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1. 

   bobwinners said, 7 months ago

   Way off point.
2. 

   pirate227 said, 7 months ago

   How desperate trying to smear Obama with the Nixon crimes.
   Good luck with that.
3. 

   indieme said, 7 months ago

   Ever since Nixon the Reeps have had it out for this country. …and they succeeded bringing it to it;s knees. Mission accomplished!
4. 

   mikefive said, 7 months ago

   I’m not quite sure what Nixon’s plumbers have to do with any of the current situations. It’s too far a stretch to see similarity.
5. 

   ansonia said, 7 months ago

   @pirate227

   Yeah, that’s totally unfair.
   Nixon wasn’t nearly as corrupt as Obama.
6. 

   Radish said, 7 months ago

   Richard M. Nixon (1969-1974) was the only American President to resign, as his role was discovered in covering up a burglary, by agents of his re-election committee, of the Democratic National Committee’s offices at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C.
   Nixon’s reputation for political chicanery went back to his first run for Congress in 1946, when, according to American Heritage, he had anonymous phone bankers call registered Democrats and ask about his opponent, “Did you know that Jerry Voorhis is a communist?” He kept up the theme in his 1950 Senate race, when he labelled liberal opponent Helen Gahagan Douglas “pink right down to her underwear.” (In return, Douglas called Nixon “Tricky Dick,” a nickname that stuck.) Year’s later, Nixon’s campaign henchman Murray Chotiner would mentor Bush’s Karl Rove.²
   .
   In 1952, Nixon dodged an allegation of corruption and turned it to his political advantage. While running for Vice President with Dwight D. Eisenhower, he was accused of having a secret trust fund set up by supporters. Nixon decided to go on national TV with a live speech, inviting investigation of his finances and stating that no donor had asked for or received any favors. The emotional clincher was his statement that one admirer had sent the family a cocker spaniel puppy named Checkers. “The kids love that dog,” he declared, “and I want to say right now that regardless of what they say, we’re going to keep it.”
   .
   The “Checkers Speech” saved Nixon’s career. Eisenhower kept him on the ticket and he went on to serve eight years as Vice President.
   .
   In 1960 Nixon ran for President, losing a close race to John F. Kennedy. Two years later he lost a bitter race for Governor of California to Pat Brown and retired from politics, telling the press, “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.”
   .
   But Nixon’s work on behalf of fellow Republicans over the next few years help him win the party’s nomination for President in 1968. He beat Democrat Hubert Humphrey in the general election on a promise of “law and order” and a “secret plan to end the war in Vietnam,” which he said he “couldn’t reveal without damaging national security.”
   .
   Upon Nixon’s election, that secret plan to end the war in Vietnam never unfolded. In fact, 21,014 Americans would die there during his presidency. Yet four years later, with the war still raging, he was able to win a landslide re-election against Democratic Party “peacenik” George McGovern.
   .
   But that re-election turned out to be the high point of an abbreviated second term. The Vietnam quagmire got worse and worse. Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned from office and was convicted in federal court on a felony charge of income tax evasion. Nixon appointed Rep. Gerald Ford of Michigan to replace him.
   .
   As he had done throughout his campaigns, Nixon used all the power at his disposal to defeat his opponents. This included keeping an enemies list, the purpose of which, White House counsel John Dean wrote in an internal memorandum, was to deal “with persons known to be active in their opposition to our Administration; stated a bit more bluntly—how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies”….by means of tax audits from the IRS, and by manipulating “grant availability, federal contracts, litigation, prosecution, etc.”
   .
   The abuses of government power culminating in the Watergate break-in and cover-up derailed the administration, and showed how a man consumed with enemies can be his own worst enemy. He fired special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox, and forced his Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General to resign when neither would do it for him. What finished Nixon’s presidency was his decision in April, 1974, to release edited transcripts of taped White House conversations that he thought would assure the public of his innocence over Watergate. They did exactly the opposite.
   .
   Soon the Supreme Court ordered Nixon to release additional tapes sought by the second special Watergate prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, as evidence in criminal proceedings. Three of these recordings documented Nixon’s personal role in the Watergate cover-up.
   .
   With Congressional support gone and impeachment certain, Nixon resigned the Presidency on August 9, 1974. Gerald Ford was sworn in as president and declared, “Our long national nightmare is over.”
   .
   Ford’s hopeful words earned him a brief honeymoon with an American public sick and tired of Watergate. But the honeymoon ended several weeks later, when Ford pardoned Nixon for any and all crimes he may have committed while President. The public’s harsh reaction to the pardon—including the suspicion that it had been pre-arranged when Nixon picked Ford for VP—played a role in Ford’s 1976 defeat by Jimmy Carter.
   .
   Nixon, freed from the cares of the White House and the prospect of criminal prosecution, worked to win back respect on the world stage as an elder statesman, and largely succeeded. His funeral in 1994 was attended by all five living Presidents—Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., and Clinton.¹
   .
   Indeed, alongside the black marks of Vietnam and Watergate are accomplishments of Nixon’s that stand in stark contrast to the similarly controversial presidency of George W. Bush: for example, his signing of the Clean Water Act and establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency, both to be severely weakened by Bush; his widely hailed diplomatic outreach to China vs. Bush’s go it alone, anti-diplomacy tack; and his impetuous visit to the Lincoln Memorial where he chatted with anti-war protestors, vs. Bush’s refusal to meet with Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq. But from their earliest days, Nixon and Bush had been as different as two polarizing presidents could be: one of modest means who went to Duke Law School on a full scholarship and graduated third in his class; the other a wealthy son of privilege whom one professor remembered as spoiled, loutish and a liar.
7. 

   TheTruthHurts said, 7 months ago

   @Radish

   Very factual,would add this though, the last sentence you could easily attribute that to Senator Kennedy. ( for accuracy’ sake )
8. 

   Robert Landers said, 7 months ago

   @Radish

   An excellent an informative post that does not condemn either Nixon nor Obama. I liked it as a relatively balance approach to the latest hysteria now going on in Washington. While not as good as I am sure he would like it President Obama’s latest approval ratings are at lest some five times better than his Republican critics in Congress. If they do not get off of their pampered bums and actually do something for the American people instead of just trying to teat down the current president (and the country along with him) then I think we might just see an entirely different Congress after 2014!
9. 

   Zuhlamon said, 7 months ago

   Yeah, but the ’toon is only barking back the hopeful GOP and FOX News talking points.
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