Loves of absurd will appreciate the opening sentence of this article:
"Richard Nixon was many things — crafty, criminal, self-pitying, vengeful, paranoid. But gay?"
Any pretense of political correctness is washed away by putting in the same row: "crafty, criminal, self-pitying, vengeful, paranoid, gay". The double irony is that Nixon, a Republican, is usually the target of the "progressive" left, which pretends to be the great supporter of sexual minorities.
Finally, the extra level of absurdity is provided by the uniform across the political spectrum vilification of Nixon by the Americans: Yes, he might have been a crook... yet, these very Americans twice elected him the president. He won 1972 election by a landslide, even though the public was already aware of the Watergate scandal. In addition, many of the Nixon's achievements as a US president are things, without which one cannot imagine modern America (for good or for bad):
- first nuclear disarmament negotiations with Soviet Union (one of the treaties concluded, Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, lasted till George W. Bush withdrew from it in 2002)
- the end of the Vietnam war,
- establishing relationship with China (imagine that once upon a time the goods "made in China" were not present in American stores)
- first true demonstration of the US commitment to Israel security during 1793 Yom Kippour war
- dealing with the economic crisis and high inflation of the early 70s and abolishing the gold standard (the former is a very contemporary topic, the latter is a favorite subject of the Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul)
- introducing first ever in the US environmental regulations
- promoting desegregation of schools and affirmative action
"How can one evaluate such an idiosyncratic president, so brilliant and so morally lacking?"
No comments:
Post a Comment