I Love Me Some New Nixon Tapes

Another batch was released yesterday, and I wish I could fast-forward 40 years in time so I could drive down to Yorba Linda and spend the day listening to them all. Actually, I could telecommute, as the tapes, from 1973, can be heard right here.

One thing I love about the Nixon White House is the impression that they did almost nothing. Somebody would wander into the Oval Office, and Nixon and that figure, either Colson, Haldeman, Kissinger or Ehrlichman, would just shoot the bill with the President for about 45 minutes or so. It sounds less like the White House and more like The Office. I mean, this, from the Nixon Library, sums it up:

Other notable individuals on these tapes included Republican National Committee Chairman (and future President) George H. W. Bush, House Minority Leader (and future President) Gerald R. Ford, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, journalist Barbara Walters, film director John Ford, professional golfer Arnold Palmer, conductor of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra Eugene Ormandy, “Truck driver of the year” Curtis C. Stapp, and Washington Redskins football coach George Allen and his family.

Obviously the big news hook has been Nixon's comments on abortion:

The tapes also caught his reaction to Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. In a Jan. 22 conversation with aide Chuck Colson, Nixon can be heard saying: "There are times when abortions are necessary -- I know that. . . . Suppose you have a black and a white, or a rape."

Nixon and Colson agreed that legalized abortion encouraged permissiveness.

"It breaks the family," Nixon says.

Please note that Loving v. Virginia was the law of the land for Nixon's entire Presidency.

But more interesting is this:

Nixon had promised "peace with honor" and pledged to withdraw American forces only when South Vietnam could defend itself. But if Nixon couldn't persuade Thieu to agree to his peace agreement, Hughes said, the American president would have had difficulty justifying his continuation of the war during his first four-year term, during which 20,000 American troops died.

"For domestic political reasons, Nixon needed to conceal the failure of his strategy of Vietnamization and negotiation," Hughes said. "If people realized that he had added 20,000 additional American casualties to the war, and the communists were going to win anyway, then it would have proved his critics right that he should have ended the war at the start of his (first) term."

And this, which is just classic Nixon:

On Feb. 23, 1973, he placed a call to future President George H.W. Bush, then the Republican National Committee chairman.

The call was "nothing of great importance," Nixon says, but he wanted to inform Bush of what he witnessed during his recent visit to the South Carolina state Legislature.

"I noticed a couple of very attractive women, both of them Republicans, in the Legislature," Nixon tells Bush. "I want you to be sure to emphasize to our people, God, let's look for some. . . . Understand, I don't do it because I'm for women, but I'm doing it because I think maybe a woman might win someplace where a man might not. . . . So have you got that in mind?"

"I'll certainly keep it in mind," Bush replies.

"Boy, they were good lookin' and bright," Nixon continues. And he had been informed, further, that "they're two of the best members of the House."

"Well, that's terrific," Bush says.

In addition to releasing tapes, the Nixon Library released a cache of documents, one of them showing that Mississippi Democrat John Stennis secretly approved of the bombing of Cambodia before Nixon carried it out in 1970.

In an April 24, 1970, telephone conversation with Sen. John C. Stennis (D-Miss.), who was then chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Nixon said the administration was going to provide arms to the Cambodian government to prevent its overthrow by a pro-communist element, and continue secret B-52 bombing raids, "which only you and Senator Russell know about." Richard Russell (D-Ga.) was the former committee chairman.

"We are not going to get involved in a war in Cambodia," Nixon reassured Stennis. "We are going to do what is necessary to help save our men in South Vietnam. They can't have those sanctuaries there" that North Vietnam maintained.

Stennis replied, "I will be with you. . . . I commend you for what you are doing."

ConservaDems, then as now...

Nixon is just a fascinating character sketch, and I wish I could marinate in all this material for a long while.

How Dumb Can You Get?

For a guy considered to be "the most talented politician of his generation," he sure sticks his foot in his mouth a lot. Why would Bill Clinton think in any way that George H.W. Bush would go on a tour telling the world that his own son was a bastard but everything'll be OK now with Hillary Clinton in the White House? The tsunami tour was a nonpartisan event, it's a wholly different animal than a "the long global nightmare is over" tour. Of course Bush 41 declined. Why on Earth wouldn't he?

In a statement sent to CNN Tuesday afternoon, former President Bush’s chief of staff Jean Becker said that he “wholeheartedly supports the President of the United States, including his foreign policy. He has never discussed an ‘around-the-world-mission’ with either former President Bill Clinton or Sen. Clinton, nor does he think such a mission is warranted since he is proud of the role America continues to play around the world as the beacon of hope for freedom and democracy.

It's unbelievable that the broadly popular Bill Clinton is turning into a liability on the campaign trail.

Fred Thompson, Abortion Rights Lobbyist

H/t to Kevin Drum for alerting me to this candidacy-ending story about Fred Thompson's former work as an insider Washington lobbyist. Like most lobbyists, he was a hired gun, and if the money was green, he didn't give a crap what he was shilling. Including one or two causes that are going to hurt him in a Republican primary.

Former Tennessee Sen. Fred D. Thompson, who is campaigning for president as a "pro-life" Republican, accepted a lobbying assignment from a family-planning group to persuade the first Bush White House to ease a controversial abortion restriction, according to a 1991 document and five people familiar with the matter [...]

His task was to urge the administration of President George H.W. Bush to withdraw or relax a rule that barred abortion counseling at clinics that receive federal money, according to the records and the five people who worked on the matter.

The abortion "gag rule" was a major political flashpoint at the time. Thompson's lobbying would clash directly with the anti-abortion movement that he is now trying to rally behind his campaign for president.

It's always interesting to see how a Presidential campaign reacts to their first major hit to their candidacy. You might remember that Rudy Giuliani responded to the first major criticism of his campaign, from firefighters who questioned his commitment to them obefore, during and after 9/11, by assembling a made-up front group called "Firefighters for Rudy" that was essentially one person and a fax machine. For Thompson, his tactic is to essentially do a version of the Monty Python Argument Sketch:

Thompson spokesman Mark Corallo adamantly denied that Thompson worked for the family planning group. "Fred Thompson did not lobby for this group, period," he said in an e-mail.

In a telephone interview, he added: "There's no documents to prove it, there's no billing records, and Thompson says he has no recollection of it, says it didn't happen." In a separate interview, John Sununu, the White House official whom Thompson was hired to contact, said he had no memory of any lobbying and doubted it took place.

Well that sounds air-tight. Guess the LA Times got this one wrong. Nothing to see h-

But Judith DeSarno, who was president of the family planning association in 1991, said Thompson lobbied for the group for several months.

Minutes of the board's meeting of Sept. 14, 1991, a copy of which DeSarno gave to The Times, say: "Judy [DeSarno] reported that the Association had hired Fred Thompson, Esq., as counsel to aid us in discussions with the Administration'' on the abortion-counseling rule.

Former Rep. Michael Barnes of Maryland, a colleague at the lobbying and law firm where Thompson worked, said DeSarno had asked him to recommend someone for the lobbying work, and that he had suggested that she hire Thompson. He said it was "absolutely bizarre" for Thompson to deny that he lobbied against the abortion counseling rule.

"I talked to him while he was doing it, and I talked to [DeSarno] about the fact that she was very pleased with the work that he was doing for her organization," said Barnes, a Democrat. "I have strong, total recollection of that. This is not something I dreamed up or she dreamed up. This is fact."

DeSarno said Thompson reported to her, after being hired, that he had held multiple conversations about the abortion "gag rule" with Sununu, who was then the White House chief of staff and the president's point man on the abortion rule.

Er... Thompson, we have a problem.

Man: Is this the right room for an argument?
Mr Vibrating: I've told you once.
Man: No you haven't.
Mr Vibrating: Yes I have.
Man: When?
Mr Vibrating: Just now!
Man: No you didn't.
Mr Vibrating: Yes I did!
Man: Didn't.
Mr Vibrating: Did.
Man: Didn't.
Mr Vibrating: I'm telling you I did!
Man: You did not!
Mr Vibrating: I'm sorry, is this a five minute argument, or the full half hour?

DeSarno recounts entire conversations and idiosyncratic stories like Thompson re-enacting scenes from movies to her. That Sununu denies any conversation gives Thompson two options: either Sununu and him are lying, or Thompson was in the habit, as a lobbyist, of taking money from organizations and pretending to lobby for them while sitting on his ass. I wouldn't be surprised by either.

This is a long and well-sourced article that will be a major blow to Thompson's efforts to cast himself as the rock-ribbed conservative to the crowd who will decide the GOP nomination. And the way in which Thompson is reacting to the story, by denying it ever happened, doesn't bode well for his campaign will react in the crucible of 21st-century politics.

Suddenly, he doesn't scare me so much.