# Was Richard Nixon That Bad? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 6, 2010, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508 "2010-03-06T04:49:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/81 "2010-03-08T03:57:45Z")
> [@](#): > > Also an alternative view regarding Watergate [http://www.johnreilly.info/ahap.htm](http://www.johnreilly.info/ahap.htm) ( I’m not convinced exactly of it’s truth but it is fascinating) Then let me clarify it for you. It’s ridiculous. Watergate was not some little pecadillo. It was not another case of typical corruption. It was not some nothing that Nixon’s enemies made up to make him look bad. Watergate was a serious crime. It was the worst crime any President has ever committed. And it was one step from treason. And Nixon was guilty. He got off light by being allowed to resign - he should have gone to prison. ---
**Author:** ![kidneyfailure](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9f8e36/32.png) [@kidneyfailure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidneyfailure)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/82 "2010-03-08T03:57:49Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > I think he was more of a tragic Shakespearean character like Macbeth or Richard III. In fact I think America needs a Richard Nixon society like Britain has a King Richard III Society. Young man, you seem to be more and more out of touch with historical reality with each post of yours that I read. But that’s ok, I suppose. Just know with certainity that a few jobs-well-done, even some historic ones like his trip to China, do not cancel out the corruption that permeated the entire Nixon administration, nor does it make it ok or let Nixon off the hook for you to point out that some other guy was corrupt, too. As I said, I think most Americans view their leaders as corrupt to one extent to another and aren’t really shocked when the truth comes out about sex scandals or disappearing funds of some kind. Those very same people, however, were shocked to find out the level of Nixon’s corruption. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/83 "2010-03-08T04:02:13Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > Only in some future-tense fantasy world. Here where we all happen to live, Carter is deserving of the same credit you seem so eager to extend to Nixon. > Did you know that Jimmy was our most Christian president of the past 50 years? > Is that why you won’t cut him no slack? > [Jimmy Carter says he can ‘no longer be associated’ with the SBC](http://www.baptiststandard.com/2000/10_23/pages/carter.html) What did he do as President? Did he ban abortion? Did he support morality? What concrete achievements in any field did he make as President? > [@Camus](#): > > Nixon’s downfall wasn’t exactly tragic. Particularly since unlike Macbeth or Richard III, he lived after his fall from grace. No not exactly the same but similar as I said. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Then let me clarify it for you. It’s ridiculous. Watergate was not some little pecadillo. It was not another case of typical corruption. It was not some nothing that Nixon’s enemies made up to make him look bad. > > Watergate was a serious crime. **It was the worst crime any President has ever committed.** And it was one step from treason. And Nixon was guilty. He got off light by being allowed to resign - he should have gone to prison. What about Andrew Jackson’s Indian removal and direct defiance of the Supreme Court? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/84 "2010-03-08T04:28:26Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > You might enjoy the movie **All the President’s Men**. I think it may have won the Oscar for the Best Film the year it came out. It will give you a quick and entertaining overview of how the story of Watergate was hushed up and then finally broken. I’d reccomend reading the book first, actually. > [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > What concrete achievements in any field did he make as President? Ever heard of the [Camp David Accords](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_david_accords)? **Curtis** , I think your question has been more than answered – yes, Nixon was that bad – and much worse. He, was, in my view, probably THE worst president we’ve ever had. (And yes, much worse than George W. Bush, since Bush I think wasn’t nearly as corrupt or as crooked) The sick thing is that, as you pointed out, he had the makings of being a good president – but he was too much of a scumbag to be one. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/85 "2010-03-08T05:38:28Z")
I think the general point is that others were corrupt as well and many much more so than Nixon. Few Presidents however had his personal and political courage and his achievements were real and lasting and still influence us today. Does not pardon his corruption at all, but he was a complex man and a wholistic view of him should be taken. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/86 "2010-03-08T06:15:59Z")
> [@](#): > > What about Andrew Jackson’s Indian removal and direct defiance of the Supreme Court? Yes, it was worse than that. It was worse than Bush and Iraq, it was worse than Johnson and Vietnam, it was worse than FDR and internment, it was worse than Reagan and Iran-Contra, it was worse than Buchanon and secession, it was worse than Hoover and the depression, it was worse than Adams and the Alien and Sedition Acts, it was worse than Clinton and Whitewater, it was worse than Lincoln and habeas corpus, it was worse than Johnson and tenure in office, it was worse than Harding and the Teapot Dome, it was worse than Grant and Credit Mobilier, it was worse than Kennedy and Bay of Pigs, it was worse than Cleveland and Maria Halpin, it was worse than Garfield and the post office, it was worse than Wilson re-segregating the federal government, it was worse than Jefferson and Sally Hemmings, it was worse than Polk and the Nueces Strip, it was worse than Hayes and his election deal, it was worse than John Quincy Adams’ corrupt bargain, and it was worse than Pierce’s drinking problem. It was the worst crime any President has ever committed. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/87 "2010-03-08T06:30:33Z")
Oh, please. Some guys working for some guys who worked for him broke into an office and got caught. Nixon found out about it and out of a sense of loyalty tried to shield them so they (and their bosses) wouldn’t get into trouble. The Nixon-hating media found that out and hammered on it and hammered on it day after day after day for two years or more until he finally lost the support of Congress and the electorate and was drummed out of office, with the result that Vietnam went down the tubes resulting in the subsequent deaths of millions of people in Vietnam and Cambodia, and the infliction of James Earl Carter upon this country for the next four years. To claim that what Nixon did was worse than actions that caused large scale death and misery of the type you claim were less significant is so ridiculous as to border on the outrageous. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/88 "2010-03-08T06:50:51Z")
Nixon be working some fine spin from beyond the grave… ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/89 "2010-03-08T07:26:46Z")
> [@](#): > > Oh, please. Some guys working for some guys who worked for him broke into an office and got caught. “Some guys”? These were cabinet level officials working out of the White House committing felonies. I’m not talking obscure electoral regulations - they were breaking and entering. > [@](#): > > Nixon found out about it and out of a sense of loyalty tried to shield them so they (and their bosses) wouldn’t get into trouble. I’m sure Nixon was looking to protect their boss. Because Nixon was their boss. Nixon was protecting them for the same reason any criminal would try to protect his underlings - he didn’t want them cutting a deal and testifying against him. Of course most criminals don’t have the advantage of working for the President of the United States. So they don’t have a boss who can make some phone calls and ask the police to drop the charges as a matter of national secuirty. > [@](#): > > To claim that what Nixon did was worse than actions that caused large scale death and misery of the type you claim were less significant is so ridiculous as to border on the outrageous. Nixon did plenty of that too. But you’re right - if all Nixon had done was send tens of thousands of American soldiers off to die needlessly (which he did) then he might have been just another really bad President. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/90 "2010-03-08T07:34:53Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Does not pardon his corruption at all, but he was a complex man and a wholistic view of him should be taken. Sure, he was wholey a despicable man. A paranoid, self-absorbed, and pathetic human being who suffered from an inferiority complex and spent his whole life trying to prove himself. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/91 "2010-03-08T07:52:48Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Oh, please. Some guys working for some guys who worked for him broke into an office and got caught. Nixon found out about it and out of a sense of loyalty tried to shield them… Nah, [Nixon inhaled.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=554742) ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/92 "2010-03-08T08:14:38Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > “Some guys”? These were cabinet level officials working out of the White House committing felonies. Kindly list the cabinet officials who were caught inside during the Watergate burlary. And then kindly show that the higher ups whom the actual burglars were working for had Nixon’s direct instructions that they do so. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/93 "2010-03-08T08:32:24Z")
Well, hell freezeth over, I agree with Starving Artist on a small point. Nixon’s Watergate cover-up was not the worst all time Presidential crime. In my opinion, and Starving Artist may not agree with these specific examples, both the Iran-Contra arms for hostages deal, which was illegal, and the Bush II WMD lies killing thousands of US soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were much, much worse because lots of people died. Now, I still think that Nixon was more corrupt than Reagan and Bush II, because Nixon fostered a regime of corruption and was personally in charge of the broad range of illegal activities, of which Watergate was only one example of “rat-fucking” as the plumbers called it. The whole Nixon can of worms was overseen and tacitly approved by Nixon for the personal political gain of Nixon. While the methods of Nixon were given an entirely new scope by the Bush II administration, Bush II was only a puppet of his masters, Rove and Cheney. Rove and Cheney were far more corrupt than Nixon. Bush seems to have gone along for the ride and the aircraft carrier photo ops, but doesn’t seem to have had the understanding Nixon did that what was going on was un-American, unlawful, unconstitutional and destroying the country. Nixon knew all that and did it anyway. Perhaps it was the pills he was on and the alcohol he washed it down with, but Nixon was a bizarre tragic figure of evil. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/94 "2010-03-08T08:35:58Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Kindly list the cabinet officials who were caught inside during the Watergate burlary. > > And then kindly show that the higher ups whom the actual burglars were working for had Nixon’s direct instructions that they do so. That’s a straw man. Nobody claimed that cabinet officials were the actual burglars, or that they directly gave orders. I’m glad we are back to disagreeing. Nixon did personally order the Ellsberg discrediting, which immediately involved break-ins. P.S. I saw Ellsberg on the Oscar ceremony broadcast Sunday night. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/95 "2010-03-08T08:39:44Z")
So I guess “some guys working for some guys” is no longer working for you? If John Mitchell wasn’t personally breaking and entering, it’s okay if he paid somebody else to do it. It’s not like that makes him an accessory or anything - no wait, that was what he was sent to prison for. Bob and weave all you want on this one, SA, but if you want to rewrite history on the Nixon administration, I’d advise you to go the Fox News route and just put a (D) after Nixon’s name and pretend he was a Democrat. Afterall, we’re already hearing how he was a secret liberal. Heck, it’ll be good practice - in ten years you’ll be doing the same for Bush. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/96 "2010-03-08T08:47:52Z")
> [@](#): > > Nobody claimed that cabinet officials were the actual burglars, or that they directly gave orders. John Mitchell, Nixon’s Attorney General and the head of his re-election campaign, did directly give orders - he authorized the break-in. Whether Nixon knew about the break-in before it occurred or just helped cover it up afterwards is still an open question. That he illegally obstructed justice by helping cover it up is not in dispute - he’s on tape doing that. But while people have testified that Nixon had prior knowledge of the crime, nobody has produced an audiotape of this. So I guess it’s possible to deny this if you really want to. ---
**Author:** ![Camus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ba8739/32.png) [@Camus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Camus)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/97 "2010-03-08T09:01:28Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Kindly list the cabinet officials who were caught inside during the Watergate burlary. Le sigh. As usual, you ignore all the other evidence and information and focus on one thing that is not accurate. > [@](#): > > And then kindly show that the higher ups whom the actual burglars were working for had Nixon’s direct instructions that they do so. Unfortunately, we’ll never know since a key audio recording of a conversation between Nixon and his chief of staff H.R. Haldeman was deleted, despite a subpoena that all tapes be turned over intact. Haldeman went to prison along with Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs John Ehrlichman. Regarding the break-in of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office, [here’s](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/white_house/july-dec97/nixon_11-26.html) what John Ehrlichman said to Nixon about it in September 1971: [QUOTE=John Ehrlichman] John Ehrlichman: “We had one little operation. It’s been aborted out in Los Angeles, which I think is better than you don’t know about. But we’ve got some dirty tricks underway. It may pay off.” [/QUOTE] In reality, the “operation” wasn’t aborted, the plumbers just couldn’t find Daniel Ellsberg’s file (though the psychiatrist later said that Ellsberg’s file was lying on the floor and appeared to have been rummaged through). So, Nixon formed the plumbers or ordered that they be formed to engage in “dirty tricks” whose details he either knew about or deliberately did not find out about because of their illegality. This is precisely where “plausible deniability” comes from. Except for the fact that he attempted to cover up the Watergate break in and thus demonstrated at least minimal knowledge that a group of people working in his name had been actively and systematically engaging in criminal activity. Nixon’s lies, his numerous attempts to obstruct justice - which he should have gone to prison for as his aides did - and his corruption are more insidious and dangerous than anything Clinton ever did (since you seem to be so fond of being outraged at Clinton/the media/liberals/modern American society). Even Republican congressmen of the day completely withdrew their support of Nixon and publicly announced their willingness to vote for articles of impeachment. It sounds like they knew more than you do of the facts. ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/98 "2010-03-08T15:40:59Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > And just how did he sabotage their campaigns? Among other exploits: -Planted the ‘Canuck’ letter (falsely accusing Muskie of insulting people of French-Canadian descent) before the New Hampshire primary -Exploited anti-integration sentiments in Florida by putting up bilboards reading “Help Muskie in Busing More Children Now” -Used stolen Citizens for Muskie stationary to distribute letters falsely claiming that Sen. Henry ‘Scoop’ Jackson had an out of wedlock daughter with a 17-year-old and that Sen. Hubert Humphrey had been arrested for DUI with a call girl in his car -After Muskie dropped out, issued a false press release on Humphrey’s letterhead accusing Rep. Shirley Chisholm of being mentally unbalanced. > [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > And how did you feel about Bill Clinton trying to draw an equivalence between Obama and Jesse Jackson? I’d call that a pretty dirty trick, wouldn’t you? And yet Clinton is a rock star. Yes, that’s exactly comparable – in the way that a paper cut is comparable to being disemboweled by a chainsaw. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/99 "2010-03-08T16:40:51Z")
…I’m going to attempt a fools errand and try to summarize and conclude the thread (why do I do such things? Oh, I don’t know, my mother smoked too much while I was in the womb, perhaps?) Was Nixon a Great President? - Based on his accomplishments listed: a resounding Yes! Was Nixon That Bad? - Based on his personality and actions which resulted in his resigning: a resounding Yes! THESE ASSESSMENTS ARE NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE!!! It’s the same as the OJ model - Was OJ a Great Running Back? - Yes! Was OJ an evil murderer? - Yes! See? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/100 "2010-03-08T16:51:47Z")
Nixon used certain influence he had, even while out of office, to **sabotage the Paris Peace Talks** from behind the scenes, early in 1968, **just so the war would still be there as an issue for him to run against in November.** See [_Nixonland,_](http://www.amazon.com/Nixonland-Rise-President-Fracturing-America/dp/0743243021) by Rick Perlstein. So, yes, he really was that bad. > [@](#): > > There is almost a Yin/Yang clarity in the difference between the two men [Nixon and McGovern], a contrast so stark that it would be hard to find any two better models in the national politics arena for the legendary duality – the congenital Split Personality and polarized instincts – that almost everybody except Americans has long since taken for granted as the key to our National Character. This was not what Nixon had in mind when he said, last August, that the 1972 presidential election would offer voters “the clearest choice of this century,” but on a level he will never understand he was probably right . . . and it is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character almost every other country in the world has learned to despise. Our Barbie doll president, with his Barbie doll wife and his box-full of Barbie doll children is also America’s answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde. He speaks for the Werewolf in us; the bully, the predatory shyster who turns into something unspeakable, full of claws and bleeding string-warts, on nights when the moon comes too close . . . > > At the stroke of midnight in Washington, a drooling red-eyed beast with the legs of a man and the head of a giant hyena crawls out of its bedroom window in the South Wing of the White House and leaps fifty feet down to the lawn . . . pauses briefly to strangle the Chow watchdog, then races off into the darkness . . . towards the Watergate, snarling with lust, loping through the alleys behind Pennsylvania Avenue, and trying desperately to remember which one of those four hundred identical balconies is the one outside Martha Mitchell’s apartment . . . – Hunter S. Thompson, [_Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Loathing_on_the_Campaign_Trail_'72) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508.md?page=6)