Re: PEACE?: Gotta love those polls!

From: MaxPlumm@aol.com
Date: Thu Mar 13 2003 - 07:28:05 MST

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    Alex wrote:

    "The worrying thing is that on casual observation. If a complete loon is
    elected, you cant get rid of them until they step way-way over the line. As
    in Nixon."

    I often stress the need for historical perspective during my replies on this
    forum, and I dare say that has never been more appropriate than in regard to
    this post. There's nothing I enjoy better than hit and run "Evil Nixon the
    mad tyrant loon harbinger of global destruction makes Hitler look like Little
    Mary Sunshine" discussions. I do not mean to suggest that Alex implies all of
    those descriptions, but he obviously subscribes to a few.

    Before fully getting into this subject, perhaps Alex would be kind enough to
    fully elaborate on his position on the 37th President. Perhaps it is fully
    thought out, but I tend to think the influence of thirty years of "impartial"
    sources such as Walter Cronkite have played a role in his description of
    Nixon as a "loon."

    Let me say that the record of Richard Nixon is a complex one and cannot be
    summed up in a cute MTV style one sentence quip. It can be successfully
    argued that no post- WWII president had a more lasting and important positive
    impact on the United States than President Nixon. This is the same man who
    initiated rapprochement with the Chinese, a move that not only altered Soviet
    defense expenditures and strategy, but helped to make them the isolated
    spreader of "worldwide revolution".

    This is the same "loon" that helped save Israel from certain catastrophic
    defeat at the hands of the Arabs during the Yom Kippur War in October 1973,
    prompting then Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir to declare, "God Bless
    President Nixon."

    This aforementioned "loon" also finally saw to it that the widespread
    desegregation of southern schools, 15 years after the practice had been
    formally outlawed, was finally tossed into the dustbin of history.

    I could go on and on regarding the merits and accomplishments of this "loon"
    (and believe me, I have), but perhaps it best to wait for Alex to author his
    rebuttal. President Nixon is certainly not without his faults, but I dare say
    that not one of his subsequent successors come close to matching his
    achievements, and even fewer have any accomplishments that will be discussed
    many decades from now, as Nixon's rapprochement with the Chinese is and will
    continue to be.

    Regards,

    Max Plumm



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