Happy 100th!!!

[4est_4est_Gump]

I have looked up to Richard Nixon all of my life and still do, and I always will. And if I were to say why, I would say, as briefly as possible:

Despite every possible obstacle put in his path by his enemies, always with an obstructionist Congress, he brought us the EPA, desegregated the last holdout Deep South school districts, enormously promoted equal opportunity hiring for black people on federal projects. He was also the first President to send to Congress proposed legislation for universal health care. I wrote the message sending it to the Hill long ago when I was young. He was also the only GOP President ever to support the ERA. Also the last GOP President to have a balanced budget.

But far more than that, he was a peacemaker. He ended the war in Vietnam, brought home the POWs, saved Israel from having to use nuclear weapons to survive in the Yom Kippur War, signed the first strategic arms limitation treaty with the former Soviet Union, and, of course, opened up China. This last one made the Cold War unwinnable for the Soviets, setting the stage for the end of that entity, and opened up vistas of unimaginable prosperity for the Chinese people. He was by far the best friend that the friends of peace have ever had. He was by a million miles the best friend the Jewish people have ever had in high office anywhere in the Western world.

Friends here in Hollywood, close relatives, colleagues, have asked me for decades how I can still love Nixon, after Watergate, after his questionable comments about Jews on tape, and I have an answer.

I will never turn my back on Richard Nixon, the peacemaker. Blessed are the peacemakers, and God bless Richard M. Nixon.

Ben Stein

 

[Wat_Tyler]

Merciful Jeezuz!!!

You're shittin' me, right???

Or are you shittin' worms???​

 

[Adre]

Ben Stein is a loyal and compassionate man. I suppose Nixon would have to run as a Democrat today. He would certainly be 'primaried' as a Republican. Interesting how times have changed.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

His economics were certainly straight out of the Socialists of the Chair.



His birthday is my birthday too.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Shittin' worms it is then...
Buzzards got to eat too...

 

[Wat_Tyler]

It is a little-known fact that Dick's father beat him relentlessly as a youth because he was born 10 days too late to get the tax deduction for a dependent child for the previous year.


Probably because I just made that up . . . .


Maybe he beat him to make him play the piano better . . .


or was that Beethoven???

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The legend is flexible that way...

 

[Wat_Tyler]

I used to watch the news and I learned how to twist fatcs to suit me . . .


or just to make up stuff that suits me better.


To a T, no less . . . .

 

[Adre]

His economics were certainly straight out of the Socialists of the Chair.



His birthday is my birthday too.

And yet he was tolerated by his political party. The party of Rockefeller and Goldwater. Eisenhower and Thurmond. Pity what's happened. One-note politics.

 

[RobDownSouth]

Ben Stein

I recall a certain World War One corporal who was also singularly driven to succeed in politics in the face of overwhelming odds.