From: "Ted White" <twhite8 at cox.net>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: The end of a Washington mystery
Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2005 15:20:41 -0400
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Sent: Friday, June 03, 2005 1:37 PM
Subject: [WSFA] Re: The end of a Washington mystery

> At 11:51 AM 6/3/05 -0400, Ted White wrote:
> >From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
> >> At 09:09 PM 6/2/05 -0400, Ted White wrote:
> >[...]
> >> >
> >> >I don't recall the timetable, but he *ran* on ending the war.  It was
> >his
> >> >principal campaign promise.  And the first that he broke.
> >>
> >> And probably why all the anti-war people hate him so much.  Watergate
is
> >> just an excuse...they hated him already.  Right?
> >
> >I'm not going to continue this.  Political discussions generally bore me
> >and I'm pretty sure this one is boring most WSFAns.
>
> Probably.  I'm not finding it that interesting either...though the views
of
> those who were older than I was at the time are good to hear.
>
> One other idea that occurred to me this morning for why Nixon is so hated
> (perhaps not applicable to you since you already hated him) is that in
the
> 50s and 60s the kids were taught that the USA were the good guys, and the
> Russians were the bad guys...that our Constitutional government was far
> superior to, and immune by design, to the sorts of things *other*
> governments were prone to, such as arbitrariness, injustice, power abuse,
> etc..  Then along comes Watergate and we find that this just ain't
> so...that our government is just as prone to those things as any other,
> despite the design and the claims.  If you really want to be hated, take
> away other people's comfortable illusions.  This idea isn't original with
> me...I think I've heard it before though I can't recall where exactly.
>
> If that theory is right, it would also explain why Clinton didn't provoke
> the same reaction, despite his being slimey, a liar, a cheat, etc. too.
> Clinton didn't take away anyone's comfortable illusions...those were
> already gone.  What he did was confirm their cynical view of things, and
> most people like being right, even if it's about something they don't
> approve of.  Combine that with a totally polarized political situation
> (courtesy of a two-party system, despite that not being anywhere in the
> Constitution...in fact parties aren't mentioned at all) and it's not
> surprising that he got to walk on his crimes and keep the nice retirement
> bennies.
>
> >Those who followed his career since the
> >late '40s disliked him for far longer.  He was always slimey, always
> >willing to sacrifice principal for the expediency of the moment, always
> >willing to go the McCarthy route and brand his opponants "Reds" or
"fellow
> >travelers" even when he knew very well they were not.
>
> Sounds like Clinton, Gore or even Kerry...just to name a few.  I suspect
> that at least one reason why some voted for Bush's re-election is that he
> took a stand and stuck with it.  He didn't wave around like a weathervane
> in the political winds like the others have done, so like him or not, at
> least you knew what you were getting.  Of course, the same could be said
of
> Nader, but since "he didn't have a chance", most vote-for-a-winner
> Americans didn't want to "waste their vote" on him.  Or on any of the
other
> choices you probably never heard about until you got to the voting booth
> and had to decide whether to vote for them or not.  The media does a
lousy
> job informing the public when it comes to candidates other than the "big
> two".  C-SPAN is about the only exception to this.
>
> >Comparisons with Clinton are wholly false and made solely to attempt to
> >obfuscate Nixon's actual record.
>
> Wrong on both counts.  Unless you can read minds, don't presume to tell
me
> what my motives are.

You live in a world of your own.  From here it looks like a parallel
universe with only a few connections to ours.

--Ted White