"Read the History"

Last week, a reporter asked President Obama the inevitable question: was his administration like that of Richard Nixon? That the question was so predictable made it no less absurd. "I’ll let you guys engage in those comparisons," Obama replied. "And you can go ahead and read the history, I think, and draw your own conclusions."

Of course a historian will like his advice: "read the history." The president's problem is that people do not know the history of Watergate and are unlikely to read it. (For those who are interested, Elizabeth Drew has a nice summary of Nixon's misdeeds.)

Since the early 1970s, almost every case of any kind of misbehavior in the political realm gets saddled with the Watergate comparison, and just about every comparison to Nixon and Watergate ends up being silly (for example, the case of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's phony Koch brothers tape as I noted here).

Why do we repeatedly do this? The problem, as I see it, is in the name: "Watergate." By assigning that single word to the Nixon administration's many crimes, we reduce them to something small and petty. They were anything but that, but most of us don't know it.

For Americans born after the 1960s, the term "Watergate" is likely little more than a synonym for political scandal.  Even those (like me) with some memory of the scandal are unlikely to remember more than a few basic facts: a group of thugs associated with the Nixon re-election campaign stupidly broke into the Democratic headquarters and got caught, Nixon panicked, tried to cover it up, and then was done in by the foolish efforts to cover-up an incident that, in the end, was really no big deal.

In a perfect example of that flawed conventional wisdom,  Newt Gingrich, when asked about the president's recent troubles, said: "It's always the cover-up that kills you."

That's simply wrong, but you hear it whenever there is a new Washington "scandal."

What it neglects is this: Nixon had plenty he needed to cover up. I've never thought that Nixon ordered the break-in at the Watergate hotel, and to this day no definitive evidence shows that he did. The important fact, however, is that that does not matter. Nixon's motive for the cover up was that the men involved in the break-in were involved in plenty of other nefarious activities, ones that Nixon did know about and often did order. The burglars answered to people close to Nixon who had direct knowledge of the president's involvement in numerous criminal activities.

Nixon's plan was to throw the burglars under the bus, but bribe them to keep quiet. It didn't work. They talked, and then others began to talk too--most notably Nixon's lawyer, John Dean. (Dean is on record saying that nothing going on today approaches the seriousness of the Nixon years.) That led to the revelations of widespread abuse of power that finally forced Nixon from power.

The Nixon of the common understanding of Watergate was stupid, or crazy, or both. I reject that interpretation. Nixon was many things, but stupid is not one of them. As the pressures of the Watergate scandal grew, one can make the case that he may have become mentally unhinged. But the actions that forced him from office were done when Nixon was in full command of his faculties. They reflected who he was. One's actions usually do.

Perhaps we will find that a secretly Nixonian Obama gave orders that the IRS screw anyone associated with the Tea Party (if so, they did a terrible job of it--none of the organizations subjected to extra scrutiny were denied tax-exempt status). Maybe we'll learn that he became so obsessed with leaks that he suggested poisoning reporters, as Nixon suggested should be done to Jack Anderson.

But it is far more likely that we'll find that this brouhaha has been just another uninformed use of the Watergate analogy. If we read the history.

Let's Play "Name That Candidate!"

The following passage comes from a major address by the nominee for president of a major political party:

Whatever progress has been made we all accept.... there are certain principles that are accepted by substantially all of the American people. They cannot be treated as partisan principles. They are national policies. For instance, the policy of providing the farmer with a fair share of the national income is a national policy.... We say to you workers that the right of collective bargaining by labor's own free choice is not a partisan right. It is a national policy. The principle of setting a floor under wages is likewise an established principle. That floor should be raised as rapidly as our increasing prosperity permits... It is national policy to set a limit to the hours of labor. Whenever those hours are exceeded, overtime must be paid at the rate of time and a half. Social Security is a national policy. And so are old age pensions. Nobody has a patent on them. It is national policy to care for the unemployed.... It is national policy to care for the aged, the sick, the physically handicapped, the blind, and others who need our help.

I admit, this isn't an easy one. He did not go on to become president, so he's less well-known. So how about this question instead: which political party does he belong to, the Democratic or Republican?

Answer: The Republican Party.

This is from Wendell Willkie's final speech of the 1940 campaign, given over the radio, originating from a campaign rally in Madison Square Garden in New York City.

I came across this speech doing some research, and was somewhat dumbfounded when I read it. Even allowing for the real possibility that Willkie's support for all of these "national policies" might have been more rhetorical than real (after all, Paul Ryan today has the chutzpah to claim that his plan to end Medicare is really meant to "save" it), this is remarkable.

My first thought was the rather obvious one: can anyone imagine the Republican nominee in 2012 full-throatedly supporting all of these policies that were enthusiastically embraced by the Republican nominee 72 years ago in 1940?

To be fair, Willkie also said things that could easily have come from Romney's mouth in this campaign: "We believe ... that in order to protect [these benefits] and to extend them it is necessary to have a government that is financially sound."

In fact, Willkie's defense policy statement is almost exactly the same as Romney's: "All of us believe in the need for a powerful national defense. But our administration ... would have it so powerful that no aggressor would ever dare or seek to strike."

Romney has repeatedly said in this campaign: "I will insist on a military so powerful no one would ever think of challenging it."

Those similarities notwithstanding, it is remarkable to see how different the rhetoric is.

Willkie supported collective bargaining, while Romney has praised Gov. Walker's and Gov. Kasich's efforts to limit collective bargaining in Wisconsin and Ohio.

Willkie supported not only the concept of a minimum wage, but anticipated increasing it, while Romney is against an increase and in the past has proposed at most indexing it to inflation (which would have the effect of never increasing it in fact). Some Republicans (e.g., Ron Paul and Tea Party leader and former congressman Dick Armey) even favor abolishing it.

Willkie talks about caring for the unemployed, while Romney has opposed extending unemployment benefits and has even said he'd like to see "reform of our unemployment system, to allow people to have a personal account which they're able to draw from as opposed to having endless unemployment benefits." In other words, he would privatize it and end any government responsibility for the unemployed.

Willkie says it is "national policy" to care for the sick, but Romney would repeal the Affordable Care Act and has proposed no national policy to advance the cause of providing health insurance for the uninsured.

Willkie supported Social Security and old age pensions, while Romney would increase the eligibility age for both Social Security and Medicare.

The unavoidable conclusion is how far to the right the Republican Party (and, to some extent, the Democratic Party) has moved over the last 70 years, with most of that rightward movement having taken place in the last twenty years.

It has become commonplace to note that Ronald Reagan, the nominee in 1980, and Richard Nixon, the nominee in 1968, would be too liberal for today's Republican  Party. Turns out, Wendell Willkie in 1940 would be, too.

The Walker Tape

Last week, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was punked by a website reporter claiming to be billionaire David Koch.  The tape of their 20-minute phone conversation was posted on the internet, leading to an all-too-brief firestorm around Walker’s comments.

The reaction that interests me is this one, from Tim Carpenter, a Wisconsin State Senator, who wrote: “Governor Walker, this tape would make Richard Nixon blush.”

Carpenter evidently has not been listening to the Nixon tapes.

Whenever a politician is caught on tape, the Nixon analogy is the easy one.  But there’s a danger in it.  We have a wealth of material, thousands of hours of Nixon.  What they reveal is a singularly unappealing portrait.  No one tape, not even Walker’s, can live up to that record.  As a result, whoever is compared to Nixon fairly comes off looking, at least comparatively, not so bad.

Nixon’s White House tapes are infamous for their revelations of Nixon’s prejudices.  There are many examples, but just last December a new crop of tapes was released that included the following gems:

“Virtually every Irish I've known gets mean when he drinks. It's sort of a natural trait. Particularly the real Irish."  

(I can’t help wondering if my German ancestry would disqualify me from Nixon’s concept of “real Irish.”)

"The Italians, of course, just don't have their heads screwed on tight. They are wonderful people, but . . ."

"The Jews are just a very aggressive and abrasive and obnoxious personality." 

“The Jews are born spies.”

But it isn’t just prejudice that Nixon reveals in his tapes, it is his criminal proclivities.

Over the years, one of the most common red herrings of Nixon defenders has been the claim that there is no documentary proof that Nixon ordered the Watergate break-in.  That is true.  But we do know that he ordered a break-in of the liberal think tank the Brookings Institution: 

“I want the Brookings Institution cleaned out and have it cleaned out in a way that has somebody else take the blame."

It’s hardly a stretch to think that the man we know was capable of ordering the one was also capable of ordering the other.

Now, nothing like that is present on the Walker tape.  And that’s precisely the problem with Carpenter’s analogy.  By using rhetoric that compares Walker’s comments to the depths of Nixon’s depravity, he gives Walker an easy out—because Walker on this tape is demonstrably not as bad as Nixon on his.

What is there in the Walker tape, however, is plenty bad enough.

Start with this simple fact: while Walker complained about a “group of protesters almost all of whom are in from other states,” he spent 20 minutes talking freely with a major campaign donor from out of state.  Hardly surprising, but telling.

Also telling is Walker’s eagerness to share his strategy with the caller he believes is Koch.  According to his office, Walker has never met or spoken to Koch.  But the fake Koch asks one question and Walker is off to the races.  A look at the transcript shows no reticence at all on Walker’s part.  And what he so freely shares is revealing.

We learn that Walker intended to trick the Democratic state senators who have left the state to prevent Walker’s union busting legislation from passing.  He said he intended to tell the Democrats that he would “talk” to them, get them to come back to Wisconsin, and then refuse to actually negotiate.  In the meantime, the senate would have gone into session and he could get his legislation passed.  In other words, he revealed that he is not to be trusted.

That, sadly, is just politics.  What’s more disturbing is Walker’s reaction to the fake Koch’s suggestion of “planting some troublemakers.”  Walker responded: “we thought about that.”  He goes on to explain that he decided not to, but only because it might backfire politically.  At no point does he offer any suggestion that deliberately provoking violence for political gain is an inherently bad idea.

Now, one of two things is true.  Either Walker really did consider doing so, in which case he should resign right now, or he lied when he said he considered it.  In other words, the best-case scenario is that Walker never thought about it, and merely lied to the fake Koch to avoid contradicting the rich and powerful man at the other end of the phone.

In either case, Scott Walker is no leader.  He either is truly amoral and somewhat Nixonian in the tactics he considered, or so beholden to powerful interests that he will not tell them that their suggestions are both illegal and immoral.

Admittedly, pretending to agree with the criminal suggestions of a wealthy campaign contributor does not rise to the level of Nixon’s perfidy.  But shouldn’t our standard for those who purport to lead us be higher than that?