Nixon then and now

BBC did a special on Nixon’s drinking, drug-taking, and wife abuse. Although at the time of his administration, had we known the depth this man was not in control, we would have been terrified. The sources were from his own cabinet and his doctors and his drug supplier. At one point his Secretary of Defense talked about meeting with the Chiefs of Staff and deciding that they would disobey an immediate order to drop a bomb on a foreign power unless they all agreed because they were worried about the stability of the Commander-in-Chief.

Vietnam was a sad episode in our history. Watergate proved the strength of the Constitution. People fought back in the way they aren’t doing today as another president erodes the civil rights of population and destroys the economy.

I doubt if I will be alive to see the BBC’s documentary of GWB in forty years. Or maybe it will be a documentary on where the American people gave their country away.