ME & TRICKY DICK

Richard Nixon was my first true hate. Every fiber of my being loathed Tricky but I've always considered him to be our most interesting President. Nixon was a spiteful, paranoid and nasty little man but he was a walking Freudian (Jungian?) case study. I pity people whose first political hate is George W Bush whose primary characteristic is shallowness. Reading about Nixon is like jumping into the deepest part of the ocean whereas reading about W is like wading in the kids pool at a Holiday Inn. I understand Bushophobia, I have it too, but it's not as much fun as hating Tricky Dick. The Trickster hated you right back...

Tricky Dick is back in the news for two reasons this week. First, more Nixon tapes have been trasncribed and released to the public. Second, Ron Howard's film version of Peter Morgan's play Nixon/Frost will be opening in some areas later this week with Frank (Dracula) Langella as Tricky. Bur Nixon never really went away, he's always there, a testimony to our darkest impulses. He's also the patron saint of the Atwater-Rove brand of groin kicking politics practiced to this day by the GOP. Republicans love to talk about the sunny optimism of the Old Tevee President aka Ronald Reagan but Nixon's the one, y'all. His spirit roamed the land this fall as Sarah Palin turkey trotted about the country throwing mud and lying incessantly. Tricky would have approved: he was proud of his ability to lie and took a dim view of pols who claimed not to lie or did it badly.

Tweety had a great segment on Hardball yesterday (not in an embeddable form online yet) about the latest raft of Nixon tapes. Nixon's magisterial awfulness made both Tweety and me guffaw with appalled delight. His guests for the Nixon segment were reformed Nixonite John Dean and Rick Perlstein author of one of the best studies of the Trickster, Nixonland.  It's just the latest first rate Nixon book: the man's awful complexity lends itself to repeated study. I'm also very partial to Garry Wills' book Nixon Agonistes and, inevtiably Woodstein's The Final Days wherein they engage in a bit too much New Journalistic mind reading for my taste but the depiction of Nixon's mental collapse is fascinating and credible. Nixon, of course, bounced back and even rehabilitated his reputation in some circles but not with me. My hatred is pure and true.

The video that follows is not exactly on point but it's the  song that's been in my head whilst writing this post: Me & My Uncle by the Grateful Dead. I did, however, see them a lot back in my peak Nixon hating days so maybe that's why. It's a live version from the final show at Winterland and the boys segue into a scorching version of Johnny Cash's Big River to boot:

tags: politics  nixon  presidency  

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit