Missing Richard Nixon

Nixon was at least independent from lobbyist

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 30, 2009

Many of the retrospectives on Ted Kennedy’s life mention his regret that he didn’t accept Richard Nixon’s offer of a bipartisan health care deal. The moral some commentators take from that regret is that today’s health care reformers should do what Mr. Kennedy balked at doing back then, and reach out to the other side.

But it’s a bad analogy, because today’s political scene is nothing like that of the early 1970s. In fact, surveying current politics, I find myself missing Richard Nixon.

No, I haven’t lost my mind. Nixon was surely the worst person other than Dick Cheney ever to control the executive branch.

But the Nixon era was a time in which leading figures in both parties were capable of speaking rationally about policy, and in which policy decisions weren’t as warped by corporate cash as they are now. America is a better country in many ways than it was 35 years ago, but our political system’s ability to deal with real problems has been degraded to such an extent that I sometimes wonder whether the country is still governable.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/opinion/31krugman.html?_r=1&ref=patrick.net

Lobbyists have been a part of the Washington scene from the beginning. They're a time-honored tradition, and they're necessary, even if you don't agree with their goals. Sometimes we have lobbyists working on OUR side, too.

But, those two monsters, Gingrich and Delay, took it to absurd heights, literally selling the legislators and their votes to the highest bidders, and they got away with it for a good long time. Jack Abramoff is singing now, and someday Delay will go on trial, but that won't change anything in Washington, where the lobbyists still own this town.

The notion that Gingrich even dares to show his face in public is a testament to the shamelessness of these thugs. Delay on a Dancing with the Thugs show, and not an ounce of regret in either of them. We're stuck with the results of their greed, and what we're seeing today, in the ownership of the votes by the insurance and pharmaceutical and hospital and varied industries, is nothing but the mangled and malignant fruits of their labors.

People will die because of these horrible men. People who are sick and who can't get medical care will die, and these fuckers just keep on shooting off their mouths and making political pronouncements.

Disgusting..............................