Word: nixon
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Until I read the just published new excerpts from the secret White House tapes of Richard Nixon, I didn't realize what has been so grievously lacking in the Clinton presidency. Mr. Clinton is not funny. Nothing and nobody in his Administration are in the slightest way funny...
Five years is a long time to go without laughing at a U.S. President. Nixon, bless him, would hardly let a day go by without convulsing the public. So many memories--such as when he paid a visit to the Great Wall of China and remarked to Secretary of State William Rogers, "I think you would have to agree, Mr. Secretary, that this is a great wall." Or when he went to Paris to attend Charles de Gaulle's funeral. The President emerged from his limousine, looked about and exulted, "This is a great day for France...
...this month, there are these priceless tapes exposing more of the Watergate cover-up. Nixon on the congressional hearings: "If they started a fishing expedition on this, they are going to start picking up tracks." On presidential counsel and informer John Dean: "I think we can destroy him. We must destroy him." To which the take-charge humorist, former White House chief of staff Alexander Haig, replies, "Have...
...would not sell his mother to have these birds back in the Oval Office for only a day, scheming, brooding, drawing up enemies lists, conniving about "Plumbers"? The most entertaining of the tape excerpts, to me, has Nixon raging about the threat of impeachment to his press secretary Ron Ziegler, when his dog, King Timahoe, suddenly jumps up on him: "Christ, impeach the President on John Dean's word... there's a cancer in the heart of the White House, on the heart of the presidency. [The dog barks.] King! Goddam, get off me! But they can't want, frankly...
...course, it's all awful and criminal, what was going on, but apart from the barking-at-the-gate-in-Macbethness of the scene, it is breathtakingly hilarious. If Nixon had understood that the key to his historical resuscitation lay in the hilarity of his corruptedness--his voice, manner, language, his crooked sincerity--he wouldn't have wasted all that time writing books. The advantage in having a funny presidency is that people will always think of it fondly, no matter what they were laughing at. The mere act of laughter is heartwarming, and eventually they recall only that...