August 11, 2007
Goodbye to Richard Nixon II Posted by John Steele Gordon at 06:15 PM EST Just a couple of comments before I turn on the television to watch the greatest golfer who has ever lived ply his trade at the PGA. First, I am old enough to remember Watergate at first hand. It was certainly hog heaven for us news junkies. I doubt there have ever been so many banner headlines in The New York Times—a newspaper notoriously parsimonious with banner headlines—in so short a period, finally ending with only the second time in history that the Times had used war type in a headline: “NIXON RESIGNS.” The first time, for the record, was, “MEN WALK ON THE MOON” five years earlier. But equally, I hope the country never has to go through another series of events that require so many banner headlines. In many, many ways, the country has never recovered from Watergate. That’s why I’m puzzled when Joshua Zeitz writes, “. . . it’s still not clear that Nixon was especially competent or incompetent. He may well have been average. In which case, Watergate continues to matter.” It seems to me that Watergate would matter if Richard Nixon had been the very embodiment of competence (although, to be sure, had he been such, I doubt he would have made such an utter dog’s breakfast of it). Competent or not, moderate or not, accomplished or not, Richard Nixon is one of the most fascinating characters in American political history, indeed of almost Shakespearean dimensions. How many Presidents, after all, have had operas written about them? As more and more political actors of that era pass from the scene, more and more historical data will become available, and more and more books will be written and probably more operas. A hundred years from now, Nixon is going to take up a lot of shelf space—or whatever the digital equivalent may be in 2107. I think Mr. Zeitz failed to mention one of Nixon’s most egregious policy mistakes, price controls, imposed in the summer of 1971. Government price controls have a record going back all the way to the Emperor Diocletian and, except briefly in wartime, they have always been a disaster, as they were when Nixon tried them. Like so many people in the public sector, Nixon just never understood that market forces are a force of nature that cannot be turned off by political fiat. To quote a Vietnamese proverb, “Trying to stop a market is like trying to stop a river.” Finally, Mr. Zeitz writes, “. . . it’s important not to conflate the term ‘good’ with ‘moderate’/’liberal,’ and equally important not to confuse ‘conservative’ with ‘bad.’” I certainly agree with this, provided the slash mark is replaced with the word “or.” Moderates and liberals are not the same beasts in my book, by a long shot. Now, off to the television. Go, Tiger!
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