TS: Richard Nixon vs George W. Bush

what's a little firebombing/nuking between war criminals eh they're all the same amirite

yr sense of scale is so weird

I find your actual scales offputting, wanna test you for mercury.

This is a W. vs. Obama fight? Can't we work Nixon into this somehow?

We don't have him to kick around anymore, correct?

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-A2pnGgHVVhs/TxvFmbhULrI/AAAAAAAAB-c/XINp5bIY8zE/s1600/nixonbeach1.jpg

has obama used the CIA to overthrow any left-wing governments? i think ike's still got him beat in that department.

god, gabbneb was annoying as shit on this thread.

I was annoying as shit too.

actually, the best case would be if the Democrats lost Congress and Obama became prez; but this scenario seems unlikely.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Saturday, September 13, 2008

btw this book is superficial but the reporting is pretty good. What's hilarious is how the four living presidents have their own reasons to at best distance themselves and at worst loathe Jimmy Carter.

"I understand now, fellow club members"

http://www.salon.com/2013/04/25/obama_embraces_the_worlds_most_exclusive_club/

http://admin.fridayfunfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/nixon-beach.jpg

He must have been in a particularly jaunty mood that day--he usually wore a tie on the beach.

whom did eisenhower nuke

Anthony Eden as prime minister.

the fissile relationship

that coulda gone better

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/130425135314-obama-barbara-bush-story-top.jpg

^^^ the white queen and her caustic judgments

pictured w the little prince of inane false binary hype

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/04/26/us/OBAMA-3/OBAMA-3-popup.jpg

You're still a scary dude, DC. Congrats on that.

Hugh Hefner made an appearance as well.

http://timenewsfeed.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/texans-bush-cheerlead.jpg?w=753

^^ pic is very very texas

btw Shakey, not only are you an ass for your ingratitude to Ike keeping us from speaking kraut, but....

"In 1945 ... , Secretary of War Stimson visited my headquarters in Germany, [and] informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act.... During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and second because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face.' The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude, almost angrily refuting the reasons I gave for my quick conclusions."

http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/history/pre-cold-war/hiroshima-nagasaki/opinion-eisenhower-bomb.htm

feel like one of eisenhower's bigger positives as president was specifically not nuking anybody, maybe even more than jfk altho he's more famous for it. famous for it after eight years of firm precedent of executive resistance to military+political+popular belligerence.

but then i guess it is one of every president's bigger positives! thanks RN

^^ pic is very very texas

― Aimless, Thursday, April 25, 2013 11:21 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

He needs Lone Star socks, but yeah.

otoh hand as prez Ike was canny enough to never rule out the bomb "as an option," which everyone thought he'd be judicious about using because he was Ike.

oh well sure i mean the direction that took us to MAD was basically his direction. plus although honestly i don't know much specific about eisenhower's public persona throughout his terms my impression is he's Genial And Affable for eight years then at the end he's suddenly like haha no rly tho there might be tremendous moral and social risks hidden in the postwar system we have developed! gl off 2 golf

His persona was proto-Reagan, buttressed by 1943-1945.

i'm not so sure i'd be quick to praise ike for 'executive resistance to military+political+popular belligerence' -- as i mentioned he basically turned the CIA loose to wreak havoc in a bunch of other countries and ramped up the arms race (the u.s. had fewer than a thousand warheads when he came into office and had more than 30,000 by the time he left). not that i remotely put ike in the same category as a warmonger like bush (or truman for that matter), but he's as deeply implicated in the growth of the national security state as anyone.

no yeah completely, but the cia and "massive retaliation" were his covert/passive alternatives to overt/active military involvement in korea/taiwan/dienbienphu/prob even egypt idk. he believed in the Need For Strength and nsc-68 and the indispensability of the defense sector and everything and that's why the last-minute "but be careful!" is so funny, but he used his triumphant-general cachet to set a precedent of relative moderation when he could have done differently (altho not necc for very long in a recognizable world).

i mean tell that to the guatemalans sure.

I mean, we had TWO crises over future Trivial Pursuit answers Quemoy and Matsu.

this article's a bit on the long side for what it actually tells you but it's pretty eye-opening: http://hnn.us/articles/47326.html

In all that I've read and seen about Nixon, never knew this (from Summer of '68, a baseball book that goes beyond baseball):

"In his biography about the Packers' coach, David Maraniss detailed how Richard Nixon first considered Lombardi as his running mate. That infatuation lasted until the Republican candidate learned that Lombardi had been a strong supporter of Bobby Kennedy."

I've always been fascinated by the way Nixon makes his way into every presidential election--often by way of specific connections to candidates (i.e., trailing Romney's father at one point for the '68 nomination), sometimes as a point of comparison.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/09/01/hillary-clinton-new-email-released-state-department-column/71504450/

W. was so much more lovable and endearing than Nixon. He was the bagman. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Rice, and Rove were the real super villains.

W was a cockroach.

Nixon on Crossfire, including outtakes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MacmN1EtIPQ

Would love to see the whole episode.

i'm sort of fascinated by the number of books Nixon wrote post-presidency. some of them sound intriguingly weird but i'm sure they're all paranoid and dull slogs.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/515nFIAwlEL._SX339_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

This book is so weird just for the captions. Stuff like:

"Like most men, I too hated the Vietnam War."

* Nixon studying yellow legal pad, pencil eraser in mouth *

"Here am I working on a speech. Writing even one line can take hours of concentration."

http://i.imgur.com/oLfZ9xw.jpg

"Hmmm. 'I've never been a babysitter...' No, that's no good. 'I've never been a bullshitter...' Too many syllables. 'I've never abandoned ship...' God, this could take hours."

haha

that clip above did contain any actual expletives :(

"shit it makes him [unintelligible] like a goddam animal"

(at around 1:15)

ah I couldn't quite make out that part about the Caro bio

funny cuz i feel like these days, post vols 3 and 4, caro's reputation is for being a bit of a softie re lbj, but when that first volume came out i think it seemed like a hatchet job to some? he really does come off textbook psycho in it. nixon otm there: "it makes him out to be a goddam animal. of course he was." (then lol comes over all marlene: "he was a man.")

Nixon as avid reader of NYROB, even citing Clifton Fadiman! Was he the last prez to do until maybe Obama?

so after learning that mtv vj kennedy has a show on fox news (lol) and reading in her wiki that she chanted "nixon now!" at the clintons at his first inauguration, i had to look into it and found this http://redalertpolitics.com/2013/08/08/mtv-vj-kennedy-recalls-being-an-alt-rock-republican/

When the Clintons went onstage she chanted, “Nixon now! Nixon now!” (There was apparently a lot of Nixon nostalgia in the ’90s.)

“John McLaughlin was looking and I knew another headset was bound to intercept if I didn’t act fast, and I had to prove to him he was not the only Lover of Nixon (or LON for short) in the room.”

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/85/8f/36/858f36226e6cfc4e148618401bc24d8c.jpg

he'd become The Elder Statesman – the image he'd sold to credulous publishers and Beltway types – by holding salons in '80s Manhattan, serving homemade Chinese food and martinis he mixed himself. Apparently he cut quite the figure.