Very Strange Bedfellows: The Short and Unhappy Marriage of Richard Nixon & Spiro Agnew

[Demeter]

http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/40675.html

Luther Spoehr: Review of Jules Witcover’s Very Strange Bedfellows: The Short and Unhappy Marriage of Richard Nixon & Spiro Agnew (Public Affairs, 2007) and Elizabeth Drew’s Richard M. Nixon, 1969-1974 (Times Books, The American Presidents Series, 2007)
Source: The Providence Sunday Journal (7-8-07)


Reporter Jules Witcover, who has covered presidential politics for over 40 years, uses the famous White House tapes and many other sources to tell the strange tale of the uneasy relationship between Richard Nixon and his vice-president, Spiro Agnew. The obscure Agnew, Nixon’s running mate in 1968, served, in Eugene McCarthy’s memorable phrase, as “Nixon’s Nixon.” His polarizing, low-road rhetoric put the lie to Nixon’s promise to “bring us together.” Readers of a certain age will remember his characterizations of the media (“nattering nabobs of negativism”) and anti-war students (“an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals”).


Insiders quickly discerned that Agnew was out of his depth. They couldn’t take seriously somebody who thought Frank Sinatra should chair the Bicentennial Commission. Nixon’s “Berlin Wall” of Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman excluded Agnew from meaningful policy discussions, and the President plotted to replace him with Texas’s John Connally. “He doesn’t see the big game,” Nixon told Henry Kissinger.

With Watergate, the big game got more complicated. Agnew was isolated from that mess, but had his own problems: having taken kickbacks from contractors while in Maryland, he continued taking them as vice-president. Nixon bobbed and weaved. “For all of Nixon’s feigned solicitude for Agnew,” says Witcover, “all his actions regarding Agnew’s fate were based on saving his own skin.”

In the end, of course, Agnew copped a plea and resigned. He was replaced by Gerald Ford, whose obvious integrity made him a thoroughly un-alarming presidential prospect and made Nixon’s own resignation less than a year later almost inevitable.


...(In) veteran journalist Elizabeth Drew’s vivid, pointed, brief biography of Nixon, the latest in “The American Presidents” series... Drew propels Nixon from his difficult Yorba Linda boyhood through his “Six Crises” and into the presidency in the first twenty pages, and identifies the personality traits—shyness, resentfulness, ambition—that warped his exceptional political intelligence and fueled his political career.

Nixon’s dysfunctional personality, she says, influenced every aspect of his presidency, from Vietnam and détente to Watergate. Disconnected, conflicted, and remote, he was an insightful spectator to his own folly: “It’s a piece of cake until you get to the top. You find that you can’t stop playing the game because it is part of you.”

“The events that caused Nixon’s downfall,” says Drew, “commenced as soon as he became president, and came from within his soul.” Perhaps that’s true of every failed presidency. A sobering thought as we contemplate another one.


THE PROBLEM WE HAVE TODAY IS THE CABAL; BUSH AND CHENEY WORKING HAND IN GLOVE, WITH KARL, SCOOTER, AND A FEW OTHER KEY AIDES SYSTEMATICALLY DESTROYING THE UNITED STATES.

IT IS VITAL TO SPLIT UP THAT GANG--AND THE ONLY WAY IT'S GOING TO HAPPEN IS BY IMPEACHMENT--PRUNING AWAY CROOK AFTER CROOK UNTIL THE ENTIRE UNWANTED WEED IS GONE.

[The Traveler]

1. Impeachment ... it is worth doing

One of the arguments against impeachment of Bush or any of his gunsels is that by the time the proceedings can complete, his term will be about up anyway. That used to make sense to me. But as Bush told us he "held up in prayer" the families of the I-35 bridge collapse, as if that were enough action from the Executive branch, I suddenly realized there is a really strong counter argument to that line of reasoning.

Impeachment, you see, is more than a statement. It is a real pain in the ass. It is a source of considerable stress and pressure. I swear by God and all that is holy these ass clowns deserve all the stress and pressure that can be possibly brought to bear. A useful side effect would be, if nothing else, less spare time to dream up executive orders that enable the Treasury Secretary to deprive American citizens of their property without due process or review, just to offer one example.

We may not be able to run them out of office through impeachment proceedings, but we can keep 'em tied up so they have less time and energy to do future harm to this nation. And we can make their lives hell. Sounds worth it to me.

Trav

[yellowcanine]

2. "And here's to you, Mr. Agnew!" - one of my favorite "Laugh In" lines.

We still remember Spiro "fondly" here in Maryland.

[nealmhughes]

3. Bill Safire coined "nattering nabobs of negativism" for Agnew, he was Spiro's chief speechwriter.

And from that little bit of alliteration has come a lifetime sinecure in Times Square.