Hillary Clinton Is the Richard Nixon of Our Time
Let me start with a confession. I was a Nixon "loyalist," from the "Kitchen Debate" with Khrushchev in the 1950's up to a couple of days before he resigned in 1974.
In fact, my first conscious memory of politics was sitting on my mother's lap in the summer of 1952 (I was five) as she was explaining that year's GOP convention as we watched President Eisenhower being nominated on a really big, blurry, black and white television. Shortly thereafter, I remember being in the den while my parents watched what I later learned was the "Checkers" speech, to which my Mom (a Republican) and my Dad (a Democrat) had very different reactions. It was the first of many times that I heard my father declare, "Nixon's a crook!"
Nevertheless, I was the chairman of the Nixon for President campaign in my junior high school in Houston in 1960, and he was my candidate in '68 and '72 over Goldwater, and over the pre-pro-life Ronald Reagan. I firmly believed that Richard M. Nixon could be a great president.
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And when Watergate began, I was loyal to the president, convinced his enemies were out to destroy him as he was leading a global anti-communist alliance against the Soviets. I refused to believe the growing evidence that Watergate was indeed a "cancer" growing on the presidency and that we were headed with accelerating speed toward a full-blown constitutional crisis.
When definite evidence surfaced early in August, 1974 that President Nixon had indeed obstructed justice I told my wife, "He's got to go!"
My wife replied, "Wow! If he's lost you, he really does have to go!"
Why do I share this with you now?
It is my attempt to illustrate that I understand identifying deeply with a national political leader and developing a deep and abiding loyalty to that person. However, loyalty has its limits and it does not cover a multitude of sins.
And, Hillary Clinton is the Richard Nixon of our time.
First, she has been on the national political stage since 1992, almost as long as Richard Nixon (first elected to the U.S. House in 1946 and resigning the presidency in 1974).
Second, like Nixon, she is certainly one of the most controversial political figures of her generation, provoking both strong negative and positive emotions.
Third, also like Nixon, she seems compulsively secretive and lacking transparency (i.e. using a private email account and server while Secretary of State).
The events of the last fortnight have once again reminded many Americans of a certain age of "Clinton fatigue," a widespread malady impacting millions of Americans exposed to a seemingly endless succession of financial and ethical scandals that seem to follow in the Clintons' wake like the carriage and a manure trail follow a team of horses.
Clinton fatigue, unfortunately, is merely the first stage of the malady, which over time degenerates into Clinton revulsion, with as many as 2 out of 3 Americans believing that the former Secretary is "untrustworthy" and a "liar."
And looking at the evidence, you can certainly see why the people would draw such conclusions. When you read th Wikileaks treasure trove (or is it a compost heap?) of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's hacked emails you see massive evidence of a corrupt campaign and foundation subculture immersed and marinated in complete moral relativism and double-jointed pragmatism. The result is a phalanx of moral and financial corruption that has produced a polluted and corrupting political solar system of morally skewed, out of kilter planets, their moral compasses increasingly demagnetized, orbiting around the Clinton's seductive sun.
Make no mistake about it, the Clinton email and Clinton Foundation scandals, to borrow a phrase from yesteryear, are a "cancer" growing on Mrs. Clinton's candidacy. And, if she is elected Nov. 8th, that cancer will continue to grow and metastasize for the duration of her presidency, however, long or brief it may prove to be.
Do you really want to put your fellow citizens through such an agonizing, destructive, and painfully drawn out ordeal? Once again, to paraphrase the Nixonian 70's, electing Mrs. Clinton will begin a long national nightmare which will be destined to become like an endless serial bad dream, wreaking havoc on our nation's body politic and generating an ever diminishing trust in our self-governing republic "of the people, by the people, for the people."
Profit from my past misplaced loyalty, and abandon the deeply flawed object of your trust. She does not deserve your loyalty and our country does. Spare America this glaringly predictable anguish.
Enough is enough!
