Why Nixon Was Great

Well, he wasn't. Not if we use a high enough standard. Reagan was great. If our standard is low enough. Point being, hardly anyone is great. Gandhi wasn't great. I'd say Lincoln was, and Washington, and TR. But that's just me. I like them, and see that their personal lives were as virtuous as their public lives. Seems like a reasonable standard of greatness. That being said, Nixon was certainly not great. But he was.

Just after the 94th Congress completely abandoned its duty and honor and humanity, mandating through its cowardice and its Satanic values the destruction of South Vietnam and of Cambodia, and later of Laos, to name only a few, Nixon, who had felt it necessary to resign due to his malfeasance, was asked what he would have done re the most recent and final southward aggression from North Vietnam. He replied, "I would have bombed the blazes out of them. ...I would probably have been impeached ... but so what? I would have saved thousands -- no ... millions of Southeast Asian lives."

And he would have. So, Nixon was not great. But he would have been. To save millions of lives is another of those things that would make someone great.

As for Cambodia, garden spot of Leftist virtues as cultivated by the Khmer Rouge via its lush Killing Fields, Nixon said that renewed bombing of North Vietnam would have discouraged Red China from propping up the KR, "and if not, Khmer Rouge enclaves would not have been excluded from the bombing. Frankly, knowing what we know now, I should never have stopped it, Congress or no Congress, until all the enclaves were out of business."

As I say, millions of lives. We don't abandon the Constitution for idealism. The Constitution after all is idealism. In this particular instance I find myself in the Andrew Jackson camp ... separation of the branches of government, and let each enforce its will.

Colonel Bui Tin of "North" Vietnam claimed to have been, during the 94th Congress's mandated Fall of Saigon, first to tank-smash through the gates of the Presidential Palace of our erstwhile ally, personally receiving the surrender of "South" Vietnam's ultimate, last and final leader. Such a personage as this has recorded: "When Nixon stepped down because of Watergate we knew we would win. Pham Van Dong [NV PM] said of President Ford that 'he's the weakest president in US history.' ... We tested Ford's resolve by attacking Phuoc Long in January, 1975. When Ford kept American B-52s in their hangers, our leadership decided on a big offensive against South Vietnam."

Elsewhere the Colonel stated that the "American" anti-war movement "was essential to our strategy. ...our rear was completely secure while the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would listen to world news ... to follow the growth of the American antiwar movement. Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses. We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war and that she would struggle along with us."

Ah, Hanoi Jane. Last week sometime I saw most of The China Syndrome again. I remembered it from the 70s, and thought it was good then. It's so dated now, and looks like it was shot on video tape, but it holds up as a thriller. Sure, it's an anti-nuclear, anti-business, lefty screed. But I never have a problem with that. Businessmen can be corrupt. Utilities can be unsafe. It's just story-telling.

But isn't it odd that at the very time the lefties were crying wolf about the China Syndrome, they were assiduously ignoring the real and present atrocity of a Red China syndrome (its support of monsters and their monstrosities). Oh, irony, once again you rear your fickle head. You blind fools! Why, WHY won't you LISTEN to me!?! If that nuculer core goes melting down into the Earth's depths, millions of Southern Californians will, like, totally DIE! And closeup on plucky youngish newsman Jane Fonda as she lets fall a single trembling tear for mercilessly slain Jack Lemmon. Fadeout. Fin. So touching.

In actual reality, from Bruce Herschensohn (in his An American Amnesia, whence many of these passages) we learn of a "leading network newscaster" who, when asked why the Cambodian genocide was utterly and completely and utterly ignored by the "American" media, lied that there "is no way to bring cameramen in there. ...we need pictures." When it was pointed out to this eminence that brave investigative reporters heroically reported to the world CIA secrets, and that courtroom sketches were widely employed when cameras were not allowed, and, further, that actual true-to-life SE Asian witnesses and victims were available for dramatic interviewing to guarantee American audiences a dynamic television-viewing experience -- really first-rate entertainment -- well, that was sort of a long sentence.

But in response to this logic, the famous network newsreader "looked down, then back up, and had no response other than a small shrug."

Such eloquence seems like a good place to stop.


J