Forty Years Later ...

... I am a married, early-50s father of three. But 40 years ago today I was a kid riding in the front seat while my father drove the family to the coast for a few days of vacation, and we were all spellbound by the radio reports that President Nixon was going to announce his resignation that night on TV.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/08/08/nixon-watergate-resignation-anniversary/13739409/

Nowadays the Watergate endgame doesn't seem quite so dramatic. But it was a helluva big thing back then.

 

Most influential president of the 20th century.

 

"Richard Nixon has never been one of my favorite people anyway. For years I've regarded his existence as a monument to all the rancid genes and broken chromosones that corrupt the possibilities of the American Dream; he was a foul caricature of himself, a man with no soul, no inner convictions, with the integrity of a hyena and the style of a poison toad. The Nixon I remembered was absolutely humorless; I couldn't imagine him laughing at anything except maybe a paraplegic who wanted to vote Democratic but couldn't quite reach the lever on the voting machine." -- HST

 

To that end ... here's HST and Nixon talking' football from Manchvegas to the airport.

http://blog.nixonfoundation.org/2009/12/37-was-fan-1/

You somehow end up in the car with ...

° Bubba
° Obama
° Rand
° Hillary
° Christie
° Mitt

... what would be the one non-political thing you'd want to talk about with each?

 

I would replace 'Most influential president' with 'One of the most despicable human beings'.

 

Nixon accomplished more in office than each of the last two presidents.

 

Nixon and Watergate are one of the most fascinating areas of history to me. I'm interested in Watergate and Nixon like some are interested in the Kennedy conspiracies.

Here's an interesting story today on what Nixon did after he resigned to rehabilitate his image: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/project-wizard-richard-nixons-post-watergate-plan-for-redemption/370874/

 

They aren't mutually exclusive.

 

Nixon would be a lightweight amid the culture of corruption and abuse of power that has come to define the executive branch. Watergate wasn't the end of a bad thing; it was the beginning.

 

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Nixon.
Nixon who?
Nixon, who like B.O., also used the IRS to harass and intimidate political opponents.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/irs-apologizes-targeting-conservative-groups

Most of U.S. academia and 98 percent of contemporary journalists believe the charges against Nixon were enough to label him a world-class menace.
But when the Unicorn King does it, it's

 

For an administration that supported detente, instituted price controls, and established the EPA, Nixon elicits a lot of hate from the left.

 

Nixon would be considered a traitor to his party if he tried implementing those things today.