I’m not American, but I feel a strange fascination with Richard Milhouse Nixon. He’s a figure of almost Shakespearean complexity, driven to phenomenal heights and fantastic accomplishments, but never able to do enough to placate the insecurity gnawing at him. I had the pleasure of reading Conrad Black’s rather even-handed summary of his life and career last summer, and he seems as much a mystery as ever. The recent news item about another of his paranoid ramblings has grabbed media attention, but I’m amazed that there doesn’t seem to be much debate over the true impact of Nixon’s Presidency beyond the obvious shadow cast by Watergate. What is the American fascination with painting Nixon as a villain or a fiend? Why can he not embody something just a tad more complex?
Richard Nixon unsuccessfully attempts to distract from the Watergate scandal by declaring "It's behind you!" during a Press Conference...
Filed under: Opinion | Tagged: film, frost/nixon, history, Movies, nixon, oliver stone, pop culture, richard m. nixon, richard nixon, watchmen, watergate, watergate tapes | 1 Comment »
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