Forty years ago this week, on August 9th, 1974, Republican President Richard Milhous Nixon resigned from the Presidency, the only president to do so.
His final good-byes were a ceremonious ending for that California-born Washington DC fixture, one who had lived and breathed the Beltway for nearly four decades. First as a House Rep, then a US Senator and a two-term Vice President, Nixon graciously conceded his first failed Presidential bid against John F. Kennedy in 1960, even though he lost by a slim margin due to a fraudulent voter-turnout in Illinois.
Following another failed campaign in 1962 for governor of California, Nixon joined a New York law firm, but quietly planned his return to national politics, giving international speaking engagements and boosting Republican candidates in 1964 and 1966.
Then came his come-back in 1968, cutting through a fractured Democratic Party broken over Vietnam and the country's rising crime rate. Nixon articulated the frustration and cries of the Silent Majority -- working class Americans, Republican and Democrat, tired of crime, military exploits, and economic malaise -- and won the Presidency.
The first President to make a phone call to the moon (to congratulate Neil Armstrong for his giant leap), to ease tensions with China, and to get American forces out of Vietnam, Nixon's string of policy victories improved on the messes of his prior Democratic counterparts.
Then came 1972, and Democrat George McGovern's ultra-liberal politics turned off everyone. Nixon won reelection by a landslide, the largest in American history, surpassing Reagan's 1984 sweep against Walter Mondale. For his second term, Nixon planned a New Federalism, promoting the power of the states to regulate their affairs instead of the federal government.
Then Watergate broke. Burglars arrested in connection with this crime had connections to the White House. Yet, despite the hollow wranglings of modern history, Nixon never planned nor perpetrated this crime. What did he do? He obstructed justice, because when he learned about Watergate, he covered it up. He also delayed turning over incriminating evidence of his discussions on the matter. A protracted legal fight followed, which forced final arbitration from the United States Supreme Court. Nixon lost, and government transparency won. With his resignation, the crisis of American government was averted, in that the constitutional framework withstood the extralegal maneuvers of a president hiding key evidence from the American people.
Forty years later, though, we have to ask the question: was a constitutional crisis then really averted? Aside from the Saturday Night Massacre, when Nixon attempted to remove the special prosecutor investigating Watergate, Nixon's crime was simply not coming forth about what he knew, and when he knew it. Criminal? Yes indeed. Enough to impeach him? Fine.
But when we look at the massacre of Americans' rights in 2014, of America's prestige, and the attacks on Americans' values today, we find that whatever Nixon perpetrated then is nothing like the flood of crimes and scandals dominating the White House today.
Where Nixon had Watergate, a scandal recognized by a bare majority today, President Barack Obama has unleashed a Floodgate of corruption, one which a fawning, unaccountable media has only made worse. The famous Washington Post reported Bob Woodward, with the help of FBI Director Mark "Deep Throat" Felt, brought down Nixon. Forty years later, Woodward has been marginalized by the same media cohorts for exposing the lies and inconsistencies of the Obama Administration. Instead of Deep Throat, a Deep Coma defines the mainstream media, so allured with modern liberalism, unwilling to hold the President accountable, burying Obama's culpability.
A constitutional crisis is rearing its ugly head today, with a lawless President who refuses to defend the Constitutional or uphold the rule of law, including his own signature legislation. His faux-amnesty has encouraged a national breach of security, with unaccompanied illegal immigrant youth streaming across the Southern US border seeking naturalization. While Richard Nixon was a staunch defender of Israel, Obama has thrown that nation under the bus, siding with liberal opponents and Islamic terrorists instead of supporting the only thriving popular democracy in the region. Nixon honored this country, even though his personal ambitions exposed him to downfall and brief obscurity. Obama honors himself and promotes a world-view antithetical to the United States of America and the best interests of all who love freedom.
While Nixon's Watergate still commands attention from everyday readers and professional historians today, Obama's Floodgate of corruption requires our nation's attention far more than the meandering misdemeanors of an otherwise skillful and influential politician, and a tide of voter outrage must sweep out the enablers of Obama's present, endemic corruption come November.
Arthur Christopher Schaper is a teacher-turned-writer on topics both timeless and timely; political, cultural, and eternal. A life-long Southern California resident, Arthur currently lives in Torrance.
