The most liberal Prez since Nixon's time might well have been...Nixon

[brentspeak]

At least on the domestic front, Nixon's legislative ideas, had they been fully implemented, would have made Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton's presidencies look as conservative as Ronald Reagan's:

1) Nixon was the first president to support affirmative action for minorities, and even expanded its coverage to include women.

2) During Nixon's terms, for the first time ever in the U.S., spending for social programs outweighed spending for defense programs.

3) Nixon's Clean Air Act of 1970 is still the most important environmental measure that an American president has ever produced. He also created the Enviromental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA).

4) Nixon called for the formation of a comprehensive national health-insurance program.

5) Nixon even toyed with the idea of a national minimum annual income for every American.

Sheesh, if Nixon wasn't such a paranoid and underhanded skulldugger, and if he didn't surround himself with advisors like Henry Kissinger -- Watergate, the divisive "Southern strategy", and the bombing of Cambodia wouldn't have happened, and Nixon could've had himself carved into Mt.Rushmore.

[xmas74]

1. My dad always adored Nixon

He used to name things like this as his reasons why.

[PittPoliSci]

2. Nixon even took on oil cartels.

[bluestateguy]

3. Take away Vietnam and Watergate, and Nixon wasn't a bad president at all

we also got the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Endangered Species Act.

[hedgehog]

5. I don't know if it's sour grapes or not, but I've seen the suggestion

that Nixon was not really a liberal on domestic issues, he just didn't care about them. According to this theory, a Democratic Congress and a few key players in his administration like Daniel Patrick Moynihan were able to sneak a lot past him. He wanted to go down as a grater president than LBJ and especially JFK, so people played that card with Nixon as well.

[bluestateguy]

11. Oh I think he cared about domestic issues plenty

He was very much of a "policy wonk", much like Carter and Clinton. He was very detail oriented. He would read every line in the national budget. He was also bery much of a compromiser who felt that his presidency would be strongest if the Democrats controlled Congress. Nixon never attempted to do much for the Republican Party as president.

For that matter, even when it came to foreign policy he took a moderate tack: opening up China and detente with the Soviets (yes, yes, I know aboout Allende in Chille).

[Jacobin]

9. Exactly. Espcially compared to the geo political naifs we have now

running the zoo.

[brentspeak]

10. Republicans today hate Nixon -- and not even because of Watergate

Actually, they didn't particularly like him back then, either.

[Stinky The Clown]

4. Nixon was a complex man

And back then, there were still decent Republicans. The hawks were as much in the Scoop Jackson wing of the Dem party as they may have been in the Republican party.

Whatever you thnk of Nixon, he was not as evil as some like to paint him. I'm not trying to rewrite history, but the facts are the facts.

A complex man, indeed ......

[brentspeak]

8. There was a recent book that suggested Nixon might've been

hooked on a psychiatric drug during his presidency, and that it greatly exacerbated his political paranoia and even caused him to suffer other kinds of delusions. I read H.R. Haldemann's diaries, and Haldemann's observations do suggest that Nixon was becoming increasingly mentally unstable even before Watergate became public.

[brentspeak]

6. s/del

[enid602]

7. motives

I think Nixon felt somewhat ashamed of carpet-bombing Cambodia without congressional consent all those months, and felt he could curry the populace's favor by throwing them an occasional progressive bone now and then. Alas, Bush does not seem to be plagued by such feelings.

[phillysuse]

12. Three Great Things Nixon Did

1. Title IX
Everytime you see a woman playing college athletics, you should see her as a beneficiary of Richard Nixon. Nixon supported and passed Title IX requiring college to support Women's athletics on an equivalent basis to men.
Why did her do it? Maybe because of Tricia and Julie.
Anyway women like Mia Hamm and Dawn Staley are Nixon's progeny.

2. The Dialysis Act of 1973.
This act established that if you have a certain chronic illness - in this case chronic renal failure, the government will pay for dialysis treatment for you, regardless of whether you had health insurance or not before you went into renal failure and regardless of age.
It separated this one illness from all others and basically invented Single Payor for Dialysis patients.
The results have been lots of money for nephrologists, the rapid growth of for profit dialysis centers (Yah capitalism!!) and people who lived rather than died of renal failure.
Every patient with renal failure who is getting dialysis should thank Richard Nixon.

3. Finally, of course China.
Now today, as General Clark says, China will eat our lunch and they will be our major economic competitor if we would only realize it.
But it was Nixon (and probably Nixon alone given his history of Red-baiting)who could go to China.

[brentspeak]

13. Wow, I didn't know about those first two

[Mr. Blonde]

16. Title IX was a great thing

it has been perverted recently to punish men in non-revenue producing sports.

[BootinUp]

14. Takes money and political support of course

You can't do these things at any time in history. Oh forget it, I'll just go away quietly now.

[Joe Bacon]

15. Don't forget Wage and Price Controls.

Nixon was the last President who proposed those. Show me ANY liberal Democrat who would even think about that.

Shows how far right the country has moved.

[PeaceProgProsp]

17. No matter what Nixon did for labor & environ, he had Kissinger

and no administration that allowed Kissinger to play such a dominant role in determining foreign policy could be described as liberal.

[rpannier]

18. One you missed...

He was the first President to appoint a Native American to head the Bureau of Indian Affairs.