Nixon and Clinton and Bush

It is hard to find three more personally different individuals that served as president than Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. Nixon was a deeply flawed individual whose sense of inferiority over his humble beginnings fueled not only the healthy ambition of the poor, but paranoia about the conspiracies of political opponents. Whereas Nixon's humble origins formed a morose and taciturn adult, Clinton's wrong-side-of-the-tracks childhood gave rise to a gregarious adult perhaps a little too concerned about what others thought of him. Bush was the child of privilege, a frat brother who was not as serious as he should have been as a young adult and apparently had a substance abuse problem. Nonetheless, all of them managed to exercise sufficient self discipline and political astuteness to become president. There are many angry and driven individuals who have not become president. Nixon did. There are many "bubbas" who have not avoided dissipation by their appetites and not risen to the presidency. Clinton did. There are many earnest children with impeccable political pedigrees who have gotten close, but have never become president. Ask Al Gore about whether familial destiny is sufficient?

These three presidents share a political fate that distinguishes them from many others who served in the office. They seem to have incited a deep and visceral animosity on the part of their political adversaries. This hostility is not born of the normal competitiveness of political differences. Jimmy Carter had the same political ideology as Clinton, but even people who opposed Carter politically never seemed to detest him with the fiery intensity devoted to Clinton. Reagan was not only a Conservative, but he was "Mr. Conservative." No person who is more Conservative could have been elected. The Left opposed him politically, even tried to ridicule him, but few apparently hated him with the visceral distaste associated with Nixon and now Bush.

Indeed, from an objective standpoint this animosity seems oddly misplaced. As flawed as Nixon was and in spite of illegal activities, he was about as Liberal in his policies as his political opponents could have hoped for. He proposed and helped pass environmental legislation like the Clean Air and Water Acts and instituted the Environmental Protection Agency. Nixon bowed to organized labor and helped create the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). He expanded affirmative action into the racial spoils system so many Liberals now embrace. In foreign policy, Nixon, the great anti-communist, began a rapprochement with the Soviet Union with the policy of Detente. Who else could have recognized Communist China and forged a more open relationship with it? Even, or should I say especially, the French appreciated Nixon.

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