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The Richard Nixon I knew had almost nothing to do with the Richard Nixon as portrayed in most media. The Richard Nixon I knew was a man who had served his country honorably as Dwight Eisenhower's vice president at the height of the Cold War, when Eisenhower kept us at peace for eight years -- with Nixon's help -- only to have the 1960 election stolen away from him by handsome, rich John F. Kennedy's fraud at the polls in Chicago.
1. Kennedy didn't steal the election of 1960. There was some voting fraud in Illinois, but no one has shown this was done at his behest. Kennedy could have lost the electoral votes of Illinois and still won the Presidency. There was also less well known voter fraud in Ohio that benefited republicans when they carried this state's electoral votes in 1960.
2. Stein speaks of Nixon serving honorably as Vice President from 1953 to 1961. However, he wisely chooses not to describe the political career that got Nixon the Vice Presidential nomination. Nixon was a champion "red-baiter" during the McCarthy Period. He largely obtained his House seat in California by suggesting the incumbent congressman, Jerry Voohris, was a communist. He did the same thing when he ran against Helen Gahagan Douglas in 1950. He is famous for saying she was "pink right down to her underwear" which was a way a saying she was aligned with communist and radical groups. Nixon's political rise was based on cheap hysteria and nothing less than pandering to phony fears that existed in the electorate at that time.
3. Stein barely mentions the Watergate burglary in this whole interview. Good thing too. I am unaware of any other case where it was proven crystal-clear that the President was involved in a criminal scheme to obstruct justice. He and his top officials are literally on tape talking about paying E. Howard Hunt (a Watergate burglar) money to lie to the federal grand jury investigating this case.
4. Stein fails to mention Nixon's worst trait which was his paranoia. He truly believed a large segment of the country was out to get him and he often made enemies out of people who might have seen things his way had he been more subtle. His paranoia was so severe, he had his staff prepare a White House enemies list in which he identified people he wanted to punish for opposing him. His paranoia also lead him to widespread abuses of executive power including endless wiretaps done without any court order in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. He wisely omits referring to the burglary of Daniel Ellsburg psychiatrist's office which was a totally illegal act sanctioned by the White House as well.
5. I believe Stein is a Jew. He doesn't once mention the endless anti-semitic statements that Nixon made to others. That's quite an oversight on his part.
6. Stein sums it up best when he reminds us he was a Nixon speech writer. I guess he's exactly the type I would expect to blindly defend his boss. He's not the first President to break the law. However, the blatant and repeated fashion in which he did so is what lead to his downfall. At some point, you have to say enough is enough.
1. Kennedy didn't steal the election of 1960. There was some voting fraud in Illinois, but no one has shown this was done at his behest. Kennedy could have lost the electoral votes of Illinois and still won the Presidency. There was also less well known voter fraud in Ohio that benefited republicans when they carried this state's electoral votes in 1960.
The Republicans obtained recounts, involved U.S. Attorneys and the FBI, and even impaneled grand juries in their quest to get a different election result. A slew of lawsuits were filed by Republicans, and unsuccessful appeals to state election commissions routinely followed. However, all their efforts failed to uncover any significant wrongdoing.
In Illinois, for instance, the final recount showed that Nixon’s votes had been undercounted by 943 — yet, in 40 percent of the rechecked precincts, it turned out that Nixon’s vote had been overcounted. (Contrast this with Gore, whose vote total steadily climbed during the Florida recount.) Unhappy with those results, Republicans went to federal court, where their case was dismissed. They then appealed to the State Board of Elections, which also rejected their claims. It was not until Dec. 19 — over a month after the election — that the national Republican Party backed off its Illinois claims.
Stein's claim is one of those "known facts"â„¢ that everyone "knows"... but no one has any actual supporting evidence to demonstrate that they're, you know... true.
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3. Stein barely mentions the Watergate burglary in this whole interview. Good thing too. I am unaware of any other case where it was proven crystal-clear that the President was involved in a criminal scheme to obstruct justice. He and his top officials are literally on tape talking about paying E. Howard Hunt (a Watergate burglar) money to lie to the federal grand jury investigating this case.
Yep. Nixon's resignation finally came after Senator Barry Goldwater and a few other Republicans went to the White House in early August of 1974 and informed President Nixon that his impeachment was assured and that there were at most 15 votes in the Senate against conviction and removal from office. In 1974, the Republican caucus consisted of 42 members (41 Republicans and 1 Conservative Party member caucusing with the GOP).
It seems that Stein would have us believe that an overwhelming majority of Republican Senators were conspiring to unjustly oust a President of their own party. Does Stein think his target audience is really this dumb? If so, is he right?
Stein's merely whitewashing and suggesting innocence for the guy whose ultimate defense was this simplistic and absurd claim (and I quote): "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal"
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5. I believe Stein is a Jew. He doesn't once mention the endless anti-semitic statements that Nixon made to others. That's quite an oversight on his part.
On Sept. 8, 1971, Mr. Nixon referred to ''the Jews'' who had donated to the Democrats and urged his domestic policy chief, John D. Ehrlichman, to go after their tax returns: ''I can only hope that we are, frankly, doing a little persecuting.''
It's sad. Stein is apparently so emotionally vested in the image of the heroically tragic Nixon that he is reduced to making vague and feeble excuses for him - a man remarkable unworthy of such treatment.
Stein seemed like a nice enough guy when he was hosting that win his money show, but in recent years he has morphed into a wretched curmudgeon who seems to have embarked on some retrograde crusade to rehabilitate that which has long been discredited. He is an intelligent design champion who has characterized the theory of evolution as "a painful, bloody chapter in the history of ideologies" as well as calling it the "inspiration for the Holocaust."
He reminds me a great deal of Steve Allen, who was quite likable as the host of the Tonight Show, he used to bill himself as a secular humanist. But in his later years he has had some sort of religious conversion which turned him into a prissy moral warrior who condemned nearly every progressive idea offered and called for heavy duty censorship of everything he found icky.
If you want to learn something, ignore Ben Stein and play the board game 1960: The Making of the President. Far more educational than pondering the words of some evolution-denier.
Ben Stein is looking at the environmentally friendly, progressive Richard Nixon with clear eyes.....Awesome !
Off the cuff racial comments taken from what should have been his private recordings have no bearing, what is Obama saying in the oval office ? As Ben Stein said, he helped Israel with massive military aid at a time when they needed it most.
I didn't realize that Ben Stein was old enough for Alzheimer's to kick in.
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