*Democratic *reforms? Not likely, Calicula was certainly an autocrat. It is true, though, that the rulers who get the worst press in the ancient historical accounts are the ones who pissed off the Senate the most. The historians were all from the senatorial class. Augustus learned a lesson from Caesar’s fate, and was always careful to uphold the facade that the Senate was still somewhat in charge, and despite his far-reaching powers, he was still really one of them. By contrast, emperors like Tiberius and Caligula had terrible relationships with the Senate, and they’re the ones we hear the worst stories about. Later emperors who are remembered favorably, like Vespasian, Titus or Trajan, were again the ones who got on well with the Senate and involved it more in government.
(Of course, rather than any kind of democracy *or *a straigh-up monarchy, the Roman empire was really mostly a military dictatorship. Later emperors were all army commanders, and you didn’t last long if you didn’t have the backing of the men with swords. I know it’s a massive stretch on both sides, but I’m reminded a bit of Thailand today. A facade of democratic or at least republican institutions, with politicians who are actually autocratic and/or massively corrupt, where the military is really in charge, and you only rule as long as the armies let you. Plus a somewhat unruly populace that has to be kept happy.)
If Arnold had just quit the American side and openly rejoined the British side, it would have been a forgivable change of heart. It’s the fact that he began working for the British while still pretending to be a loyal American that makes him such a traitor.
Opened trade with China, talked the Soviet Union into a nuclear arms limitation treaty, ended U.S. involvement in Vietnam. But no one cares about that, the only accurate fact anyone bothers to remember is he was involved in illegal wiretapping.
Correction: Nixon unnecessarily extended the war in Vietnam. The war was ended by Congress by enactment of the Case-Church amendment with enough votes to override a veto. Nixon and Kissinger fought it tooth-and-nail and lost.
Anyway, Nixon’s virtues are hardly unknown. However, his faults are so great that they are outweighed. His accomplishments are nowhere near as great as Johnson’s, which were also offset by Vietnam.
Plus, this is a thread about “libel.” Nixon hasn’t been libeled. Indeed what he is remembered for most – the burglary – was the least of his crimes. Of course much if the rest has been adopted as SOP by the GOP.
Michael Jackson may be pretty high up on the list. The trial against him was evidently a massive, gigantic, prosecutorial failure/joke.
He may have been a creepy guy but the evidence didn’t support any of the accusations – he was found innocent, yet today it’s just common knowledge that he’s a child molester.
Re: Richard III - is there any genuine proof that he wasn’t as bad as portrayed by Shakespeare and the Tudors? Or is it simply speculation that his bad reputation was invented or exaggerated by the Tudors to justify their takeover of the crown? I have to imagine that any contemporary accounts favorable to Richard III are also slanted so as to not get in trouble with the King.
He is most likely the one who murdered his nephews, or at least, had someone do it for him. Means, motive, opportunity, that sort of thing. Obviously he wasn’t the monster Shakespeare painted him to be, but did he kill the Princes in the Tower? Yeah, I think the vast majority of scholars would agree.
Speaking of the Tudors, how about Lady Jane Grey? I don’t think she wanted to be Queen – I think she was pushed into by her relatives, and took the fall for her uncle and her mother.
If he murdered his nephews, he did a pretty stupid job of it. He didn’t know he would die three years into his reign; as far as he knew, he could reign for 40 years, and he had to expect someone to ask about them at some point.
If he did have them murdered, he would have displayed the bodies for public mourning, claim they died after an illness (which happened a lot back then), and had them buried in state. No one would ever be the wiser.
That’s my problem with the Tudor version of events.
I wish the bodies from the stairwell could be exhumed again, now that we can do DNA testing, and have Richard’s DNA. All it would take is a Y-chromosome match to determine if the boys were the princes, and there are better ways of aging incomplete skeletons now. It’d be much easier to figure out whether that died at 10 & 12, or 12 & 14.
Bligh appears to have been an excellent seaman with a singular gift for making people hate him because of his habitual nasty sarcastic tone.
He wasn’t brutal, in fact he was singularly humane by the standards of the day - and courageous and an excellent navagator. But he apparently really just got under people’s skin, snarkily needling them about trivial stuff.
I can imagine, cooped up on a tiny ship for literally months, that would rankle. To mutiny because of that was of course nuts, but that’s just it - he drove subordinates nuts.
My take is that it was hardly unusual for Reinassance princes to murder their way to the top, or to remain on top. Certainly, the Tudors murdered many who had claims to the throne, without anyone batting an eyelash. Why does it matter whether Richard murdered the princes? He very probably did, but that just means he was acting like most of his peers.
He just passes them off for dead at some point - just not then, when he was still not fully secure. He could have just as easily have quashed the already in circulation rumors of their murder by publicly displaying them, but he did not. But the fact was they had already been the focus for one rescue attempt. They were a clear threat to his position. Leaving them alive was dangerous. Displaying their dead bodies and claiming “whoops, they both got sick and died simultaneously” was dangerous as it would not be believed and could court open rebellion with public support ( London crowds ). Uncertainty, with a strong overcast of “well, they’re already dead” served him best, at least IMHO.
I’m not sure he had them murdered, but he is by far the most likely candidate. And by all accounts Richard III was a cold, power-hungry prick. Which makes him not at all dissimilar to his successor and a bevy of other medieval and renaissance kings ( his predecessor as well, though Edward IV seemed to run hot, rather than cold ). Most of them were fairly shitty people by modern standards. Doesn’t mean he would have been a bad king though. In fact he seems to have been quite competent.
Joan Crawford. People in the know (including our own unfortunately rarely-visiting Eve) have said that the book and movie Mommie Dearest was made up out of whole cloth. And it seems like Crawford’s entire reality has been replaced by the mad clown that Faye Dunaway portrayed in the movie.
Huh? Who has ever libeled Annie Oakley? She even had her own TV series that made her the heroine of fictional heroic exploits. I’m not aware that her reputation has ever suffered at all. When it comes to Ohioan libel, though, there’s Dr. Sam Sheppard for you. (Who coincidentally got his own fictionalized TV series… hmm…)
OK, lawbuff, I looked up what you meant about Annie Oakley, and found that Hearst *tried *to smear her in his papers. At first he suckered some other newspaper publishers into going along, but she had her day in court and cleared her name right quick and won some damages. (He was damn lucky that’s all she did to him… I mean Annie fucking Oakley: you’d have to be insane to mess with her.) I’m glad to see it didn’t ruin her life.
Unlucky Ohioan Dr. Sheppard did do time in prison and the libel got his life messed up all kinds of ways before he got an acquittal, but never did get his name all the way cleared and drank himself to an early grave. I think he was innocent.
Fascinating (even the stuff I truncated).
But the horrific accusations I’ve seen and heard weren’t about his WWII efforts against Hitler and the anti-semitic holocaust, but about his post-WWII anti-semitic* pogroms – in the name of Soviet/Communist (capital c) power. Even the stuff I truncated fails to address those atrocities. Just glossed over as insignificant?
–G!
*I grew up with a lot of Jewish friends
So don’t ask me
No questions
And I won’t tell you no lies
…–Lynrd Skynrd
…Don’t Ask Me No Questions
( his predecessor as well, though Edward IV seemed to run hot, rather than cold ). Most of them were fairly shitty people by modern standards. Doesn’t mean he would have been a bad king though. In fact he seems to have been quite competent.