last 40 yrs.

If people could turn back the clock, this might mean something. It's irrelevant today. That was then. This is now. 30 years post Reagan with a Tea Party. That wasn't happening back then.

Vietnam was still going on! The baby boomers were in college.

Now the baby boomers are retirees.

Especially as he had a major hand in creating it with his ability to channel hate via his political campaigns. The southern strategy, Pat Buchanan's agitations on behalf of the angry white man, Agnew as the liberal media- and counterculture-bashing pit bull supported by Safire's writing. Billy Graham for the God flank and the long suffering silent (white) majority. Using patriotism and the Vietnam war as a wedge issue even as he was pretending to end it.

The GOP owes him a huge debt and it's not for the EPA.

dated income taxes. Enemies' Lists. Chose corrupt Vice-President. Paranoid.