Forty years ago, on August 9, 1974, Richard Nixon was forced to resign the office of President or face impeachment; the first and only President to do so.
I have heard and read a lot recently comparing Nixon and Obama. I hear two basic versions, “Nixon was bad, but Obama is worse” or Obama is bad, but Nixon was worse. Well, just for the record, Nixon was not all that bad, if fact, except for one terrible mistake, he was a very good President.
There are several reasons why everyone these days think he was a terrible President. One reason is because in the years since the Watergate scandal whose cover-up forced Nixon to resign, subsequent generations know him only for that historic event. Another reason is that’s what the Liberal news media has been saying for over 40 years now. And another is the fact that for that same period of time, the version of history being taught in our public schools has had a definite liberal slant.
For the benefit of those misinformed people, here are some facts about Richard Nixon.
When Nixon was elected in
1968, it was a three party election, with Nixon on the Republican ticket, Hubert
Humphrey as the Democrat, and George Wallace as an Independent.
As much as today’s media may have loved Obama when he was nominated the Democratic Party’s candidate, in Nixon was always loathed by them for his strong anti-communist stance when he served in the House of Representatives and Senate, and as Eisenhower’s Vice President for two terms.
Nixon lost his first bid for the Presidency to John F. Kennedy in 1960 and two years later, he lost in a race to for the Governor of California. Few would have ever imagined that he would be elected President in 1968, but he was, and in 1972 he was reelected in a landslide.
Nixon was nicknamed “Tricky Dick” by his political enemies, and it became a popular nickname with Republicans as well. Nixon was an extremely talented politician who, through sheer determination overcame defeat, revived the Republican Party, and, although devoted to conservative principles, was also wise enough to be open to new ideas and events.
He surrounded himself with a circle of advisors who shared his principles, but diverged among each other as to tactics and issues. Nixon wanted that so he could choose what advice he thought best.
Pat Buchanan was a member of Nixon’s inner circle, with a keen eye for the political times in which he lived. Buchanan wrote in his book, “The years that followed that 1969 inaugural would be a time of extraordinary accomplishment. By the spring of 1973, all U.S. troops were out of Vietnam, the POWs were home, every provincial capital was in Saigon’s (South Vietnam) hands.”
Yes folks, that’s right. The Vietnam War was over. It was won by the Nixon administration. Your history teachers and professors don't tell you that, do they? Neither does the liberal news media, but the Vietnam War was won and America won it.
In early 1973, North Vietnam and the Viet Cong knew they were defeated. They came to the Paris Peace Accords, and agreed to end their aggression against our allies in the sovereign and free nation of South Vietnam.
With the war won, America pulled our troops. In order to keep the peace, we had to only to supply our allies in the South with any military hardware they would need should the North Vietnamese attempt to again invade the South.
In November of 1974, three months after Nixon resigned in disgrace, and Vice President Gerald Ford became President. Democrats won a landslide in the mid-term elections. The new Democrat majority in Congress de-funded our promised military aid to South Vietnam, and the Viet Cong made their move. Without American aid, the South Vietnamese were doomed.
Then-President Gerald Ford literally begged Congress to restore funding, but by this time things had deteriorated to a point where the South would have also required American airstrikes to hold on. The Democrats adamantly refused funding, making the airstrikes futile, and within a year, South Vietnam surrendered to the communist North.
America's indifference also caused the fall of Cambodia and Laos, and the holocaust known as the Killing Fields began. Before it was over, two to five million innocents were butchered -- all because Democrats were determined to lose a war that had already been won and which could have stayed won with a very small financial commitment and limited airstrikes.
There's no reason South Vietnam could not have maintained its sovereignty just as South Korea has for over a half-century. It kind of reminds me of what happened in Iraq. Mitt Romney would have left
30,000 troops in Iraq. If you look back to the
campaign, you will see that Romney was right on every major dispute he had with
Obama. http://www.theminorityreportblog.com/2014/08/10/flashback-mitt-romney-on-iraq/
When it comes to foreign policy, I consider Nixon to be one of the best Presidents in history. He negotiated SALT I and the ABM treaty. He ended decades of hostility between the United States and China, which had been going on sense the Korean War. He put an end to the draft, signed into law the eighteen-year-old vote, put four justices on the Supreme Court including Chief Justice Warren Burger and future chief justice William Rehnquist. He rescued Israel from defeat in the Yom Kippur War (and) end Soviet domination of Egypt.” He created the National Cancer Institute, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration,
Nixon brought about positive change because of his vast knowledge of history, foreign affairs, and his judgment regarding the American people. I would trade our current President for another Nixon in a heartbeat.
I have added this link…You will see why.
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