Apparently the UPS truck dropped off my copy of Nixonland from Amazon while I was working out earlier, and since I discovered it on my doorstep I have been unable to put it down. I am only 50 pages in and I can already proclaim this is the best book I have read in years. I ordered it the other day when one of you quoted from it at length in the comments, and I sure am glad that I did.
At any rate, consider this an open thread. I am going to go sit on the porch and read.
demimondian
Elitist
Wilfred
Hearts and minds…and souls:
A coin.
NR
I’ve just received a newspaper from November 5th. The top story is this.
ThymeZone
Motherfucking idiots.
John S.
I beg to differ.
Latte-sipping elitists read on their veranda, portico or terraza.
Down-home, working, hard-working white folk read on the porch.
Kevin
A public service message from your Local Anti-Literacy Council
Brachiator
I have heard quite a number of great interviews with the author of Nixonland, but somehow neglected to order a copy of the book. I am remedying that now.
One of the things I find fascinating is that Nixon was admitted to Harvard, but could not afford to go, and that this helped fuel a sense of resentment against Establishment types as a result of inability to join the elite.
There is an interesting audio interview with author Rick Perlstein and Ross Douthat available here (Talking Nixonland).
Elsewhere, I am just amazed that all these brave reporters defending themselves against Scott McClellan’s accusation that they were a bunch of wussies couldn’t get the skinny on any of those who attended the secret McCain fund raisers that Bush recently hosted (Bush caps Republican fundraising tour in Kansas).
It just astounds me that these guys can operate like a bunch of two-bit bag men, and still GOP loyalists will slobber all over them, praising their integrity and patriotism.
jake
First thought: There is something pretty damn obscene about occupying soldiers handing out messages about a guy who preached peace and love.
Second thought: Between this and the Qu’ran shooting a whole lot of soldiers are going to get hurt. Dumbasses – Public Enemy #1.
Third thought: I’m guessing that stamping out those babies is fairly labor intensive. I hope like Hell they were sent from the US because explaining that coin press behind the mess hall will be pretty damn awkward.
Rick Taylor
On Talk Left, BTD leads a post with a video of a guest pastor at Trinity church talking about white entitlement and bellowing that Hillary resented Barack for the nomination because she was white and felt entitled to it. BTD writes:
Yup. Noting to do with Barack Obama. BTD just likes to. . . . criticize sermons from random churches. There’s an update:
Who could have imagined. They write an informational post about Trinity college that has nooothing to do with Obama, and the comenters take it the wrong way. Who would have thunk?
Of course as we all know, BTD is an Obama supporter and was only trying to help Obama:
I’m sorry, I’m doubling over laughing here.
jake
ION: Rupert Murdoch iz a tr8or!.
nightjar
This is what happens with an all-volunteer military. After a while, it begins to become an entity unto itself with it’s own internal constitution. In this case a distinctly Christianized one.
demimondian
Ummm…hard-working folk don’t have time to read. They’re too tired to do more than sit in front of the television and stare blankly at the screen when they get home late at night after their second shift at the 7-11.
John S.
I don’t know how many people realize it, but Jesus (not TZ’s yard man) is held in very high regard by Muslims – specifically the prophet Mohammed – as is Abraham.
ThymeZone
My yard man’s full name is Jesus Ahmadinejad.
John S.
Well, maybe not on the porch. But every hard-working white person has time to read when they take a shit – especially Reader’s Digest, People or the National Enquirer.
Hell, the bathroom actually doubles as a library!
jnfr
McClellan’s Biggest Revelation? Bush Personally Authorized Leak Of CIA Agent’s Identity
Zifnab
Drafts don’t change that. You just get a bunch of angry dissidents mixed in with the people who want to be there. The black sheep don’t get promoted to office ranks and the officers are the ones who end up shaping policy.
Ultimately, you can’t just dump people into the military to fix it. You need a CinC who isn’t a religious wacko with a penchant for getting verbal head from his Generals. Otherwise, you get a crop of generals who only got promoted by being sycophants and a crop of sycophants who just happen to cling to other ranking religious wackos as their leadership. Go take a look at the airforce. It’s choke full of zealots who grind up or spit out anyone who walks in the front door.
Tsulagi
…and dicks. No way that coin is going to compete with 72 virgins.
Billy K
Is the Gazebo just passe now? When did this happen, and why didn’t my HOA tell me?
chris
Down-home, working, hard-working white folk know how to read? Since when?
Maybe I can let my Arkansas roots show after all.
Wilfred
Muslims revere Jesus (Isa) as they do all other prophets. Muslim tradition is filled with sayings of Jesus. Muslims reject the central theological principle of Christianity regarding Jesus’ divinity and resurrection.
It’s an occupying force in the service of Empire. Kipling knew it well:
The last line quoted is what Alistair Horne used for the title of this book on the Algerian war of independence against the French, irony and all that. The relationship between colonial administration, religious authority and the military is essential to any (Western) imperialist scheme, see the Conquistadores, e.g.
Cris
Good job on buying the book and supporting the author. I’m waiting for the library to notify me that my hold is ready.
John Cole
You know, I should not be reading this book, as I am learning more and more unflattering comparisons to the campaign run by Sen. Clinton the past few months.
Billy K
Library. LOL! Like they have those any more.
nightjar
I was drafted and was a fairly angry trooper. But I did my job like most other draftees, although we bitched like crazy. This country has won all of it’s major wars with mainly conscripts. A draft makes the military a citizen soldier military and interjects the values of the civilian world. The pro military is mostly a closed world. It also makes it much harder for idiots like GWB to start misbegotten wars because the average person in America has a personal stake via their kin who were drafted and are put at risk. A draft provides a much better chance of only fighting necessary wars like WW2, where we’re all in as a country or we’re all out as same.
Not THAT Barney
For what it’s worth, here is what I’m seeing as far as political signs/bumper stickers/etc in NW Montana 6 days before the primary.
1. Obama
2. Paul
Actually, these two are probably about even.
Clinton and McCain- none, nada, zip
Re: Nixonland. As an old fart who was there I find this a fascinating read.
B
Punchy
In other news, Dunkin’ Donuts has decided to pull all their ads with that guy who wakes up to make the donuts. Apparently, the alarm clock he uses in the ad resembles the types of clocks AQ uses in their bombs.
Rick Perlstein
Don’t judge a book by its first 50 pages!!!
Punchy
Dunkin Donuts just announced that it has pulled all the ads with that guy who works as a DD owner in the commercials. Apparently his chest hair and desheveled look make him look too much like that K. Shiek Mohammahd guy.
Chuck Darwin
I was annoyed to find that Perlstein’s previous book, “Before the Storm”, about the Goldwater/Republican revival, appears to be out of print. With “Nixonland” out and selling well, I hope a reprinting of the paperback is in the works. Has anyone seen/heard anything about it?
Punchy
I just heard that Dunkin’ Donuts has stopped selling bearclaws in their stores. It seems that the cruller’ moniker in question contains connotations that are too crude and crass for conservatives.
Punchy
Dunkin’ Donuts has just announced that they will no longer open any of their stores, becuase apparently terrorists love donuts, too, and they refuse to be complicit in supporting such chocolate-glazed jihad.
phobos
Someone was complaining the other day about the dearth of snark-free movie advice. I usually avoid recommending films, but De Zaak Alzheimer and El Aura have impressed me lately. See the former before the crappy Hollywood remake already in the works.
Kevin
HAHAHAHAHA! Oh man, Punchy, those are priceless!
Dreggas
Regarding those coins. Is anyone really surprised? When I was in it seemed like there was a dual boot camp being run by the southern good old boys doing their preaching and shit in the barracks and not just on sundays. Hell the chaplain had to point out time and again there was no discrimination but the one pure pagan kid was dressed down in front of the entire company for his pentacle because one of the Drill Sgt’s didn’t think it was a holy symbol for “Any god to be worshipped” and that one was always going on about christ and crap too. That was in the 90’s!
ThymeZone
I have no interest in reading Nixonland. I endured all of it real time and firsthand, and I have neither the need nor the desire to relive any of it. I also don’t agree with the CW on this topic that we “live in Nixonland.” We live more in Johnsonland, because he is the guy who gave us the big Vietnam War, and the Civil Rights Act. Those two things are the biggest trademarks in my adulthood. By far.
Also I read somewhere in the course of poking around this Nixonland thing a phrase like “the stunning success of the conservative movement.” Uh, no. Success at fashioning a political machine, and delivering some considerable electoral success, but complete failure at delivering any real conservatism, any revolution in policy or economics. Look at this last two presidential terms as the culmination of this “movement” and what do you see? Profligate spending, huge government intrusion into the lives of citizens, and nation-building on a grotesque scale. Those aren’t the things of conservatism. They are the opposite of conservatism.
Please resume your regularly scheduled gabfest.
Dreggas
Oh, UPS delivered my new PC yesterday absolutely bad ass PC.
binzinerator
Why hell yes, Anad, they are trying to convert you. The evangelicals come to my house too and tell me I was born wrong, that I got the wrong religion. They’d fob the same damn verse off on me if I’d let them. But I have the luxury of being able to slam my door in their faces, if I so choose, without fear of them shooting me with guns.
Actually, I’m surprised the proselytizing hadn’t happened earlier. This was to be expected when the bushie-supported evangelicals got behind the wheel.
Fucking stupid evangelicals. Sometimes I think they have no clue just how offensive it is to many people, other christians included, to have their religion shoved under other peoples’ noses. Other times I think they do know, they just don’t give a shit. It’s for Jesus, ya know, so it’s OK.
If ever there was support to fears and accusations that Bushies see the war in Iraq partly as a holy crusade, as bible prophecy, this is it.
Funny how my contempt for evangelicals has paralleled that of the GOP. I never used to have anything but tolerance and politeness towards them. No surprise that changed I guess, since they’ve decided to become intertwined with gooper politics with an aim to dominate key government organizations.
I predict their “brand” will tank just like the GOP brand. Only when they get rooted out of the organizations they’ve burrowed into, they’ll whine about how they’re all being persecuted ’cause they’re christians and all that.
Tom Hilton
I’m most of the way through the George Packer article inspired by Nixonland (I’m reading it intermittently, as my New Yorker consumption coincides with certain digestive functions which I won’t identify with any specificity), and so my conclusions are a) Must Read Nixonland and b) Packer’s article is the Feelgood Article of the Decade. Call me a crazy optimist, but I’m seeing all kinds of evidence (e.g.: the California poll on gay marriage) that Positive Polarization has played itself out.
ThymeZone
Been saying it. My red state rejected DOMA at the polls, and also elected and reelected a gay woman governor.
The politics of bigotry and librul-hatin’ has run its course. And I live in a state populated by Mormons, Goldwaters, Kyls and McCains, and Rick Renzi. Go figure.
The Grand Panjandrum
Your local public library may have a copy. See if the have an online catalog and do a search.
BethanyAnne
I caught a link to this article over at Yglesias’ place. I really liked it. It’s fun playing whack-a-mole with the latest stupidity coming from TalkHillary, but I’m beginning to get tired of it, honestly. Which is prolly a good thing. I have a pile of books to read, and a new shammy to level. And a ton of other stuff to do.
The parallel that strikes me from reading this article is between the blags and talk radio. It’s fun for a while, but it has been beginning to feel like we are all shouting to other true believers, with little useful information passing between camps. Or maybe the focus on the split self in my current read is just sinking in to my thoughts.
Anywhoodles, back to pretending to work on a slow Thursday.
B
Dreggas
And don’t forget everyone’s favorite Sheriff, Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
binzinerator
They not only don’t get the irony, I think they would not be bothered by turning the Middle East into a molten sheet of glass if they thought it will bring about the Rapture. It would be for a good cause, you see. It’s doing the Lord’s work, so while it might be a little unpleasant, it’s still justified.
In a related thought, if you’ve ever seen gun-nut web sites, you will notice many of them have quotes from scripture or crosses or other Jesus-Is-Lord paraphernalia. They just have no fucking clue of the irony, even hypocrisy, of glorifying assault rifles and “survivalist” tactics, which involves shooting at starving people who come to your barricaded compound after a disaster begging for food water or shelter. Of course there are endless “Amen!” like responses to any condemnation of the eternal evilness of Bill Clinton because he banned some of their favorite toys.
You look at it all that crazy shit, realize it’s about as opposite as could be from that guy from Nazareth who preached peace and love, and then you see the Gospel quotes and you think “What the fuck is wrong with these people?”
They not only don’t get the irony and hypocrisy, they will either ignore you or get hissy-pissy or quote more self-justifying scripture at you if you point it out.
Martin
Coins? Shit, hand out Double-Doubles and chocolate shakes if you just want to lay a John 3-16 on them.
Zifnab
She did work for his campaign.
Bill Arnold
The used copies available are $150+ asking price!!!
That book got me through a multi-generational family vacation on a cruise ship. It was fascinating.
Bubblegum Tate
…a view that isn’t exactly massively different from that of the Jews. These intra-Abrahamic religion squabbles really make for some interesting two-on-ones.
Anyway, this coin thing. Both fucking stupid on many levels and very unsurprising. For most rational observers, it’s a total facedesk. For the hardcore fundie wingnuts, it’s “What’s wrong with telling them about Jesus?”
Incertus
While us elitists read The New Yorker on the shitter. And Rolling Stone.
Cris
Where in NWMT, neighbor?
Fledermaus
I’ve been saying that the nutjob “These are GOD’S RULES!!!!” christians are the primary source for huge increase of people saying they are ‘agnostic’ or ‘other’ in religion surveys. Well that and Sunday 10AM football on the West Coast.
Observer
I wish Amazon would revise their policy about hardcopy/Kindle download. I bought my copy of Nixonland and a week later bought a kindle but I’m still stuck with this doorstop of a book. I may never buy another hardcopy book again.
Rick Taylor
If this turns out to be true, can we impeach him now?
Harley
Nixonland is a tremendous read, and it shows, in great detail, how the country had a kind of nervous collapse/breakdown back then. And the manifold ways in which Richard Nixon took full advantage of that circumstance.
Also, elitists don’t read The New Yorker anymore. They read Monocle.
A Different JC
Holy moley, Punchy, you’re right! Time to Make the Donuts Guy vs. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Augh!!
Send this to Malkin, stat!
phobos
This remaking of the Middle East is brought in part to you by Regent University: Christian Leadership To Change The World.
Amen.
Kevin
That looks better.
vwcat
Don’t tell us this John.
I have a loooooooooong list on amazon already. Arg! Now I’m going to have to add to it and wade through that long list.
Incertus
Can we impeach him for this maybe? Dignity restored to the White House my ass. He’s a goddamn twelve-year old.
Dennis - SGMM
MSNBC just announced that actor Harvey Korman has passed away.
Godspeed.
And that’s Hedley!
Chris Kade
I am halfway through it and it is INDEED one of the best histories of recent American history I have ever read … and I’ve read quite a few. A real page-turner that gives me a renewed understanding of the politico-culture wars we have been experiencing for the last 40 years. … I have been continually amazed by the relevance of what I am reading to the current political campaign and America of the 21st century. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
El Doh
Yeah, my girlfriend just told me. Very sad about that.
Blazing Saddles is one of my favorite movies.
Napoleon
It took me a few months about 6 months ago used through Amazon. In the last week I saw Rick Perlstein mention he has a stash that he makes sales from. E-mail the publisher also and mention you want to buy and maybe they get enough of those they put it back in print. Oh and check e-bay.
SamFromUtah
Only when they get rooted out of the organizations they’ve burrowed into, they’ll whine about how they’re all being persecuted ‘cause they’re christians and all that.
Well, they do that even when they’re in absolute control of an organization and somebody dares do voice any criticism, so yeah.
Pb
Oddly enough, I’m in Second Life with Rick Perlstein right now; he’ll be doing an interview here in an hour (that’s at 9pm Eastern, 6pm SLT aka California time).
John Cole
Ask him if he detects a Frnaklin/orthogonian rift that Hillary is trying to exploit since Ohio/PA.
Dreggas
Absolutely Fascinating…
Dennis - SGMM
Make a joyous whine unto the Lord.
Octavian
Not completely related to Nixonland, but John, if you’re enjoying that, I highly recommend Ted Sorensen’s memoir, Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History. It was released earlier this month and it’s just fantastic.
Doug H. (Fausto no more)
I saw him on a Carol Burnett retrospective on PBS a couple weeks back. He didn’t look too good.
Did he scrawl his name in cement before he passed?
Harley
John,
Franklins and Orthogonians, that’s the ticket! And Hillary, more than ever, and particularly with regards to that schism, seems the Pantsuit Nixon.
Krista
Oh, that is sad. I watched the Carol Burnett Show all the time when I was growing up, and loved how he and Tim Conway would just make each other completely lose it.
Here’s a fave. Rest in Peace, Harvey — the laughter you inspired will live on for generations after you’re gone.
dr. bloor
Thanks for the link–just heard about his death on the radio on the way home. The clip took me right back to Saturday nights when I was ten or so.
And my son was amazed to learn that Tim Conway is the voice of Barnacle Boy on Spongebob. Generations, indeed.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Ditto that.
If you are posing the question, you already know the answer. Nixon in a pantsuit already. Nixon’s poker game nickname “Lead butt” as a tribute to his inhuman patience seems appropriate to describe the wait them out and make it take forever strategy being pursued by HRC right now.
I’m about halfway thru reading Nixonland (and would be done by now except I had to go back and re-read Parting The Waters by Taylor Branch to refresh my memory re: the Civil Rights movement).
Two questions keep coming up for me as the pages of Nixonland go by:
1) I keep imagining what an Eisenhower era Republican would make of today’s political landscape if they had been whisked in a time machine from say 1954 to 2008, and the mind boggles. The pre-1970s GOP used to be so freaking liberal by today’s standards it makes my head spin. Parting The Waters reinforces this too, especially the pre-1960 GOP re: Civil Rights, when the Republicans could still claim to be the party of Lincoln with a straight face (and conversely a pre-1960 Democrat would freak out over the idea that half-century later an African American would be running for President as the Democratic nominee).
What happened inside the leaders of the GOP, in terms of their psychology, as this change was taking place?
I can understand them appealing to racists to tip the electoral balance against the Democrats, but how did that progess from cynical exploitation to drinking the kool-aid at the leadership level? Spiro Agnew stands out as an especially stark example of someone who went from fairly liberal to authoritarian conservative within a shocking brief period of time.
The polarization process described in Nixonland is amazing because the two parties started from such similar places and ended up passing each other going in opposite directions.
2) Why did the Watts riot and other things which followed happend when they did and not earlier? Why did the ghettos explode in riots just as LBJ was getting more and more civil rights legislation thru Congress? The timing of events seems truly tragic – almost designed to set back the clock by discrediting those very changes.
Was this a case of rising expectations accelerating faster than the actual on the ground results? By passing those civil rights bills, did LBJ unscrew the lid on a pressure cooker?
cbear
Because at heart they were always money-grubbing, corporatist assholes?
catatonia
Anyone think the younger Tim Conway looks a lot like ol Scotty?
Bob In Pacifica
On the cover Nixon’s head looks too big for his body.
I haven’t really started reading it yet. What’s so good about it, John?
Kevin
Thanks, Krista, that was awesome, I hadn’t seen that one since I was a kid.
Wilfred
You should read Robert Coover’s “Whatever Happened to Gloomy Gus of the Chicago Bears” – absolutely hilarious invention of Nixon’s possible life.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
But not all of the Republicans were stereotypical monocle-wearing cigar-chomping capitalists out of a 1920s cartoon. That is one of the strengths of the book (to answer Bob in Pacifica’s question) – it presents a much more nuanced and three dimensional portrait of the pre-Watergate GOP than is in common circulation these days, and the contrast with today’s GOP really is deeply shocking.
One of the frequent themes in John’s writing on this blog over the last couple of years has been how the nuts took over the GOP. This tells the story of how and why the Eisenhower fiscal conservatives and the Rockefeller / Lindsay / Rommney liberals lost their grip on the party.
It also paints a not very flattering portrait of the counter-cultural left, and how the polarization of the country which took place during Nixon’s career was really a joint (bad pun not intended) project between the right and the left, and how many of the political wounds suffered by the left during that period were self-inflicted.
It is hard to read this book without wanting to reach back in time across the years and shake some sense into a lot of these people. What a bunch of freaking idiots and ridiculous egos run amok, without any sense of the longer term consequences of their actions or historical perspective used to guide their choices. They seemed to act as if the world was going to end next year, and then everybody would be graded on how well they had done when the buzzer rang. Boomer youth – not a pretty sight.
TenguPhule
The Stupid, it’s over 9000!
A Different JC
I haven’t read Nixonland yet (just put it on wishlist, will buy it when I have some money) but one way to look at the pre-Nixon GOP is to remember that the solid-red South was totally Democratic back then. Still was even in 1976 (check out the electoral map, Carter won Texas but lost California, freaky). Even though Southern Democrats were pretty conservative, the South just couldn’t bear to vote for the party of Lincoln.
The liberal Democrats and southern Democrats were an unhappy marriage and civil rights led to the much needed divorce. And it took Bush Jr. to finally drive the liberal and moderate Republicans into the Democratic camp.
That’s why people say the 2006 midterms were a realigning election: it’s possible that the two parties have solidified into more natural definitions than they have had for generations: the liberal and moderate Republicans can now define as Democrats (cf. Lincoln Chafee). After the 2008 election, it may be possible that the other liberal Republicans will switch over as well, just to get some power
Mike P
I got my copy of “Before the Storm” (after much searching) online for only about $30 bucks I think (it’s been at least a year or so since I bought it, so I might have the price wrong). I got mine through Powell’s Books…might be worth seeing if they can get one on order for those interested.
The Other Steve
I don’t know. Andrew Volstead was a Republican. Franklin Roosevelt campaigned in part on repealing prohibition.
But on other fronts… Planned Parenthood was basically founded by Republicans. So it’s a mixed bag on liberalism.
dj spellchecka
John Cole Says: “You know, I should not be reading this book, as I am learning more and more unflattering comparisons to the campaign run by Sen. Clinton the past few months.”
john, if you’ve never read about Nixon’s “ratfuckers” [the chosen name of the 1972 dirty tricks squad], you are in for a treat.
the stuff they pulled is beyond imagining. for example, they wrecked an entire day of planned campaigning for muskie by giving his pilot the wrong schedule.
today’s campaigns are squeaky clean by comparison.
binzinerator
I’d like to reach back just 5 years ago and do the same. Or even yesterday.
But dood, what you said would still apply to our current president. But he’s a boomer, right? The quintessential boomer president. He is the epitome of the postmodern presidency.
Boomers in their early senior years. Bush, the Clintons. Why does sophomoric often seem more apt?
Not a pretty sight.