It's time to admit Nixon was wrong to "concede gracefully".

JHB

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Mon Nov-15-04 10:11 AM
Original message

It's time to admit Nixon was wrong to "concede gracefully".

Edited on Mon Nov-15-04 10:38 AM by JHB

It's the Conventional Wisdom (or perhaps more accurately, the Washington Conventional Groupthink) that Richard Nixon set a laudable example in 1960 by not contesting the election on the grounds of vote tampering and fraud in Illinois, Texas and elsewhere. The idea is that a smooth, gentlemanly transition is preferable to a knock-down drag-out fight and all the ensuing bitterness one would cause.

After four decades, it's time to take a good look at that view and expose it for what it is: wrong, dead wrong.

Anyone concerned about bitter feelings from a post-election wrangle has obviously been living in an alternate dimension (such as Washington) for the past forty years, because they've completely missed the bitterness engendered by people who thought they were robbed.

Conservatives have used their suspicions (or outright convictions) as a rallying tool for decades. It became enshrined as a symbol of Democratic hypocracy and malfeasance. And they could do this -- unencumbered by evidence of fraud and tampering in Republican districts in their favor -- because there was no thorough investigation, thanks to Nixon's "gentlemanly act".

Now the movement that was spawned in the bitter bile of that election and borne of the Goldwater campaigns is in many ways in the same position the Democrats were back in 1960. As demonstrated in Florida in the elections of 2000, 2002, and 2004, they're more than willing to use the apparatus of state governments to throw obstructions in the way of legal (but expected opposition) voters, and even before addressing charges of outright tampering and fraud.

Yet still the press, the pundits, and even the Democrats' so-called leadership still harken back to Nixon as an example to follow.

Well, it's time to declare, loudly and clearly, that Dick Nixon was wrong! He did this country no favors in conceding when evidence existed of tampering. Failing to get to the bottom of the allegations has only led to recriminations, allowed wrongdoing to go unpunished, and now has come to the point where we've had TWO presidential elections IN A ROW with (putting it politely) substantial clouds over their validity, and a core of opposition convinced that they were stolen.

It's time to give "gracious & gentlemanly" the swift kick in the ass they deserve and perform a thorough audit of every election, exposing fraud when it happens and clearly identifying those malefactors that are undermining this most basic tool of democracy.

JHB

(ON EDIT: Yes, I know the legal challenges continued into December albiet without his name, that his challenging would have exposed massive Republican fraud downstate, etc. This is not about saying what Nixon should have ACTUALLY done in 1960, it's about putting an axe to the notion that contesting elections and forcing investigation of possible fraud is somehow merely "sour apples", that only "sore losers" don't pursue all avenues to their reasonable conclusion.

Nixon is the poster-boy for this sort of thinking, whatever the facts. Therefore, it's time to argue that Nixon Was Wrong.)