By Countenance, David in TN, and Nicholas Stix
Re: “History is a Pack of Lies Agreed Upon: Pat Buchanan Refutes Liberal Big Lie about Nixon’s So-Called ‘Southern Strategy.’”
Countenance
[N.S.: Countenance, my favorite blogger, can be read daily here.]
PJB really has a severe blind side when it comes to Nixon. Probably because Nixon gave PJB his first White House job. But this doesn't mean he gets things seriously wrong, because he constructs an alternate reality inside the event horizon of a black hole bubble when it comes to Nixon. The worst part about it is that PJB contradicts himself and his own image and worldview when he gets into Nixon apologetics.
I'll dissect this column later.
David in TN
[N.S.: David in TN, my partner-in-crime, is a regular contributor to WEJB/NSU.]
I was a college freshman in the fall of 1968 and followed that year's presidential race closely. Oddly, I was then slightly liberal and favored Bobby Kennedy prior to his assassination and Humphrey in November.
Nixon was indeed something of a liberal Republican but the liberal establishment (not to mention the hard left) hated him bitterly.
One, Nixon was right about Alger Hiss and was rough on the Democrats in his early national campaigns.
Two, the establishment hated Nixon for being a man of the lower middle class who wasn't from the Ivy League.
In Richard Whalen's book, "Catch the Falling Flag," Whalen wrote that Nixon and his Middle American voters threatened the liberal establishment's status as an antidemocratic elite.
As Countenance says, PJB has a blind spot with Nixon. Both fully returned the animus from the establishment, which is why PJB has an enduring loyalty to Nixon.
Nicholas Stix
[To Countenance:] I fear you may be right. Buchanan loved the Nixons and, I believe, will feel great personal loyalty to them 'til the day he dies. He also has an undying affection for Reagan, but was never personally close to Reagan, the way he was to Nixon.
Was there any precedent for that? A young man, at the beginning of his professional career, toiling away for a "disgraced," "failed" politician, who helps him return to power, and show up all his enemies, before they succeed in retaliating, and destroying him politically yet again. The old man once said that he got out of bed every morning, “Just to spite my enemies.”
The destroyed politician manages to resurrect himself yet again, as an elder statesman and author, before burying his great love, and himself passing from the stage.
The no-longer-young man then almost becomes president himself, and goes on to become the greatest political thinker of his era.
This is world-historical stuff!
In any event, I look forward to reading the book, and hope that he hasn't let his personal loyalty cloud his judgment.
To David in TN: The Hiss and class politics angles can’t be emphasized enough. As for the anti-democratic elite angle, I hadn’t thought of that, but it immediately makes sense. I bought Whalen on your recommendation a couple of years ago, but only skimmed it, and now clearly must finish it.
Thank you, gentlemen.
5 comments:
Nixon was of the lower middle class and got very far on his own efforts.
But was hated in a visceral manner by the left as was GWB.
And the reason for that is?
I haven't read Richard Whalen's "Catch the Falling Flag" in a long time so I checked it out of the library today. On page 13 Whalen wrote of his initial conversation with Richard Nixon:
"We talked for a time about liberals and conservatives, about the enmity he aroused in the Alger Hiss case. 'That was twenty years ago-they never forget, do they?' Nor would they ever forgive him, I suggested, for being a representative of the new American middle classes. The left-liberal intellectuals and journalists despised middle-class 'bourgeois' values and the 'square' culture. Nothing that Nixon could say or do would appease them. He threatened their status as an antidemocratic elite in much the way that Lyndon Johnson did, and he could expect the same vindictive assaults that Johnson was experiencing. Beyond his political objective, I suggested, lay a cultural objective: the building of the foundation of a new intellectual establishment that would restore and conserve values under attack from the radical left."
This book is still relevant today, especially the parts were Whalen tried to influence Nixon on race and crime. (Nixon didn't want to talk about it)
David In TN
I've finished rereading "Catch The Falling Flag." Richard Whalen repeatedly suggested Nixon appeal to poor and middle class white boters. Nixon didn't want to hear about it for the most part. He did talk "law and order," but not much besides rhetoric.
Whalen left in August 1968 after the GOP convention. Mitchell, Haldeman, and Erlichman took over and Whalenn didn't respect them.
Nixon was a solitary figure with a lot of insecurities.
I'm reading Buchanan's new book. It's a pretty fast read.
David In TN
I finished Buchanan's latest a few days ago. PB thought Richard Whalen should be asked to return but Nixon was adamant. Whalen left and should not be invited back.
Whalen wanted Nixon to take a position committing to end the Vietnam war as soon as possible. Nixon refused to declare himself in order to "keep his options open." Buchanan agreed.
Whalen (and Buchanan) wanted Nixon to come down harder on the "Gut" issue (crime and disorder) but Nixon would or could not.
There was a conflict on Nixon's staff between the "conservatives" led by Buchanan and the liberal republicans led by William Safire.
David In TN
Something I forgot to mention. There is a forgotten man from the Nixon presidency. That is Vice President Spiro Agnew.
Agnew attacked liberals in politics and the media in speeches written by Buchanan and Safire, with some contributions from Agnew himself. It drove the liberal establishment wild.
I saw an interview concerning Agnew with long-time Beltway reporter and author Jules Witcover. When asked how his colleagues reacted to Agnew's attacks, Witcover said they were angered and intimidated. Witcover also said media people are "very thin-skinned."
Agnew, like most vice presidents, was frozen out of major decisions and had nothing to do with the Watergate Affair and was untouched by it.
The Maryland U.S. Attorney did a fishing expedition to find evidence of kickbacks to state politicians. Not exactly something hard to find.
They found Spiro Agnew was taking payoffs from contractors as Baltimore County executive, Maryland Governor, and was still receiving cash envelopes as Vice President.
Agnew resigned in October 1973.
Had the payoffs not surfaced, Agnew would have stayed Vice President and would have been 100% insurance against Nixon's impeachment.
The democrats would never have impeached Nixon if it meant making Spiro Agnew POTUS.
As Peter Brimelow wrote, impeachment is strictly a political act. The democrats would have let Nixon and Agnew stay as they were until 1977, both weakened in preference to impeaching Nixon and putting Agnew in the Oval Office.
David In TN
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