Just can't stop thinking about Hunter Thompson somehow. He can't send us pieces from the afterlife, in all probability, but here's a snippet that he wrote in this life, during the recent campaign season, on Thompson's friend and ours, Richard Nixon:
"Richard Nixon looks like a flaming liberal today, compared to a golem like George Bush. Indeed. Where is Richard Nixon now that we finally need him?
If Nixon were running for president today, he would be seen as a "liberal" candidate, and he would probably win. He was a crook and a bungler, but what the hell? Nixon was a barrel of laughs compared to this gang of thugs from the Halliburton petroleum organization who are running the White House today -- and who will be running it this time next year, if we (the once-proud, once-loved and widely respected "American people") don't rise up like wounded warriors and whack those lying petroleum pimps out of the White House on November 2nd.
Nixon hated running for president during football season, but he did it anyway. Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for -- but if he were running for president this year against the evil Bush-Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him.
You bet. Richard Nixon would be my Man. He was a crook and a creep and a gin-sot, but on some nights, when he would get hammered and wander around in the streets, he was fun to hang out with. He would wear a silk sweat suit and pull a stocking down over his face so nobody could recognize him. Then we would get in a cab and cruise down to the Watergate Hotel, just for laughs."
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6 comments:
Nixon was indeed a liberal -- his domestic programs were pragmatic and non-ideological. But since Reagan came along, the GOP has become a party of mean-spirited greedy idealogues, and the equally lovely christian right.
Some things Bush and Nixon had in common: a penchant for extreme secrecy and loyalty, a willingness to foment culture war and to subvert traditional checks and balances, a grim determination to fight a meaningless war, scorn for the press, and transparently phony moral values.
Oh yeah -- one more thing -- neither one had much use for George H.W. Bush...
Neil
An interesting perspective, and, I fear, quite true. Lisa :-]
Hunter was great....The Hell`s Angel`s Book really changed journalism.
V
We shall miss Mr. Thompson. I can think of no other journalist who will take his place. This passage is a frightening reminder of how far my country's citizens have slipped in their ethical expectations of our government. We nearly impeached a sitting President and, indeed, forced him from office for his prevarications concerning a pidley robbery in which no one was hurt and during which nothing of value was taken. Now a sitting President lies to us about the need to go to war -- a war that results in thousands of deaths and untold human suffering -- and we, ethical morons that we are, RE-ELECT HIM TO OFFICE! Shame... shame.
If you put Nixon and Bush into a juicer and squeezed with all your might, what would come out would be the Republican Party. :)
That Happy Chica,
Marcia Ellen
Interesting vote of confidence for Nixon, sort of. I read a piece he wrote about Nixon in a liberal anthology the title of which I can't remember at the moment. Whew, Hunter sure doesn't mince words. If it was possible to totally eviscerate a man with mere words, I think he managed to do it with that piece.
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