I was 4 at the time and I just barely remember watching that speech on TV with my parents..and of course at that time my own mother wore a ‘respectable Republican cloth coat’ just like Pat Nixon did...until Dad bought her a mink jacket for her 40th birthday
The (leftist)media have always hated Nixon because of Alger Hiss and that woman who opposed him when he ran for congress. Both were darlings of the Liberals. He exposed the former as a Communist agent and the the latter as a far lefty.
I find it both ironic and pleasing beyond description that he was able to use the Liberals own weapons against them so effectively.
We did not have a TV at the time of the speech. My Dad was still a Democrat then.
Richard Milhouse Nixon WAS “everyman”. The mess he inherited in January 1969 all could have been avoided had HE pulled an Algore and challenged the Electoral Vote in 1960 - specifically, that in Illinois where the Court WOULD have found enough voting “irregularities” and downright fraud, to award HIM the Presidency in 1960.
BUT ...
Being the classy guy that he was, he refused to plunge the country into heretofore unknown territory.
Payback, Pushback ...
Merciless bombing of the N. Vietnamese and incursions into the sanctuaries of Laos and Cambodia (absent John Kerry’s heroics) delivered a modicum of “peace with honor”.
THE most vilified and misunderstood POTUS in American history rests easy.
Richard Milhouse Nixon WAS “everyman”. The mess he inherited in January 1969 all could have been avoided had HE pulled an Algore and challenged the Electoral Vote in 1960 - specifically, that in Illinois where the Court WOULD have found enough voting “irregularities” and downright fraud, to award HIM the Presidency in 1960.
BUT ...
Being the classy guy that he was, he refused to plunge the country into heretofore unknown territory.
Payback, Pushback ...
Merciless bombing of the N. Vietnamese and incursions into the sanctuaries of Laos and Cambodia (absent John Kerry’s heroics) delivered a modicum of “peace with honor”.
THE most vilified and misunderstood POTUS in American history rests easy.
.
I can see why the concept of time travel has been so fascinating to the fiction writers. I would love to see what historians will be saying about Nixon in 2060.
I was a sophomore in High School in 1960. I remember a class discussing Kennedy and Nixon. I argued that we had two people who had arrived at the same position, i.e. candidate for President. One had pumped gas while he was in school, the other had his dad’s $300 million pushing him along (and Joe was making no bones about that). What did that say about who was the best candidate?
Most were apparently more impressed by the glitz.
I have often wondered how history would have been different had Ted’s big brother lost.
The thing about Nixon in the Checkers Speech is that his tone of pompous self-righteousness is something that some in the liberal-left community should find familiar.
OK, I don’t know the times and the Senate gift rules and the pre McCain-Feingold campaign and political activity finance situation. But it seems all he needed to disclose was that he received 18,000 dollars from political contributors, the money went into a fund to pay for political activities, and that he Nixon didn’t benefit personally. What else is there to say, really? I guess I am confused in this day of permanent reelection campaigns and ongoing campaign fundraising why the 18,000 dollars was even an issue to anybody.
The next thing is this business is the allegation about political opponents getting gifts of mink coats for their wives and Pat Ryan Nixon over to the side wearing the “respectable, Republican cloth coat.” It is this tactic, “Oh, you are going to accuse Clinton of sexual impropriety, what about the multiple wives of Newt Gingrinch and that Livingston fellow.” Whatever dirt you have on me, there is mud caked on those other guys.
The biggest thing that struck me was the attack on “the Administration”—didn’t bring himself to say President Truman, much in the same way that Barack Obama intones about “this Administration” when he means to criticize President Bush.
President Truman stood up to International Communism; he went to war in Korea to resist International Communism. Nixon charges Truman with a combination of being incompetent, corrupt, beholden to factions of questionable loyalty, and responsible for the dead and maimed Americans numbering over 100,000 in Korea. Could we substitute neo-conservative, Iraq, over 4000 dead, many more gravely wounded, Bin Laden still at large, Iraq has become a distraction from conducting a needed incursion into Pakistan?
The Checkers speech is regarded as high camp, but it remains solidly part of the current political discourse.
Too many people now do not appreciate excellent THEATER, and that’s what it was. It was carefully staged and we needn’t “squirm” at the presentation. Just sit back and admire the way the tables were so quickly turned. It was great!
Old Man
This is the part of Nixon’s Checkers speech that drives home how much things have changed among the political class since the 1950s:
Do you think that when I or any other Senator makes a political speech, has it printed, should charge the printing of that speech and the mailing of that speech to the taxpayers? Do you think, for example, when I or any other Senator makes a trip to his home state to make a purely political speech that the cost of that trip should be charged to the taxpayers? Do you think when a Senator makes political broadcasts or political television broadcasts, radio or television, that the expense of those broadcasts should be charged to the taxpayers?
Well, I know what your answer is. It is the same answer that audiences give me whenever I discuss this particular problem. The answer is, “no.” The taxpayers shouldn’t be required to finance items which are not official business but which are primarily political business.
(Emphasis added.) Today, this sounds hopelessly naive. I doubt that there is any expense not mandated by law that we, the taxpayers, don’t pay for… ‘printing a Congressman’s political speech’ is the least of it.
When, I wonder, did we, the people, get so completely shut out of the process that we have no meaningful input into how our money gets spent?
Well, the right wing has been rehabilitating Joe McCarthy for a while now, so why not have a go at the Checkers Speech?
It’s all on display right there - the classic Nixon “but that would be wrong” re-direction. “I could have put my wife on the payroll,” etc.
...had HE pulled an Algore and challenged the Electoral Vote in 1960 - specifically, that in Illinois where the Court WOULD have found enough voting “irregularities” and downright fraud, to award HIM the Presidency in 1960.
Come one, Roy, this one has been debunked more times than the lady who tried to dry out her kitten in the microwave. Fact is, Nixon did challenge the vote, not himself, but while he was going on TV sanctimoniously congratulating himself for not challenging the vote, his staff was fanning out across the country challenging the vote. Another typical Nixon move.
Come one, Roy, this one has been debunked more times than the lady who tried to dry out her kitten in the microwave. Fact is, Nixon did challenge the vote, not himself, but while he was going on TV sanctimoniously congratulating himself for not challenging the vote, his staff was fanning out across the country challenging the vote. Another typical Nixon move.
Vlad,
After reading more of your posts than their substance merited, I’ve often wondered if you really were a sanctimonious jerk, or if you just don’t “get it’?
After reading more of your posts than their substance merited, I’ve often wondered if you really were a sanctimonious jerk, or if you just don’t “get it’?
Do you need me to explain it to you? Roy Rogers repeated the old canard that Nixon could have challenged the 1960 election, but didn’t, out of his noble patriotism. And that’s simply false. If calling people on tired old myths is “sanctimony,” I plead guilty.
Well, the right wing has been rehabilitating Joe McCarthy for a while now, so why not have a go at the Checkers Speech?
It’s all on display right there - the classic Nixon “but that would be wrong” re-direction. “I could have put my wife on the payroll,” etc.
...had HE pulled an Algore and challenged the Electoral Vote in 1960 - specifically, that in Illinois where the Court WOULD have found enough voting “irregularities” and downright fraud, to award HIM the Presidency in 1960.
Come one, Roy, this one has been debunked more times than the lady who tried to dry out her kitten in the microwave. Fact is, Nixon did challenge the vote, not himself, but while he was going on TV sanctimoniously congratulating himself for not challenging the vote, his staff was fanning out across the country challenging the vote. Another typical Nixon move.
Provide proof for this obvious lie.....oh, and daily kos doesn’t count as a source.
Roy says that Nixon could have won the 1960 election by challenging the Illinois vote.
Here are the electoral totals:
Kennedy: 303
Nixon: 219
Illinois had 27 electoral votes.
Now maybe you went to one of those liberal public schools where they don’t believe in math, they just teach you how to validate each other’s feelings. So let me help you: 303 minus 27 is still more than 219 plus 27.
You must ACTUALLY challenge the vote in Illinois. Discussing that you are not challenging the vote is NOT a challenge. Liberalism is more than a mental disease. It is also not understanding a fact. There was no challenge to the vote in Illinois. John Kennedy’s victory set the stage for the criminal loss of life and treasure in VietNam perpetuated by his vice president, Lyndon Johnson. We can only speculate as to whether a President Nixon at that time would have addressed the situation differently. I prefer to believe that he would have.
