The Whitewashing of Richard Milhous Nixon...

[kentuck]

Richard Nixon was an innocent scapegoat. Mark Felt was a traitor. Woodward and Bernstein were nobodys that were made into heroes by the liberal media and the Washington Post. Listen to the right-wing talk about Watergate and Nixon. Watch them swing their brushes wildly in their valiant attempt to whitewash the Watergate episode and to make Richard Nixon the martyr.

[Cooley Hurd]

1. Richard Nixon was a paranoid and drunken old McCarthyite...

...whose political ambitions usurped any belief in our Constitution and the rule of law.

Rot in hell, Tricky Dick!:grr:

[Pryderi]

2. I'd rather have Nixon than Bush, and that's really sad.

[Pepperbelly]

3. Nixon is a walk in the sunshine compared to these current pirates. nt

[Cooley Hurd]

4. Nixon was the prototype for the present administration...

...and almost every major player in the present admin cut their teeth in the Nixon WH.:thumbsdown:

[Pepperbelly]

5. ok then ... death is not an option ...

George W. Bush or Richard Nixon?

[Cooley Hurd]

6. I'd say Nixon...

...because he's presently worm food.:D

[Pepperbelly]

7. Touche' Cooley Hurd, touche'...

At least Nixon was once a great poker player.

:evilgrin:

[Cooley Hurd]

8. And he had those funky jowels that would wiggle when he talked...

"Nooooooooooooo..."

[punpirate]

9. The attempt to rehabilitate Nixon's...

... reputation began in the mid-late `80s, a move that presaged what is going on now, and what still goes on with the effort to magnify Reagan's record, which was truly horrid in most respects.

Revisionist history is far too common today, in part because people remember so little of the actual history, or weren't taught it in school--one might be inclined to view Nixon sympathetically if one never had a grasp of just how despicable the man was in his political life, and how political loyalty to Nixon by the those now denigrating Felt influences the debate.

[HawkerHurricane]

10. Revisionist History has been common for years

It started with making defense of slavery a defense of state's rights.

[punpirate]

11. Oh, I agree...

... but never to the degree it has in the last twenty years or so--which is, in part, a reflection of the uncriticality of the press (and the absence of such information in the public school curriculum). Simply offering up an alternative view doesn't really address the truth of a particular stance.

Here's an example. The Dominionist movement has been around a long time--likely as far back as the time of the writing of the Constitution and before. The language of the Constitution and its amendments, as well as the letters of the framers, particularly Jefferson and Madison, make it quite clear that religion was to be excluded from government--no ifs, ands or buts.

And yet, in the last few years, the Dominionists have gained a foothold by asserting that the country was once a Christian nation, and that forces antithetical to religion have subverted that original intent for government. That's patently untrue, but the notion has gained credibility because no one in the popular media challenges it as false.

I have a relative teaching American history in the public schools, and the state-mandated lesson plans allow only three class days for the period of 1775-1787.

Combine that lack of information with the failure of the popular media to identify falsehoods for what they are and I think one has the ingredients for the more recent acceleration in revisionist history on the part of the right.

Cheers.