
He was a crook (1994) - antman
http://m.theatlantic.com/past/unbound/graffiti/crook.htm?single_page=true
======
lmg643
I will confess - I've never read a complete Hunter S Thompson piece before. I
could see how this appeals to younger people - very edgy and casts everything
in a nice black-and-white frame with good vs evil.

Admittedly this was written in 1994 - still under a relative veil of ignorance
- and we hadn't seen Clinton, Bush 2 or Obama. By this nice polemic - you
would think we've never had another president do anything close to Nixon. No
politician or party has ever used FBI for political reasons, abused CIA/NSA
intelligence, or used the IRS for political purposes (audits, leaked returns,
etc.) And I don't think Nixon really "innovated" in this, he was just the
first where it became publicly known. LBJ was arguably far worse as a power-
mad president, but he gets a pass because of his Great Society initiatives.

This piece did refresh dots for me with J Edgar Hoover dying in office. This
wasn't known when Thompson wrote this, but Mark Felt (also of the FBI) was
deep throat, an FBI lifer who reported to Patrick Gray. Gray was a Nixon
appointee from outside the agency - not an FBI lifer - a Navy guy, an
attorney, and arguably seen as an interloper by many at the agency.

I'm also fascinated by Bob Woodward, a brilliant Yale grad who spend several
years in the Office of Naval Intelligence, before deciding to become a
reporter. Watergate was one of his first stories, an absolutely incredible
coincidence - a guy with US intelligence connections breaks a story that takes
down a president.

At the risk of a thousand downvotes - I expect Nixon will be up for a re-
assessment at some point. The Watergate story is much more complicated and
fascinating than conventionally understood.

~~~
quanticle
Nixon may be up for a re-assessment... but not because of Watergate. If
anything, what (partially) redeems Nixon is his foreign policy
accomplishments. He wound down the Vietnam War and he successfully pursued a
rapprochement with China that served to split the PRC/Soviet Union alliance.
Both were important things that needed to be done, and arguably, Nixon was one
of the few American politicians who could do those things without instantly
being accused of being a communist sympathizer.

But in terms of domestic policy, Nixon was a disaster. He served over the
worst of the economic "malaise" that would be later characterized as
"stagflation". He started the "war on drugs", and for that reason he is in no
small part responsible for the deaths and incarceration of millions of poor,
minority men. His attitudes on civil liberties and legitimate dissent continue
to infect the military and intelligence agencies, who, to this day, see their
job as protecting the American state from the American people. It was under
Nixon that the Executive branch began to see itself as superior to the
Legislative and Judicial branches. This is what people were referring to when
they said that Nixon began the tradition of the "imperial" presidency. While
blame can be laid at the feet of Nixon's successors for not reversing the
harms that Nixon did, the blame for setting a bad precedent rests squarely on
Nixon's shoulders. No amount of historical revision can or should erase that.

~~~
redthrowaway
>He wound down the Vietnam War

After getting Kissinger to prolong it by getting the South Vietnamese to
torpedo the peace talks, causing the deaths of tens of thousands, simply in
order to get elected.[1]

>a rapprochement with China that served to split the PRC/Soviet Union
alliance.

The relationship was broken long before rapprochement. Nixon/Kissinger took
advantage of the split; they didn't cause it.

As an aside, I'm currently reading Kissinger's _World Order_. It's a
fascinating read by a man who was undeniably a giant of a statesman, despite
his many flaws.

[1] [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nixon-prolonged-
vie...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nixon-prolonged-vietnam-war-
for-political-gainand-johnson-knew-about-it-newly-unclassified-tapes-
suggest-3595441/?no-ist)

------
erikig
Leave it to Hunter S Thompson to remind us. In listening to the recent
analysis of our US news pundits it is possible to think that the polarization
in today's audiences is a recent happening until you come across articles like
this.

~~~
kiba
I think it is a natural tendency for humans to self-segregate into opposing
groups based on minor difference.

Sometime, I even feel that the Republican party disagree with Obama just for
the sake of it.

~~~
krapp
>Sometime, I even feel that the Republican party disagree with Obama just for
the sake of it.

Well... disagreeing with and attempting to destroy the agenda of Democrats in
power is apparently their job.

Not that the Democrats are any better, but the people who vote and write the
big checks are the people who want their blood and circuses.

~~~
tsotha
No, conservatives simply don't like their agenda. Obama and the Democrats are
taking the country in a direction we don't like, and therefore we oppose them.
Is it that hard to understand?

~~~
krapp
Not at all, I disagree with his agenda as well (probably for the opposite
reasons - I don't think he's nearly left wing enough) but it also seems to be
the case that the Republican party has been stirring up their base over a bit
more than Obama's agenda, for the sake of opportunistic pandering. The entire
"birther" controversy wouldn't even have happened if his name had been John
Smith.

~~~
tsotha
There's no birther "controversy". There's a tiny number of internet wackos
that have been aggrandized in left leaning media such that Democrats think
every Republican believes Obama was born in Kenya.

You believe this kind of nonsense because the Democrats and their media organs
want you to believe it.

------
kbutler
Pieces like this say a lot more about the author than about the subject.

Nixon did some very good things, and some very bad things, but this article
didn't actually talk about any of them.

~~~
sliverstorm
The things Nixon did are widely known, good and bad. You don't really have to
rehash them every time you speak of the man.

Not to mention, as an obit., it was an appropriate time to focus on the man
himself (despite the dramatic break from typical rose-tinted obit. style)

~~~
barsonme
Perhaps I'm a bit more "soft" than you, but I'd rather obituaries or stories
about the deceased be polite rather than an eloquent version of "Ding-dong!
The Witch is Dead!" lest we forget there are actual evil people in the world
whose bad actions vastly overshadow those of corrupt politicians.

~~~
Qwertious
There are more brutally "evil" people out there, who are morehands-on in the
things they do, but they don't overshadow the corrupt people at the top of the
US government, who are responsible for enabling, if not causing, millions of
deaths yearly, and being a roadblock to progress.

I agree that we should be "polite" in the sense that they shouldn't fling
insults around like a monkey flings shit, but I don't think we should stick to
euphemisms and lies by omission, just for the sake of not "sullying his/her
memory".

Speak softly, _cleanly_ , and frankly, but don't be "polite".

------
nyolfen
lest we forget

