Tag Archives: Richard Nixon

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POTUS’s apology nothing new or unique

President Obama’s critics are making much hay — too much, if you ask me — of his recent apology to those who’ve had their insurance policies canceled as the Affordable Care Act kicks in.

He said he’s sorry. Big deal.

He’s not the first president to apologize to Americans. He won’t be the last.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OBAMA_HEALTH_OVERHAUL?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-11-08-03-56-20

* Former President Richard Nixon apologized in 1977, three years after resigning his office in disgrace over the Watergate crisis. He said he was sorry for letting people down. He apologized to Americans across the land for the mistakes he made.

* President Ronald Reagan, while not actually apologizing, acknowledged he “misled” Americans about whether he was selling arms to Nicaraguan rebels, aka the Contras, in exchange for deals to secure the release of Americans held prisoner in Iran.

* President Bill Clinton expressed “deep regret” over his inappropriate relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. He didn’t actually apologize during that nationally broadcast mea culpa, but we got the point.

OK, so President Obama’s rollout of the ACA has gone badly. The website wasn’t prepared fully to handle the volume of Americans seeking to enroll. Then came the cancellations of insurance policies, which the president said wouldn’t happen. “You can keep your health insurance” if you’re happy with it, he told us. Remember?

My thought is this: The ACA is going to be tinkered, fine-tuned and improved as we move farther into its implementation. Do I understand all of it? No more than its ardent critics understand it. I’m not yet willing to toss it aside and declare it a disaster, as they have done.

As for the presidential apology, it’s been overblown.

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JFK or the Gipper today? Forget about it!

Jeff Jacoby, the Boston Globe’s conservative columnist, believes John F. Kennedy’s name would be mud in today’s Democratic Party.

Perhaps so, given that JFK was no flaming liberal a la Barack Obama, John Kerry or Al Gore Jr.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/10/19/would-jfk-never-liberal-still-find-home-democratic-party/ZrxV7lJYHrvWxOjXItAuZJ/story.html

But allow me to finish the rest of that argument.

Just as Democrats wouldn’t embrace JFK today, the current Republican Party seems out of step with some of its own stalwarts — such as Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon and, dare I say, Ronald Wilson Reagan.

All this is evidence of just how polarized the political climate has become in America. It’s become a place where working across the aisle is anathema to the so-called “true believers.” The result has been a government that no longer works as it should for the good of the entire country.

Kennedy was a pro-defense hawk. He hated communists. JFK sought to govern with muscle and was unafraid to threaten to use military force against our foes if the need presented itself … e.g., the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. A romantic thought has been kicked around for 50 years that had he lived and been re-elected in 1964 the Vietnam War would have ended much sooner, that Kennedy would have realized our involvement there was a mistake. I’m not quite so sure of that. Besides, who can know for certain what he would have done?

If we’re going to examine our partisan icons of the past, it’s good to look at all of them.

Goldwater is the father of the modern conservative movement. He became a classic libertarian who despised government interference in people’s private lives. Is that the GOP of today? Hardly.

Richard Nixon’s administration created the Environmental Protection Agency, one of the bogeymen that modern conservatives today want to abolish.

Ronald Reagan? Well, he made working with Democrats in Congress a virtual art form. His friendship with House Speaker Tip O’Neill became legendary, even while both men were at the height of their power.

They were icons in their day. Of the three GOP leaders of the past, only Reagan conjures up warm memories among today’s conservatives. My own view is that the Gipper would be disgusted at the open animosity his political descendants are exhibiting.

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GOP sets new impeachment standard

I have concluded something sad about today’s Republican Party: It has reset the standard for impeaching the president of the United States.

Some GOP members of Congress are so intent on impeaching President Obama that at least one of them admits to having dreams about it. For what reason? What precisely are the “high crimes and misdemeanors” the president committed that warrant such a drastic act? They aren’t saying.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/25/us/politics/ignoring-qualms-some-republicans-nurture-dreams-of-impeaching-obama.html?ref=politics&_r=0

Suffice to say that it appears — to me, at least — that Republicans, led by the tea party wing of their party, have decided impeachment is one way to get rid of a guy they dislike, whose policies they detest.

It has gotten me to thinking about whether this new standard would have come into play during previous recent administrations. Was it plausible, therefore, to impeach:

* President Ford, for issuing a summary pardon to his predecessor, Richard Nixon, for any crimes he might have committed against the nation?

* President Carter, on whose watch the Iranian hostage rescue mission went so horribly wrong, causing the president and his national security team tremendous heartache?

* President Reagan, who misled the nation during the Iran-Contra crisis, which resulted in arms sales to the Contras in Central America while negotiations were underway with the rogue Iranian government that was holding seven American hostages?

* President George H.W. Bush, who promised never to raise taxes as long as he was president, and who then reneged on that solemn pledge?

* President George W. Bush, whose national security team — along with much of the rest of the world — sold Americans a bill of goods that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had a huge cache of chemical weapons? Turns out, after we invaded Iraq in March 2003, there were no such weapons — anywhere.

The answer to all of those, of course, is “no.”

You’ll notice, naturally, that I didn’t include President Clinton in that roster of past leaders. The House did impeach Clinton … for having an affair with a White House intern and then lying to a federal grand jury about it. In my view, the GOP set a pretty low standard for impeachment then as well. The Senate then tried Clinton, but acquitted him.

Are we heading back down that path now, with Republicans simply drooling over the possibility of impeaching a president?

They’re going to have to come up with a whole lot more than they’ve presented to date as reasons to do such a thing. And to date, they’ve produced nothing.

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How ’bout them ’72 Dolphins?

It’s a little late, but it ought to be welcome nevertheless.

President Obama is bringing one of the NFL’s most storied teams to the White House for a decidedly belated congratulatory visit. The 1972 Miami Dolphins are coming to town to be honored in a ceremony that should have occurred oh, about four decades ago.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/08/20/obama_to_give_72_dolphins_a_belated_salute_119645.html

The president at the time of the Dolphins’ historic season — in which they went 17-0, capping it off with a 14-7 win in the Super Bowl over the Washington Redskins — was Richard Nixon. He was vacationing in Florida and professed to be a Dolphins fan. He also had told Redskins coach George Allen that he was rooting for them to win the big game.

One other thing might have kept the president from inviting the Dolphins to the White House. Nixon was fresh off his smashing 1972 re-election victory, but was facing increasing scrutiny over the “third-rate burglary” that occurred the previous June at the Watergate Hotel.

President Nixon had other things on his mind, I reckon, and couldn’t be bothered with saluting the Miami Dolphins’ history-making season.

Barack Obama also is a big sports fan and isn’t bashful about bringing in sports teams or individual athletes to be honored.

I’m quite happy to see him honor the Dolphins. Forty years is a little late, but I’m sure this band of aging former athletes and coaches will enjoy the spotlight once again.

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Partisanship enters debate over crime

I got into an interesting rhetorical tug-of-war with a friend of mine this week.

It involved the sentencing of former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. to 30 months in federal prison; Jackson’s wife got a one-year sentence in Club Fed. Jesse Jackson’s crime involved the theft of $750,000 from his campaign treasure chest.

My friend, a businessman in Amarillo — and a dedicated Republican — wanted to know if Democrats were still “proud” of their party now that one of their own had been sent up the proverbial river for committing a crime. I responded that the Republican Party has had its share of crooks; I cited former President Richard Nixon and former Vice President Spiro Agnew as examples. We went back and forth after that, but didn’t really settle anything.

He’s still an ardent Republican and I’m still an equally ardent Democrat. I believe we’re still friends; I’ll likely find out next time I visit his business establishment.

But the exchange brought to mind the cheapening of what’s happened to Jackson and other political leaders of either stripe — Democrat or Republican. It pains me when partisans try to hang the “all Democrats/Republicans are crooks” label on either party when someone gets convicted and sentenced for committing a crime.

I don’t give a damn about Jackson’s party affiliation, any more than I gave a damn that Nixon and Agnew were Republicans. Jackson was tried and convicted by the federal court. Nixon was nearly impeached by the House of Representatives and he quit to avoid a certain impeachment and conviction by the Senate; Agnew resigned after being indicted by the feds for taking bribes.

The system in all those cases worked irrespective of the political labels any of the principals wore at the time, and it usually works whenever any high-profile politician gets in trouble.