To Nixon, And Beyond

Paul Newman, the actor who turned America’s love of salad dressing and popcorn into $250 million for charity, died this Friday. I’d forgotten Newman’s quotable take on being #19 on Richard Nixon’s enemies list: “The highest single honor I've ever received,” he’d said.

But when a Watergate felon convicted of conspiracy, burglary and illegal wiretapping makes commercials touting gold as an investment, I think we can safely say that I’m not the only one with a foggy memory of the Nixon years. About the time I was born, the White House was a bunker, far more obsessed with preserving its own power and destroying its enemies than with governing the nation. Nixon showed Americans that Presidents will lie to their faces, and then try to get away with it.

For the next twenty years, garden-variety Presidential lying came and went (e.g., Reagan claiming he “can’t recall” anything about Iran-Contra, that loving gaze Bill casts on Hillary), but nothing was genuinely Nixonian. Until George W. Bush attacked another country on the basis of a lie. We were told that we’d greeted as liberators…blah, blah, blah. Or as Chief of Staff Andy Card explained: “From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August.” And so “this government does not torture people” shot right past “I am not a crook” as the new benchmark for Presidential hypocrisy.

Fast forward to the present, where bankers are moving from TriBeCa to Jersey City, and ordinary Americans who spent like drunken sailors are waking up on a pier, hung over and broke. The bill? At least $700 billion, every dime of which will be paid by issuing Treasury notes (printing money, for those of you that didn’t attend Wharton). Bush’s demeanor at the White House summit of Congressional leaders and Presidential candidates reminded me of Queen Elizabeth opening Parliament—a head of state in title alone. Like the boy who cried wolf, Bush most likely can’t fathom why nobody believes him that sheep are dying. “I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it,” said Bush, speaking to reporters after a Nixonian trouncing of his opponent to win a second term. Too bad America can’t call the Chinese and Saudis for a refund.

Nixon’s rehabilitation began in his farewell speech to the White House staff: “Always remember others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself,” he said. At least the man knew who he was, and what he had done. It looks like the understudy still has one more lesson to learn.

Fool Me Once...

Idly flipping channels a few years ago, I eased my way up the dial to C-SPAN, and a debate between Justices Stephen Breyer and Antonin Scalia. For over an hour, I listened to them argue how the Constitution should be interpreted. The depth and persuasiveness of their arguments entranced me: when Scalia spoke, I became an originalist. When Breyer spoke, I was transformed into a pragmatist. The whole thing runs for 90 minutes, but if you're interested, here it is.

Now, President Bush is a man after my own heart. We both unwind on hot summer afternoons by clearing brush. We both love Texas. I’m a Mets fan, he owned the Rangers. No doubt that I could have a beer with the guy—hell, I’d probably insist on two. But let’s face it: the guy has no business being our President. I want my President—Republican or Democrat—to be capable of doing what Breyer and Scalia did so well that night: use facts to construct a persuasive and thoughtful argument that demonstrates a solid grasp of both sides of an issue. It’s not too much to ask from the leader of 300 million people, don’t you think?

Don’t get me wrong: I love a good sound bite. But the world’s problems are incredibly complex: sign a global warming treaty in Kyoto, and you might throw a steelworker out of work in Ohio. Lower taxes to stimulate the economy, and the resulting budget deficit could raise interest rates on a couple buying their first home. You can’t run the country by winging it. If we could, Brownie would still be doing a heckuva job.

And you’d think that the last eight years would’ve boldfaced, underlined and highlighted for America the danger of putting shallow thinkers in the White House. The examples just keep piling up: from this week’s Washington Post:

In response to a question [by Bob Woodward] about how the White House settled on a troop surge of five brigades after the military leadership in Washington had reluctantly said it could provide two, Bush said: "Okay, I don't know this. I'm not in these meetings, you'll be happy to hear, because I got other things to do."

But we’re still sold politicians as moose hunters, working class sons of Scranton, war heroes and change agents. The media loves it, because talking about hockey moms and Amtrak rides more neatly fits the three-minute attention spans that they assume we have. The more simplistic the answer, the more we lap it up. Writing in the New York Times, Bill Kristol compares how the two candidates recently defined “evil:”

--Obama: “We see evil in Darfur. We see evil, sadly, on the streets of our cities. We see evil in parents who viciously abuse their children.”

--McCain: “Of course, evil must be defeated. My friends, we are facing the transcended challenge of the 21st century — radical Islamic extremism.”

“So while Obama talked of confronting evil,” Kristol complains, “McCain spoke of defeating it.” Never mind how exactly an abstract concept like “evil” could ever be “defeated.”

A Turkish friend once told me that American politics is obsessed with trivialities because “Americans never need to ask whether their water’s safe to drink.” And he’s right: we’ve been able to get away with governing on soundbites for the last few decades on the strength of the America that our forefathers built. But from New Orleans’ levees to Minneapolis’ bridges, running the country on a wing and a prayer has caught up to us.

So will we get fooled into voting on trivialities, irrelevancies and personalities again? I hope not. As a wise man once said, fool me once…