Posted by
flagwaver on Thursday, October 22, 2009 12:58:53 PM
With the personal and unrelenting attacks on Fox News Channel, Rush Limbaugh, and now the U.S. Chamber of Commerce emanating from the White House these days, people have been dredging up the memory of Richard M. Nixon and comparing him to the current president. The comparison comes mainly with the development of the Obama "enemies list" that mirrors the now infamous Nixon "enemies list" that he wanted to use to "screw" his political opponents, and certain media types as well. But as the story goes on, many are saying that Obama himself is "Nixonian" in his style...but he's not.
First, Nixon was never a media darling and preferred to operate outside of media scrutiny, while Obama has never met a camera he didn't like. Getting Nixon to sit down with reporters was like pulling teeth, but Obama will not shut up: it seems every week that he has some huge speech, or round of interviews, or an appearance with famed harasser talk show host David Letterman. Obama has plenty to say about everything, but has very little to show for all his yapping and mewling, wheras Nixon was a man who was able to get things done.
Secondly, Obama is a total lightweight when compared to Richard Nixon, both academically and politically. Besides getting elected by underhanded means in his state and national Senate elections, and riding the anti-Bush "Hope & Change" Express (with a huge assist from a brain dead, feckless McCain campaign) to the White House, what has he ever done? People always talk about how many bills Obama coauthored (google it, I guarantee you'll be amazed) but he was not the driving force behind any major legislation in his career as a senator. And some of the things he did support he will break his freaking neck to get away from it, like his vote to allow born alive aborted babies to be denied medical care. He never was a governor, never finished a U.S. Senate term, never ran a business...none of that. He was just a little old community organizer that worked to make things better for the downtrodden in Chicago...just like Jesus. As for his academic career, we know that he went to Ivy League schools, served as editor for the Haaaavaaahd Law Review, but that's about it. We aren't allowed to see anything he wrote as editor of the Law Review or to see any of his academic records. But we are expected to accept that Obama is one of the best and brightest our country has ever had.
Compare that to the academic record of Nixon, and his vast experience before becoming president and it is no contest. Nixon graduated from Duke Law School, the Harvard of the South, second in his law school class. He then served in the U.S. Navy from 1942-46 in the Pacific theater, rising to the rank of lieutenant commander. He won his first election in 1946 when he defeated a 5 time encumbent Democrat and while in the U.S. House he served as chair of the House Un-American Activities Committee that outed Soviet agent Alger Hiss. He served briefly in the United States Senate before being tapped as Vice President for Dwight Eisenhower, where he served as acting president while the president recuperated from a heart attack.
Nixon was elected president in 1968 (sworn in 1969) and extricated the U.S.from the Vietnam War, opened up trade with the Communist Chinese, signed the SALT I arms treaty, and it was under his administration that man first reached the moon. Now he had his flubs like creating OSHA, getting a lot of enviromental legislation passed, and instituting a doomed program of wage/price controls...but he at least got them through a Congress that was always hostile to him. He had real accomplishments, whether you agreed with them or not, unlike the Rhetorician in Chief.
So don't be misled when the press (some of them at least) calls Obama "Nixonian", because he is not anything close to Nixon. Nixon, even in his most paranoiac moods, was twice the president that Obama will probably ever be. To paraphrase a well known quote, " I knew Richard Nixon, and you sir, are no Nixon!"