Veteran conservative journalist Ralph de Toledano summed up Richard Nixon in a sentence Thursday night on Hardball: "He had no loyalty to anyone and he basically had no principles." So why are conservatives still carrying his water?

"Now I am a Keynesian," Richard Nixon famously confessed in 1971. President Nixon instituted wage and price controls. He took the dollar off the gold standard. The 37th president launched the Environmental Protection Agency, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Occupational Safety and Health Administration. He recognized Communist China. Nixon did more to institutionalize racial preferences than any other president. He appointed Harry Blackmun and Lewis Powell to the Supreme Court, and named Warren Burger chief justice. He signed Title IX into law.

Perhaps the answer to the question of why Richard Nixon inspires so much conservative loyalty can be found in the premise of another puzzling question: Why do liberals hate the last president to bequeath a lasting liberal legacy? The liberal's knee-jerk animus towards Nixon results in a reflexive defense of Nixon from the conservative. Like George W. Bush, Nixon had the right enemies but the wrong policies. In politics, we sometimes take our cues from how the opposition lines up. The debate over Richard Nixon's presidency ignited by the Deep Throat revelation proves this.

The left hates Nixon because:
He showed up their guy, LBJ, by getting us out of Viet Nam; he wasn't Bobby Kennedy; he was a hostile anti-communist; he was somewhat associated with Joseph McCarthy; and, worst of all, he had the temerity to point out that Alger Hiss, darling of the lefty elites, was a red.

By the way, those are reasons why conservatives like him. He also was a bastard, but he was our bastard.

This just proves the point that peace thru strength works, and capitulation doesn't.

As you pointed out, Nixon went out of his way to throw the liberals a bone. How did they repay him?

Conversely, Reagan decided to "dance with the one who brung' him." He stood up to the liberals, and even if they hated him, they still had to respect him.

The big lesson to be learned is that it's smart politics to stay conservative. This may be counterintuitive to the folks who always want conservatives to go to the mushy-middle.

But as Rush says, "I'm still waiting for that book to come out about 'Great Moderates in American History." And as my friends in Texas are fond of saying, "There's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow lines and dead armadillos."

Nixon was not a conservative. I'm proud to say that I led the effort to have his picture taken down from the walls of a conservative organization I used to work for (I've worked for a few).

Nixon, like Reagan, had alabaster gonads. He believed in what he believed and showed conviction to those beliefs by acting on them.

This is something the Left fails to understand. If every decision isn’t conciliatory or subject to reckoning by polls, they are typically unable to make one.

And, when will we learn? You can’t cut deals or otherwise try to placate the Left. You will never get in return what you give up.

They do not understand the term ‘reciprocate’. Or, ‘compromise’, for that matter.

a question: Buchanan attacks Felt for being a "corrupt cop" and "turncoat" and Woodward and Bernstein for being, well, hacks, all of which I appreciate if for no other reason than few others dare to do so. But should I read Buchanan's "completion" of the watergate picture as a defense of Nixon? (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/patbuchanan/pb20050603.shtml)

Personally, I think the similarities between Nixon and Bush are striking not only in policy terms but also in the ranting, irrational hatred he evokes from the political left. It seems that nothing excites the passions of the left so much as a big-goernment conservative.

I know there's a lot more to it than that. But Flynn is right on this much--if the left did not hate him so desperately, the right would loathe Bush as a RINO.

Who was the last great Republican that Liberals didnt spit with reflexive hatred for? They hate him cuz they are reactionaries, plain and simple.

Now personally I don't like Nixon. He was an economic protectionist who opposed the Free Market, and he introduced affirmative action.

All he did handle well was Vietnam.

Yeti,

That is a defense of Nixon. Buchanan has always defended him to the full as a good friend does. Check out Pat's autobiography to read more about it if you are interested. Generally, he has always defended Nixon fully out of honorable loyalty while at the same time admitting that Nixon should never have gotten involved in a cover-up (hence his often quoting the "gave them a sword" line).

Frankly, I have always thought that Watergate was one of the most overdramatized and B.S. hyped-up episodes of American political history. The baby boomers love to wail about "losing their innocence" with it, or rather, losing their innocence w/ JFK's asassination and then becoming paranoid and cynical at government w/ Watergate. Look at the Watergate inspired films of the early 70's like Parallax View. Sooooo melodramatic.

My mocking of the boomer's retarded self-absorption has usually been in the form of feigning just how traumatized I was by the Spaceshuttle Challenger explosion. I mean, that is when I lost my faith in NASA and progress through technology. I just could no longer look at the space-program-inspired-velcro holding my Trapper Keeper shut with the same wonder and amazement as before the tragic disaster. Nor could I drink Tang anymore without regret for what could have been and whimsy for my lost innocence.

I really can't stand the baby boomers.

(Btw, none of that is meant to imply that the Challenger incident was anything other than a sad and tragic event.).

I don't understand how any sane human being can advocate gun control. Nixon was a huge gun control proponent. Whenever I hear anyone make anti-gun or anti-Second Amendment comments I immediately perk my ears up because chances are the people making those assertions are megalomaniacs(John Kerry, Richard Nixon, Hillary Clinton, etc.).

It is certainly baffling that the left hated and continues to hate Nixon so much, but much of that hatred was fueled by the baby boomer generation, which is the home of the drug-addicted, sex obsessed, materialistic/modernist hypocritical misguided irrational malicious left. The baby boomers are the second worst generation this country has ever produced. Mine is by far the worst(born 1982).

Brian, that was a great parody.

Ben, you hit the nail on the head. Every Republican becomes "too extreme" when he becomes the one to be resisted.

When Gingrich rose to power in the House, the libs lamented that he wasn't more like Robert Dole. Dole was and has been more conciliatory, and the democrats would cite him all the time as being "more reasonable" or "more responsible" than Newt's "bomb-throwing".

But I'd dare say we don't remember innocuous little Bobby-do-right from the 1996 elections. When they needed him to be, Dole was too much unlike the "more sensible" Arlen Specter or John McCain. And of course, McCain would have paled (or grown in red-faced extremism) in comparison to a "realistic" Jim Jeffords, say.

Personal reflection: My ardent opposition to the left comes from a sort of disinterest in the Republicans fulfilling their agenda, if that agenda took poor kids away from their parents and deposited them in orphanages. But my perception about whether or not to be alarmed about "extremist" Republicans--however much I am displeased with what the press brings me from them--is filtered through an "extreme" distrust that the press will do anything other than play this appalling word game started when the left initiates it. Because I've seen this game in action so many times before.

Gingrich, despite being able to sound rather cold-hearted in the press (I hate to say "scary" since that is so often overused in politics and specifically about the right), made sense on a democratic basis on other things. I saw a speech of his when he was pumping up the Contract with America, he made the point that when you have 80% against 20%, the "middle" is not at the 80% line, but at the 50% line.

Thus when you have 80% of Americans opposed to gun control laws of a type, the "middle" course is not to compromise on gun control. It doesn't mean that you can just ignore 20%, but it suggests that if you address their concerns about the lack of gun control, you make only small concessions to those concern. The main body would in no way need to be any sort of gun control. A few points could be given to the side that fears gun violence or gun crimes.

And the Contract with America was all about bringing people-popular issues to an up-or-down vote, so that people could see who really represented them.

Gang,
be careful of categorizing people by generations as though we were fruit flies. That is precisely the posture of baby boomers when they were in their late teens through their thirties. That greatest generation came in for enormous boomer scorn, although we're over it now. Break the cycle of generation hatred! I am on the tail end of boomerhood, by the by, though I must admit I generally share your boomer hating sentiments.

Oh, and I forgot to say that the main thing that Nixon and Bush have in common with Reagan, Bush, Gingrich, Buchannan and Dole (and whoever else you want to throw in there) is that regardless of their difference from the center, they are all to the right of that center. I think that in a pinch, were the centrists to get their wishes and McCain were nominated, the left would find something said on the campaign trail and "discover" just how extreme his views really are.

What lies behind the rhetorical left is the common-sense left that knows that they gain if you don't vote Republican. And they gain if you don't vote Republican if they have convinced you that the candidate is "extreme" (how often is "extreme left" used--and definitely by our press?) So my guess is that you will hear this chatter with every candidate that steps up to the plate on the other team. Not only that but some liberals are somewhat uncomfortable with lying for gain, and so some will whip themselves into a frenzy against even centrists.

I think that as clearly as we know the the MSM is bias, and as clearly as we reject what they tell us, the apparent "concensus" created by the media sinks in. As social beings it is hard not to engage the argument in other people's terms. So you have numerous people on the right who fear that the wider public will "misunderstand" the GOP as a party of "extremists" so they cajole the party to elect more "mainstream" conservatives. This is precisely the model that MSM wants to sell conservatives. The mainstream isn't republican, the mainstream is afraid of republicans, and specifically the "extreme right" (doesn't somebody have to take an extreme position so that the moderates have people to be in the middle of?)

The press does not fear the extreme left. It is even hard for me to identify an "extreme left" when I'm worried about my resemblance to an "extreme right". The seemingly centrist left even have an explanation about how it is that the idea of "extreme left" is born. They say that when you are so far right, the middle looks extreme by comparison. Thus, the concern of the "extreme right" about the "extreme left" is essentially an illusion about the middle (as the left would paint it). Thus the centrist right is not even able to point to an extreme left without "exposing" their polarity in the situation.

I have to admit that I am influenced in this way by Buchannan. By rejecting Buchannan, I can appear more reasonable and more sympathetic to those who are "scared" by him. So I don't go out of my way to defend him, and will criticize him as a matter of course, I establish myself as "reasonable" by my rejection of his "polarity". We disagree on protectionism, but in that, I don't find him "extremely protectionistic", just wrong. And protectionism isn't exactly a staple of the right as much as the unionist progressive. Also, Buchannan's apathy toward Israel is actually found almost everywhere on the left, except the Jewish left. It is hardly found on in the extreme "religious right". In these issues, if I look to my right, I don't see Buchannan.

The truth is that unless I think things out on a point-for-point basis, I dance to the background music of the MSM. I reflexively keep Buchannan on my right, because if he's on my left, in the perceived consensus created by MSM (which I am elsewhere highly conscious of) I am a member of the extreme right.

Webster, I am a "self-loathing" boomer as well. :D

Interesting post and comments. I was actually just talking about this issue. If they weren't so intellectually dishonest, the Left would love Nixon.

And just a tiny correction: I think the famous Nixon-on-economics quote from 1971 is "We are all Keynesians now."

I stand by the quote I used. It comes from an off-the-cuff discussion Nixon had with several journalists after a January 4, 1971 nationally-televised interview with four leading journalists. The quote seems to have taken on a life of its own--a popular version of which seems to the one you use--but I leave open the possibility that Nixon said your quote at some other point. So, I stand uncorrected.

Why is that? Off topic I know, but why do boomers generally think they are less than the generation they followed and into self-loathing?

asdf,
duck. This is a pet peeve of mine. for me, boomers know the world they grew up in, and we cannot fail to note the decline in morality, education, and standards of behavior attendant upon our governing and parenting. I am a parent and when I see an elementary school classroom I am witnessing the result of horrible parenting. My generation wants to be their kids' pals not fathers and mothers. In our selfish drive to succeed materially, we have allowed the culture around us to become far more youth-driven than in the past. The costs are general ignorance, sex-driven culture, rise in out-of-wedlock births, a general decline in arts, and more. I pray that our children can somehow step back into the roles of parents that we abandoned.

It's funny, it's as though our parents (the greatest generation) raised us to be not only good kids but also bad parents. We were always supposed to have "more" when we grew up. We are indeed richer materially, but at a spiritual cost. So I guess the greatest generation made their mistakes too by teaching us, again generally, to be bad parents.

Cause he outed Alger Hiss? You know how the left loves those commies.

Webster, you are so totally correct. I remember thinking similar thoughts particularly when Brokaw released that "Greatest Generation" book a few years ago and w/ the 50th anniversaries of WWII events. The 60s are commonly blamed for the rapid social/cultural decline of America but many of the fateful decisions and mistakes were being made in the immediate postwar era and into the 50s.

B/c the Greatest Gen were children of the Depression and then went off to fight Nazis and Japs in their youth they were heavily centered on material comfort when they got back. Depression era parents pushed material and intellectual success above all else in my view and so the baby boomers ran with that and so bam, here we are w/ the kids of broken baby-boomer homes.

Brian,

I don’t agree with your assessment. My experience with the so-called ‘Greatest Generation’ has been that they were anything but ‘heavily centered on material comfort’. In fact, having lived through the Great Depression may have convinced most of them that less if more.

The reality is that in the years post WWII; the typical GG’er was pretty relaxed about work, family and life in general. Because of the post war boom economy, there were plenty of jobs and the surplus technologies from the war effort developed products that improved people’s lifestyles all around. This was the tide that raised all boats and as more consumer items were available and accessible, they took advantage.

There was also a large percentage that, because of the GI Bill, took advantage of educational programs that they may have never been able to afford had it not been for the Government's largess. This too improved our society and economy.

Even though the overall material quality of life was getting better, like today, those who were upwardly mobile, moved up and those who aren't are content with the basic creature comforts. But for the most part, people were content with doing their day to day of working, enjoying their home life and raising families.

I think you’re confusion is a result of the fact that you are a product of this social evolution. Today, there is more and we want more. In fact, to an extent, all we do is want more.

Not being a wiseazz here, but I think this is accurate.

My parents, and almost all other lower to middle class parents I ever met from the Greatest Generation to a man, repeated like a mantra that "you (the boomers) will do better (materially) than we." The Great Depression was always mentioned with dread rather than reverence. The Crash of '29, bread lines, 25% unemployment, life on the bum, et cetera. Less was certainly not more to the vast majority. I do think they reacted to the Crash and Depression by determining to never let material slip from their fingers, or that of their children’s again. Many of those parents, including mine, stopped going to church while still professing belief. I was 8 when that happened.

Having said that, asdf has a point that when more becomes available, we want still more. The more dogged the pursuit of riches, the less balance there is with the spiritual. Again, the result is the childrearing today that is marked by undisciplined children, poor education, and absent work ethic. I do think the boomers and their parents let moral/spiritual values take too much of a back seat to materialism. There is a balance of these values somewhere that has eluded us.