>
>Justin Schwartz wrote:
> >
> > I have been meditating for some time on how good Nixon looks. Yhink
>about
> > it: OSHA, the EPA, affirmative action, guaranteed annual income, wage
>and
> > price controls. He couldn't be nominated as a Democrat today--too left
>wing.
> > --jks
> >
>
>Huh? Perhaps lots of things look good if enough time passes, but Nixon
>won't be one of them. I mean Warren Harding isn't going to be elevated
>into the left pantheon because he pardoned Debs, is he? The policies
>and agencies you list didn't come about because of the enthusiastic
>support of Nixon but represented significant compromises in themselves
>and probably should as part of a broader thrust of social policy still
>being carried aloft from the sometimes heady momentum of an activist
>government (of sorts) that developed from the Kennedy/Johnson years.
>Then again, Nixon's so-called achievements are no less subject to
>the criticisms of, say, Piven and Cloward. Nixon I think was
>pretty good at give a little, keep a lot politics. That his
>administration played around with the notion of a guaranteed income
>looks bizarre from the present. At the time there were deep
>suspicions about what goals it would precisely serve.
>
>Nixon was the first law and order president. His interest in
>crime (of which we can now know was something he personally
>had experience in) set in motion a political agenda to which
>both Republicans and Democrats have pursued with vigor.
>
>And someone like John Ehrlichman could easily get a job in
>a Bush administration.
>
>No, I think there's a timeless quality to Nixon. Like an
>eternal asshole.
>
>D. Breslin
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