Man, Bush sucks but this latest round of tapes again puts Tricky Dick in the running for Worst President Ever.
On July 1, 1971, Nixon instructs Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman to have someone break into the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.:
“I can’t have a high-minded lawyer … I want a son-of-a-b—-. I want someone just as tough as I am. … We’re up against an enemy, a conspiracy that will use any means. We are going to use any means… . Get it done. I want it done. I want the Brookings Institution cleaned out and have it cleaned out in a way that has somebody else take the blame.”
That’s a hilarious headline
Hard to compare W and Nixon.
Nixon was intentionally evil, but kept notes… and actually accomplished some stuff that was good for the country like signing the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, establishing the EPA, NOAA, the EEOC, OSHA. We’d actually be pretty happy to have a president who made that much forward progress in terms of the environment, equal rights and labor.
Politically he was a complete and utter nightmare, and he was an innovator in creating a notion of absolute executive Presidential power that Reagan and W built upon.
OTOH Bush was a complete incompetent fuckup and you can’t point to a single thing that he’s done that has been in any way good for the country, and you can point to many, many things that have broken it. Badly.
No, I still think W takes the prize for worst.
It would almost be worth it to see Ben Stein’s head explode reading this.
Almost, but not quite.
It would almost be worth it to see Ben Stein’s head explode reading this.
Why would it explode? Stein’s Expelled pretty much demonstrated the guy has no problem just blindly not seeing reality.
Nixon was far worse than Bush in that he exhibited a paranoia that is born of real mental imbalance. Bush is just a Yahoo. Not to minimalise Yahoos…….they can sure do their damage. Nixon was dark and evil. Bush is light and fluffy. Bush personifies entitlement and Nixon embodies anger and resentment
Um, clean-up please.
George W Bush is an example of the banality of evil.
Richard M Nixon did ever single thing he did with the crystal clear belief that it was for the good of the nation.
That you must be more ruthless than your enemies for the greater good and self aggrandizement. It started with McCarthy. Let’s hope it ends with Bush.