Was he really that bad of a president, and was what he did that heinous?
Seems to me that both Dubya and Obama have done far worse
Opened up reactions with china, which is a big fucking deal. He was a strong president but his paranoia was too much for him.
Nixon was the last Republican president to care for the average joe. He founded the EPA and brought in work safety standards. The only reason he was vilified was that he kept the Vietnam War going till he got the ceasefire South Nam wanted and the new press needed a scapegoat to justify their existence.
>>961640
That, and that thing where he had a group of thugs illegally wiretap the DNC HQ. Singlehandly destroying any remaining public trust in the Federal government.
Liberals hated him because he was right and they were wrong about the commies.
Pic related. They never forgave him for it.
>>961850
>implying watergate isn't the reason he's hated
Why do Nixonfags consistently ignore Watergate? Is it because there's no justifying it so they just pretend it didn't happen and hope that nobody will mention it?
>>961538
You're correct, Dubya and Obama have definately done far worse.
Dick assualted the constitution by implementing the drug schedules in the belief that if young Americans would stop smoking pot they'd realize what a great man he was.
He also abused his power. He's the reason W and Obama feel they can do what they want today.
And today's young cucks let them get away with it.
>>961858
He was hated way before Watergate. Heck, the reason Watergate happened is because he was hated by the left-wing bureaucracy of Washington which he exposed as communist sympathizers in the 1940s.
>>961864
Nixon declared the War on Drugs because the criminal justice reforms of the Warren Court had made crime spiral out of control and transformed most American cities in wastelands. Pot was just a way to get repeated criminals in jail with a convenient excuse. Why do people forget that?
>>961869
>the reason Nixon broke the law and illegally wiretapped the DNC headquarters was because they Democrats didn't like him
Well this is a whole new level of delusional. Care to explain what the fuck you're talking about?
>>961538
At least in the current public consciousness, he eroded trust in the presidency to a whole new level. Not necessarily true, but he's the archetype for presidential abuse at the moment.
Also, the southern strategy and the war on drugs don't help.
>>961858
Not a Nixonfag but Watergate is fucking nothing compared to Clinton's Benghazi, media just blew that shit out of proportion.
>>961858
It's not just that he was aware of the break-in (although very slightly after the fact); he orchestrated a cover-up, authorizing hush payments (the "whole enchilada") and instructing his staff on what to say and not say.
As a lawyer by trade, Nixon would have known in his bones that this was not only immoral, but illegal.
Add to this, his continued lying and twisting of the narrative of the coverup, then trying to claim "executive privilege" when the investigators subpoenaed his office tapes, and finally firing his AG for attempting to further the investigation.
Don't forget, all this sort of thing was pretty much never seen before (in public) by the American people. His actions, and reactions, to the whole mess soured a whole generation on politics, politicians, and public service.
Nixon's by far the President people seem to understand least, yet talk about him as if they knew him.
Legit foreign policy genius, and possibly the most intelligent President we've had. But he was sort of autistic and literally paranoid, thought everyone was out to get him.
If he'd been able to lose the paranoia and general distrust for every single human being, he couldve been a p good leader. His achievements with China are criminally underrated.
>>962084
As much as I hate Clinton, Benghazi really wasn't as bad as Watergate. Clinton seems to do an amazing job at keeping things just barely within the bounds of the law, so while whatever happened with Benghazi sure as shit wasn't ethical, it's nothing she can be truly prosecuted for.
Nixon, on the other hand, pretty knowingly broke the law.
>>962115
Nobody died in Watergate. That alone makes Benghazi worse.
>>961538
THEY
CAN'T
LICK
OUR
D I C K
I
C
K
>>962114
This. Very underrated in foreign policy by the general public.
>>962114
Don't forget unfucking our involvement in Vietnam.
Overall, his presidency was pretty mixed. Watergate and general paranoia aside, he has a pretty big legacy in all the domestic policies he enacted, particularly with the creation of the EPA and starting the war on drugs. Foreign policy was amazing, but unfortunately, foreign policy isn't everything when it comes to presidents.
>>962117
No, not at all. Again, while what happened with Benghazi is abhorrent, she did not go out of her way to violate the law like Nixon did at Watergate. She may very well be a worse person than Nixon, but it's nothing legally. If you really want to fuck her career, stop going after Benghazi and start getting on the Emails, where she really did break the rules. Any other government employee would at the very least be sacked and forbidden from ever getting a security clearance again for pulling shit like she did.
>>962141
>Don't forget unfucking our involvement in Vietnam.
And SALT.
>>962148
Yup there's that too. He's arguably one of the best presidents we've ever had from a foreign policy perspective, in my opinion.
>>962153
>He's arguably one of the best presidents we've ever had from a foreign policy perspective, in my opinion.
I doubt anyone could really argue otherwise.
>>962114
How could he not be paranoid when he was right about the commies but no one believed him?
Friendly reminder:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1994/07/he-was-a-crook/308699/
>>962117
No, but plenty did in the needless invasion of Cambodia, and then millions of Cambodians died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, who came to power as a direct result of said invasion. Nixon was scum.
>>961640
>>961840
The recent revelation that Nixon told the South Vietnamese ambassador to walk away from peace talks in 1968 is fucked-up.
It frustrates the fuck out of me that he was a clever guy, but morally lacking. I can understand why he did the things he did and the context, but he did shit that pisses the fuck out of me.
>>962114
>If he'd been able to lose the paranoia and general distrust for every single human being, he couldve been a p good leader. His achievements with China are criminally underrated.
I agree. Nixon is a fascinating study of contrasts. And he was far more centrist than people give him credit for. I mean look at Reagan. He's someone I can't fathom why people nuthug.
I dislike Nixon, but I can say that he's at least an interesting personality in regards to his strengths and weaknesses of political career. Reagan helped the neo-cons into shape; that alone is terrifying as fuck.
I'm not even a Republican, but whatever happened to guys like Barry Goldwater?
>>962259
>whatever happened to guys like Barry Goldwater?
Unelectable, they had to be left behind.
>>962259
Evangelicals took the over the party.
>>962250
Nothing to do with Watergate.
>>962345
I give Nixon (and Kissinger) more shit for East Pakistan, what Bangladesh was called back then
>>962341
Wish I could find the quote of some Republican from the 50's talking about how the new wave of "Clerics" scared the shit out of him and their growing influence on the party.
>>962355
I don't give a fuck m8 I was talking only about Benghazi being worse than Watergate. I don't really care for Nixon per se.
>>962361
That was Goldwater.
>>962369
Oh christ, poor guy.
>>962361
>>962352
The defeat of Goldwater brought on a wave of pandering to minorities in both parties. For teh Republicans it was the Evangelical vote and for the Democrats blacks became the new focus.
What a mistake America made.
>>961879
Because it harmed tons of people who wouldn't be criminals otherwise and created a massive illegal market that generates tons of violence and costs the taxpayers billions. Enacting laws that can harm everyone so you can nail certain people is never a good idea.
Hunter S Thompson told the best Nixon stories. I love the one where Thompson admits to Nixon that he tells stories to his son about how horrible Nixon is to scare him and Nixon's response was "I do the same with my children, but the stories are about you". Also the time where Nixon and HST shared a car ride together and did nothing but talk football the whole time. Nixon was a football junkie he could tell you every stat for every player even the most forgettable one snap in his whole career at some D3 college player.
>>962172
I like Thompson but after '72 or around that time he basically just started repeating himself, and around that time it seems as though he lost his ability to write. This article proves testament to it. Plenty to say but it really means nothing at all
>>962433
Curse of Lono was pretty good. Not as great as his previous works, but better than everything else he produced post Nixon.
>>962345
Still makes him dirtier than Shillary by several orders of magnitude.
>>961538
Sabotaging the Peace Talks? yeah, it's technically treason.
In terms of foreign policy, though, guy might rival even the diplomats of Singapore, who did make China and Taiwan sit at the negotiation table. (And all the diplomatic coups, like making Malaysia her signatory to enter the UN, Let's not even go on about how much Malaysia HATED Singapore after 1965 to 1966).
As a person though? His morals are alien to me, and that scares a lot of people.
Worse thing though, he's not even as funny as LBJ, who famously quipped that America went to war with Vietnam for his dick.
I still haven't forgiven him for signing the Keene Act.
Morality is the least of Nixon's problems. He was incredibly shortsighted on economics and cancelled plans to liberalize the American economy. It was the failure of those reforms and the increase in drug controls that led to the crime-ridden economic hell of the 1970s.
Say what you will about his foreign policy, his domestic work was right near trash and was characterized by capitulating to the South and trying to deny the glaring flaws of American industry compared to Japan and Germany.
>>961538
Yes, be was that bad, because he hated democracy.
>>961640
>Nixon was the last Republican president to care for the average joe
Funny you say that, when he was the guy who instituted the system that ended up violently fucking average joe in the ass, bringing forth the financialization of the western economy, and with it never before seen financial speculation and the end of actual productive industry in the US.
>>962114
>Legit foreign policy genius, and possibly the most intelligent President we've had
thats kissinger work though
