Sarah's Complaint

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My fellow Americans,

So it seems that the intrepid little semi-Governor Sarah Palin has decided to stop letting her handlers, advisors, aides, and other various and sundry apologists speak for her. It's about time. When I had to face a crisis (such as rebutting claims of false prosecution of Alger Hiss, misappropriation of campaign funds, or the Watergate cover-up) I made sure that I was the one facing the cameras and speaking to the people. Hiding behind others is a coward's choice. Besides, no one can speak as well for one's self as they can.

So, it was a relief that Sarah finally came forward. Unfortunately, as much as the little filly has chutzpah (as Kissinger would say), she is still the dimwit who claimed proximity to Russia was foreign policy experience and that the rapture is on it's way.

Now, far be it for me to criticize a fellow conservative. Particularly one currently embroiled in the swirl of negative press. While other voices that said Sarah's effort has further diminished her already hollow, superficial, and insutbstantial persona, I am impressed by her ambitious effort.

Semi-Gov. Palin's statement is a bold attempt to once and for all strip the crown of victimization from the still blod-stained hands of Rep. Giffords and the other victims, and place it firmly on her empty head. Forget those who were shot - the real tragedy here is how our poor, misunderstood little Sarah is being treated so unfairly and being mercilessly picked-on:

If you don’t like a person’s vision for the country, you’re free to debate that vision [...] But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.

Her point, aside from clumsily climbing upon a crucifix of her own making in order to publicly martyr herself while accusing those who are tired of her occasionally incoherent rhetoric of "Blood Libel," is to do as she says, not as she does!  Also, that she is not only not responsible for the shooting, but that the constant stream of venom, anger, hate, scapegoating, xenophobia, intolerance, fearmongering, lies, and violent talk coming from her and the right isn't causing a toxic environment:

There are those who claim political rhetoric is to blame for the despicable act of this deranged, apparently apolitical criminal. And they claim political debate has somehow gotten more heated just recently. But when was it less heated? Back in those “calm days” when political figures literally settled their differences with dueling pistols? In an ideal world all discourse would be civil and all disagreements cordial. But our Founding Fathers knew they weren’t designing a system for perfect men and women. If men and women were angels, there would be no need for government. Our Founders’ genius was to design a system that helped settle the inevitable conflicts caused by our imperfect passions in civil ways. So, we must condemn violence if our Republic is to endure.

See? We no longer solve political disagreement with duels. Only with one unbalanced geek holding a semi-automatic pistol.  Besides, the Founding Fathers wanted us to get down into the muck and use the most vile, insulting, and personally slanderous insults in political debates!  So forget about Abe Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt,  and Thomas Jefferson.  Political talk has always been icky.  The fact that Palin, conservative commentators, and the tea-people pepper their rhetoric with thinly veiled references to armed revolt and that the left are traitors who should be eliminated with expediency isn't creating an atmosphere of intolerance ... it's just passionate debate.

However, the most impressive thing Palin attempts is a move with an incredibly high degree of difficulty: a complex four-part combination of: invoking the name of the real victim as a means of weeping her innocence, using 9-11 as a shield, proclaiming that combative conservative propaganda has never called the opposition anti-American, while simultaneously (you guessed it) accusing anyone disagreeing with her as being an anti-American:

Just days before she was shot, Congresswoman Giffords read the First Amendment on the floor of the House. It was a beautiful moment [...] But less than a week after Congresswoman Giffords reaffirmed our protected freedoms, another member of Congress announced that he would propose a law that would criminalize speech he found offensive.

It is in the hour when our values are challenged that we must remain resolved to protect those values. Recall how the events of 9-11 challenged our values and we had to fight the tendency to trade our freedoms for perceived security. And so it is today.

See? It's clear that those who don't agree and who think that somehow the confrontational style of Palin has contributed to the demise of civility are just a bunch of anti-American, treacherous, communists who want to take away our freedoms.

It's as clear as day.

 
 
Nixon is: Impressed
 

Deny! Deny! Deny!

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My fellow Americans,

In the aftermath of the assault on sitting US Representative Gabby Giffords (D-AZ), which left several others dead, there've been questions as to motive. What on earth could have driven the young man responsible to intentionally target this Congresswoman.

Naturally, since the victim was a democrat the press and the more hysterical leftists automatically assume that the shooter, one Jared Loughner, was directly influenced by conservative rhetoric.

They gleefully pointed to such things as the somewhat aggressive nature of conservative talk show hosts and commentators like Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Michelle Malkin, Anne Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, etc; the propensity with which right-wing candidates (such as Giffords' opponent in the recent election, Jesse "Machine Gun" Kelly) use militaristic and combat metaphors in reference to their opponents; the negative, confrontational, and occasionally exceedingly angry and violence-tinged tone of the recent tea-people protests; and much, much more.

Yet the subversives and hippies have reserved their largest scorn for our intrepid and plucky semi-Governor, Sarah Palin.

They note how Palin had at one point Twittered (in reference to congressional campaigns including Rep. Giffords' seat) "Don't retreat. Instead -- RELOAD!" imploring the public to visit her website which showed Rep. Giffords' district as one targeted for action with a rifle's crosshairs.

So, what are conservatives in general, and semi-Gov. Palin in particular, to do?

Exactly what they are doing now, and (not coincidentally) what I did back in 1972 when word of the Watergate nonsense first broke: Deny, Deny, Deny.  When those two pinko reporters first started writing about Watergate I made sure that everyone on my staff - from the Vice President to the guy who mopped the puke in the men's room - vehemently denied it. And just like I did then, the tea-people and republicans are feverishly and bravely denying any blame now.

The beauty is that it doesn't matter that the accusations are correct.  Sure, technically this Loughner guy was just one deranged individual acting on his own.  But one can't expect to shit the bed then be surprised that it stinks.  Of course all the violent, angry, belligerent, brutal, and confrontational bombast pouring from various republican candidates, tea-people websites and pamphlets, and conservative media is poisoning society and has created an atmosphere in which violence is inevitable.  There's no doubt!  One can't constantly refer to the opponent as anti-American traitors and terrorists; use images of guns, targets, bullets, and wanted posters in propaganda; or exhort supporters to take action using thinly veiled metaphors for attacking, warfare, and defending one's self from an enemy bent on destroying their freedom and then be surprised when some unstable geek decides to go on a shooting spree. 

The point is, so what?  Since when has the truth mattered, or since when do politicians or agitators accept responsibility for their behavior?  The only way this will stop is if the orthogonians do something about it, and they won't.  Because pandering to the most base level of fear, hatred, and paranoia works.

So it's important that the conservatives not only deny, but take the initiative.  After all, denial on it's own appears like an admission of guilt.  Therefore, one must try and turn the tables to implicate the other guy, because in politics, like football, the best defense is a good offense.  I turned the tables against all of my enemies by insinuating at every opportinuty that their crimes and malfeasance made anything for which I was accused of seem like swiping bubblegum from the corner market. And the right is doing the same thing now: not only audaciously scrambling to wrest victimhood from the hands of those who were actually shot, but pointing the finger right back at the left, claiming that the whole shooting is their fault.

In an artful bit of deflection, Rebecca Mansour, semi-Gov. Palin's aide, not only dismissed suggestion that Palin's belligerent behavior and combative rhetoric were related to the shooting, but that it was actually Palin who was the real victim in all this.  Mansour called any criticism of our plucky little reality television personality "obscene and appaling" implying how unfair and hurtful such claims are, and how deeply they are affecting the innocent and pure Sarah. Why, one can almost see our beloved Sarah plain-and-small laying face-down on her bed in a dimly lit room, clutching the skin of a bear she recently shot from a helicopter using a high-powered semi-automatic rifle equipped with a marksman's scope, softly weeping over how everyone is being so mean to her and paying all that attention to some stupid congresswoman (who wasn't even killed!).

It's enough to make a grown man need to take a moment to gather himself.

Nixon is: Impressed

Happy Hour: Oil's Well That Ends Well

Te.

Cheers!

You can count me as one of New Orleans' biggest fans.  I've long appreciated the sweaty charm of the Big Easy.  Many is the time I've spent lost weekends in it's dusky embrace, bathed in the spicy musk of creole sensuality and alcohol-fueled enthusiasm.

So, naturally, seeing the area once again be threatened with a devastating disaster is very difficult for me to take.  The only time one should smell petroleum in New Orleans is if you pay good money for the privilege.

Make no mistake, the spill need not have been this bad.  While in the Senate, I was one of the most fervent voices for regulating the oil industry  - but a procession of Republican presidents and congresses disagreed,  result in BP getting approval to drill in the Gulf of Mexico without the required Environmental Impact Assessment study, or commitments to safety and redundant back-up systems in case of accident.  You know, the kind of hands-off approach the Republican Party support in their "Drill, Baby, Drill" zeal.

Not surprisingly, conservatives are now stumbling over themselves to try and gain some level of distance between themselves and their greasy monster, while others are spouting the Orwellian claim that somehow this is the fault of the Democrats and President Obama – going so far as to call this “Obama’s Katrina” as if the two events had anything in common aside from geography.  The absurdity is astonishing.  How Hurricane Katrina in 2005 parallels with the current situation is something even a dozen or so belts of whiskey doesn’t explain.  The Hurricane was a disaster that directly impacted the city and it’s residents, demanding swift federal response in terms of emergency, health, evacuation, and housing support.  The oil spill requires none of these, yet even so Obama and the government are monitoring the situation and have offered support as needed.

The Bush administration's inactivity during Hurricane Katrina showed them to be completely over-matched and unprepared.  Although it was known well before landfall that Katrina would be a devastating storm, there were no preliminary efforts made by the federal government to have some sort of support or emergency response contingency in effect.  When the storm hit and the nation watched a city drown before their eyes Bush did his best impression of Nero, picking and strumming a guitar with a total disregard for the people suffering.   It was only a week after the fact that Bush arrived in New Orleans for a few clumsily staged photos trying to make him seem engaged and concerned.

Yet still the republican wags are blaming Obama for not donning his cape and using his super-powers to stop the leak himself.  It’s almost as if they are calling for the federal government to step in, take over for the company, and handle every aspect of the containment and clean-up – from the cost to the manpower.  These are the same people who yowled like stuck pigs at the idea of the government providing healthcare to those unable to get it for themselves.

But even more amazing is how the right are suddenly using Katrina as a pejorative, after claiming (with a straight face) that Bush did nothing wrong.  How can the perfectly acceptable actions of Bush during the hurricane suddenly be held as some sort of low-water mark for Obama?  Can it be that even republican expectations for Bush were so low that his not visibly pissing his pants and drooling on television was considered successful?

In any case, this disaster has had at least one bright side:  it’s caused  Sarah Palin to go into hiding.

Bottums Up!

The Silence of the Dopes

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My fellow Americans,

Today I’d like to take a moment to talk to all of you about silence.

Some say that silence is golden.  Others say it’s a virtue.  While still others claim it’s the best way to avoid confirming one’s idiocy in the mind of others.

It seems that someone on Semi-Governor Palin’s team must truly believe the latter, because our plucky little functionally retarded conservative crusader has been conspicuously absent from the news for the last week or so.

Which is strange, because this last week has seen a growing environmental disaster from the oil spill in the gulf of Mexico, increasing agitation over Arizona’s illegal immigrant law, and an attempted terrorist car-bombing in New York’s Times Square.  And someone who wants to be taken seriously as a potential candidate for president dreams of exactly these sorts of situations, so they can capitalize on the opportunity to make the people see them as a strong, calm, and dependable leader.

Back in the mid 60’s, when I was carefully preparing my candidacy for the 1968 presidential election, there was no end to these opportunities.  Race riots were flaring up seemingly every weekend.  The war in Vietnam was beginning to become more and more a disaster.  The college kids were spreading subversion in the form of free love and drugs.  And whenever anything boiled over Nixon was there.  You didn’t see me running for cover like a frightened schoolgirl.  I was always ready to offer a word or advice or analysis, and this added a veneer of leadership to my persona that helped make the Orthogonians see me as slightly less unlikeable.

Unfortunately, these are also situations in which the less capable can destroy any aspirations they have, the way George Romney's presidential bid was ended after he muffed questions about Vietnam in '67.  And as we all saw from her unscripted interviews with Katie Couric, little Sarah-Plain-and-Small is perhaps the least capable public figure around.  In fact, having her speak would be inviting disaster.  I think, perhaps, that Sarah’s handlers realize that the best strategy is to keep her hidden. Her strength is name-calling and fear-mongering, not calm, measured reassurance.  Besides, what could she say?  That even though the Bush administration deregulation of oil companies she preaches in her "Drill, Baby, Drill!" sermons helped make the disaster in the gulf worse, opening the coasts for an orgy of speculation is still a good thing? Even worse, she would very likely burble something almost completely incoherent while winking at the camera like a boozed up skank at last call, desperate for a one-night stand.

So, perhaps in this case Sarah’s silence is a good idea.  Not only does it prevent us further confirming our suspicions about her idiocy, it also gives us all a good break from the Wasilla Half-Wit.

Nixon is: Ambivalent

The Marching Morons

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My fellow Americans,

Today I'd like to take a brief moment to open up to you about something that has really been chafing my hide: the annoying practice shown by the extreme right-wing elements (such as the tea people) to make it a point to portray President Obama being a socialist, only to then (often in the same breath, or in the same poster), associate him with Hitler.

Now, I know some of you may be wondering whether Nixon has gone soft. I want to make it absolutely clear that is not the case.  I know the value of painting someone with a brush of lies, and I support any and all efforts to that end.  But even within the libel, distortion, and blatantly outrageous defamation of a political campaign, there has to be at least a level of consistency in order to make them plausible.

So, this trend of simultaneously calling Obama both a Socialist and Fascist within one breath is not only grotesquely embarrassing, but also shows a stunning ignorance.

Here's a perfect example:

I'll just give you a moment to allow the utter idiocy of labeling an image of Obama with three Communist icons "Fascism" to sink in.

I know. The ignorance here is pretty alarming. How can Obama be both a Communist and a Fascist at the same time?  That's like saying he's both wet and dry. Communism and Fascism are a zero-sum game.  You're either one or the other.  Choose a side and stick with it.

Now, I know that I should be the bigger man in this case and just let it go.  But that's not the Nixon way.  I was never the bigger man. I based my entire political life on not being the bigger man, and making sure to exaggerate every irritant, offense, and inaccuracy no matter how insignificant or inadvertent.  In fact, I was the smallest man of all - which allowed me to be so effective in my slander, character assassination, and manipulation of the truth to whip the ignorant masses into a frenzy. Remember, I was the one who raised Communist-baiting and treasonous innuendo to an art form.  And, I think I know something of the difference between Communists and Fascists.

So, allow me to offer a quick primer to all of those morons out there who continue to remain confused, because it is pretty simple, actually.  Communists are extreme leftists.  Fascists are extreme rightists.  Left/Democrat = Communist.  Right/Republican = Nazi.  How people can be such blithering idiots as to mess that up astounds me, and leads me to wonder what sort of difficulty they have in putting on their shoes in the morning.  As a leftist, Obama should be portrayed as Stalin, Lenin, Che, or Castro.  And, as the counterpoint, rightists such as Sarah Palin should be portrayed as Hitler, Mussolini, or as a stormtrooper for the SS.

Besides, the whole idea of Obama as a Nazi simply flies in the face of reason.  Nazis are about racial, cultural, spiritual, and national purity.  So it's pretty asinine to portray a mulatto as the leader of such a movement.  No, the people who represent the Nazi ideals are those who preach hatred and intolerance of others - Birchers and reactionaries like Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, or Jan Brewer.  A good Nazi wants to eliminate those who don't conform to their racial/cultural/religious standards (through imprisonment, deportment, or execution), not one who wants to open the borders to everyone or provide government-sponsored healthcare and assistance! To give a simple example, the Arizona anti-Illegal Immigrant law is fascist, while those amnesty laws would be Communist.

So painting Obama as Hitler is just stupid.  He is not Hitler.  Besides, do you think those fiercely conservative militias out there, with Swastikas and Nazi-inspired slogans and artwork decorating their remote clubhouses in the wilderness, and who preach their white power and anti-government liturgy want a black man as their figurehead?  Think about it.

It honestly makes me wonder about the intelligence of the right.

It's more and more apparent that people are simply not as well-educated today as they were even 20 years ago.  Particularly, I am ashamed to say, republicans.  Now I know that we republicans were always less intelligent than democrats - but that gap is widening.  And with every day and every new display of right-wing propaganda that gap is more and more evident. Of course I realize that when trying to get the support of the Orthogonians one has to dumb things down considerably.  Aiming for a 5th grade education is about correct for the dingbats and nitwits who make up the republican base.  But even then, one doesn't have to be Sarah Palin and go full retard.  You can still hit the lowest common denominator while maintaining simple factual accuracy.  The accusations of Obama being a socialist are perfect for the nincompoops out there who have no idea what socialism actually is (i.e. the tea people).  And while the claim that Obama is a socialist is obviously false, at least it falls within a broadly appropriate tautological application.

The worst part is that this whole confusion of Socialist, Communist, and Fascist makes us (the real and true republicans) seem just as stupid as the tea people.  And Nixon can not abide that.

Nixon Disapproves

Spying for/on Dummies

Spying .
My fellow Americans,

It seems our intrepid semi-Governor Sarah Palin has completed her testimony in the case of the miserable little liberal punk who hacked into her unsecure Yahoo email account. 

The question isn't whether this pinko is guilty, but rather of the manner and extent of punishment this twerp deserves.

As someone who knows a thing or two about undercover surveillance, allow me to offer my perspective: This brat should be punished fully and completely. Oh, not because he hacked Palin's email. After all, part of the political game is intelligence and operating on the edge of ethics and law.  In order to have the advantage over any adversary one needs as much information on them as possible. And if you need to creep into an office under the cover of night and bug the campaign headquarters of a rival in order to learn more about them, well, that's just the price of doing business.

No.  The reason this irritating bastard should be shown no mercy is because of the clumsy manner in which he gained access to Palin's email.  Even more, because he did so and didn't even make the slightest attempt to cover his tracks.

Before embarking on any sort of operation of this nature one needs to take the time to properly lay the groundwork.  Among the things that must be considered are whether you have the proper personnel in place to conduct the mission with competence.  Even more important is to ensure that you cover every possible contingency in case of error or discovery.  Did this kid have any sort of alibi ready, or even some cover story to provide credible deniability?  What about something - carrot (in the form of hush money) or stick (in the form of assassins) - to make sure that all persons involved remain loyal? Or, at the very least, a plausible scapegoat or willing fall-guy who could take the heat so the Boss doesn't get tossed into the slammer. I was meticulous in my pre-game preparation.  I made sure I had the right pieces on the board before I launched the mission, and even gave them a cool name: The Plumbers.  Liddy provided the stern hand and blind brutality required to make sure the others stayed in line.  Bebe Rebozo secured a very deep slush fund in case we had to grease any palms or buy any cooperation.  And my Bobs were there, ready to not only swear to my innocence, but also willing to take a bullet if it came to that.

And even with all my careful strategy things went wrong.  So the level of audacity and hubris in this kid is simply stunning.  It's as if he didn't even think this through.  A lethal error on his part, and one that needs to be met with a dear enough cost so that he won't make the same mistake in planning the next time he tries something like this.

Of course, Palin is not without some level of blame in this mess.  After all, anyone involved in even the lowest rung of political battle should be savvy enough to realize you simply do not use an open line for communication.  The fact that she was so mind-bogglingly stupid is reason enough to consider her ill-equipped for the office of the President.

Nixon Disapproves

Send In the Clowns

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My fellow Americans,

I don’t need to tell you that political campaigns are built on equal parts mendacity, pandering, and charisma.  But for some reason I’ve always had difficulty with that last bit.  Inexplicably, people just weren’t attracted to the Nixon charm. Children would cry whenever they saw me and my campaign managers would constantly remind me to never smile because of the intense feeling of distaste it caused.  Even Pat said that while she loved me, she really didn’t like me at all. 

This wasn’t a problem at first, because I was able to insinuate myself with the rest of the Orthogonians out there and deflect attention from myself through the use of communist boogeymen.  However, in 1960 it became an issue, and by 1966 it was a crisis.  So I did what so many successful politicians did: I hired a joke-writer. Two years later, I was elected the 37th president of the United States.

 
Since then, the charisma thing has elected five of the last six presidents: Carter was the naïve aw-shucks innocent, Reagan played the wisecracking game-show host, Clinton was the suave party-guy, W was the folksy dullard, and Obama is the earnest visionary.  So, it’s not really any surprise that potential candidates for 2012 are already honing their acts.  The one who has the biggest head-start has to be Sarah Palin, trying a Reagan-Bush hybrid of mean-spirited folksiness and one-liners. 

Her speeches are nothing more than a collection of sardonic insults and precisely calculated “zingers” designed to create a persona and give the fawning crowds something to wildly applaud.  Oh, there’s no doubting it’s effective, but it’s also very hollow and at the end of the day, unsatisfactory.  One gets the feeling that Sarah Palin will wear out her welcome very quickly  – sort of like that “Wild and Crazy Guys” thing SNL used to do.  Because gags and insults will only get you so far.  At some point you have to serve some meat to go with all the appetizers.  And the danger for her is that Sarah Palin is quickly becoming nothing more than a warm-up act.  A one-dimensional, insult-spouting MC that whips the faithful into a frenzy, but who then cedes the stage for the main attraction.

Look, when I was unveiling the new, likable Nixon I did the whole Bob Hope thing too, shooting one-liners at people like LBJ.  But I also included a lot of self-mocking gags, and in the end I had the gravitas that comes with experience and knowledge behind me.  Sure, people enjoyed my jokes, but they also knew that with Nixon it was all-business.  Palin gives the opposite feeling.  People look at her and just know that there is absolutely nothing behind her makeup.  Take away her joke-writers and all you have is a nasal-voiced, intolerant nincompoop.

That seemed to work okay for Reagan and W, but at least with me you knew there was more than just a friendly face.

Nixon is: Smug

Whore: A Definition by Example

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My fellow Americans,

There are very few things that can make me turn my head and fight the primitive reaction to vomit in disgust.  Student protests are one.  Smug, pompous, privileged, Harvard-educated Franklins are another.

But sadly, neither of those things is the cause today.  I've just found that one of those miserable Palin kids will be on some saccharine television program preaching the importance of abstinence (I can't recall her name - something like Bottlecap, or Whiplash.  Anyway, she's the unwed high-school mommy).

For a moment, lets leave aside the incredible hypocrisy of using a girl who spread her legs like butter on toast to tell others to not give in to their throbbing biological urges.  This is yet another example of Caribou Barbie's ludicrous insincerity in terms of using her mewling spawn as fodder for her political ambitions, while at the same time loudly wailing whenever any of her litter is then mocked by the press.

Now, I understand the need to employ an aggressive campaign strategy by constantly attacking a straw-man, and the need to adopt creative means to maintain some semblance of public attention while not in office.  However, my choice of straw-men were hidden communists, and my choice of maintaining public attention was to continue to bolster my already impressive foreign relations experience by taking trips around the world to visit different leaders and further reinforce the perception that Nixon is a man who understands what is Really Going On.  Something a vapid backwater semi-governor who somehow equated proximity to a foreign country with foreign policy might consider.  But what I would never do is pimp out my daughter, Tricia, for the cameras and gain exposure vicariously through her.  Unlike candidate Milf, I have limits to my degradation.

When I consider what has happened to the once proud Republican party - the party of Teddy Roosevelt and Ike - it makes me more depressed than the summer of '76 when I spent my days all alone, wandering along the beaches of San Clemente, collecting bits of washed up seaweed and wishing I had another chance at how to tackle the whole Watergate thing.

Nixon is: Revolted

A Retard by Any Other Name

dis.
My fellow Americans,

It seems that we as a people (and more specifically, we Republicans as a group) are getting soft. We've lost the fortitude that allowed us to stand up to the likes of Hitler and Daniel Ellsberg, while also pulverizing opponents like McGovern or Allende into jelly.

Worse yet, what is particularly distressing is how those who lead, or who hope to lead, have also become pathetic, dribbling weaklings - demanding apologies for the slightest perceived offense. So you can imagine my supreme disappointment when Gov Sarah Palin, potential candidate for President in 2012 and the self proclaimed "pitbull with lipstick" became offended by a cartoon that made fun of retarded kids.  A Cartoon! Not an editorial in the Times or the Post, but a cartoon.


Our leaders need to be strong and able to withstand the brutality, vitriol, and character assassination that comes with the responsibility of power. Did I cry and demand an apology when the Democrats started calling me 'Tricky Dick,' or when those subversive newspaper cartoonists drew unsavory pictures of me, sweaty and grime-covered, climbing out of a sewer?

Of course not. I always gave as good as I got. In Moscow in 1959, when Kruschev tried to get the better of me in the kitchen debate, I didn't fold up and demand an apology. I fought back.  And that's what Gov. Palin needs to do. Just shut her trap about her damned mongoloid child and go on the offensive. She's shown she's capable of it. Her malicious lies and despicable slander of President Obama during the 2008 campaign were almost as good as my savage 'Pink Lady' strategy against Helen Gahagan Douglas back in 1950.  The trouble is, Palin is one of those distasteful, mealy-mouthed prima donnas who can dish it out but can't take it, and ends up getting her ruffled panties in a twist whenever things get rough. Just like a dame.

Politics is a rough business, and it needs to be. If a candidate is unable to handle the unfriendly treatment of the press or their competitor, how would they ever be able to look a communist in the eye, or be able to give the command to bomb Cambodia? Regret and compassion are only acceptable in concession speeches, and even then only if contrasted by pettiness and seething, bitter animosity. Asking for an apology - even for mocking a defenseless retard - is for losers.

Nixon is: Revolted