Subject: "He's a drug store truck-drivin' man" From: Betty_the_Crow Date: Sat Jun 5 1825h
I miss Richard Nixon. He was an evil motherfucker and everyone knew it, even his friends and family and die-hard supporters, with the possible exception of Bill Safire, the exception who proves the rule. Nixon was responsible for one of the great advances in political culture, the removal of the concept of "shame" from the moral glossaries not only of politicians, which would have been no big deal, but, during the course of his "rehabilitation," of journalists as well. The real heyday of moral relativism began with Dick.
I won't miss Ronald Reagan, even though his contribution to political culture, government by hallucination, probably outstrips Nixon's in import. One of the results of employing an Alzheimer's victim as president was that it came to seem first impolite, and then cruel, and then downright treasonous to make public note of the discrepancies between rhetoric and reality. We're still reaping that whirlwind, and it's that, more than his support for muggers and thieves, murderers and genocidal dictators, more than his perhaps inadvertent surrender to and glorification of government by unofficial means, for which I'll never forgive him.
Nixon killed shame, and Reagan killed reality. It's no wonder so many of the latter's former loyalists now worship Bush, who has far outstripped his mentor at the art of living exclusively inside his own mind.
Aloha, Ronnie, and good riddance.
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Carl
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