Nixon And Gore?

[RestoreGore]

January 7, 2007 -- BELIEVE it or not, Al Gore is an admirer of Richard Nixon, the 37th president who was demonized by Democrats long before he died in 1994. Gore disclosed his reverence for Nixon to Tricia Nixon Cox at the funeral for Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford, at the National Cathedral. "All sorts of people were coming up to her," said one witness. "Gore made a bee-line for her and hugged her and said her father was a pioneering visionary on environmental issues." Gore - who promised to send Tricia a copy of his global warming documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth" - cited Nixon's creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.


http://www.nypost.com/seven/01072007/gossip/pagesix/nixon__gore__pagesix_.htm

Well, while I still believe he should have been impeached, I have to agree with Mr. Gore about his environmental accomplishments. He did do more for the environment than many presidents since, that's for sure.

And I will never forget the letter I got from him when I was only 12 years old after writing him about pollution. It was just about when the EPA was started and besides his sending me a letter telling me of his days working on a farm and his Dutch background, he sent me data from the EPA on pollution and praised me for being a young person who was interested in making the world a better place.

As I look back now and see everything involved in his Presidency, it seems so very bizarre to think that a man who could be involved in Constitutional abuses could still care for the environment. I don't know. I do know he had a hard life as a boy as well with losing a brother he loved to tuberculosis. Perhaps there is also still so much we really do not know about those days. And again, as a free man, Mr. Gore can tell it as he believes it and not worry about the repercussions.

[cally]

1. I also admire Nixon's accomplishment's environmentally

It was a time of great legislative progress on environmental policy.

As an aside, a true welfare reform bill almost passed under his Presidency where there would have been assistance for the working poor. It failed due to a coalition of conservatives and liberals who wanted more.

[silverweb]

2. Very few people are purely good or purely evil.

I might make exceptions to that statement for G.W. and his boss, Dick.

In any case, most of us are a very mixed bag of good and bad, honor and disgrace, conceit and humanity. I guess Nixon was no exception in that despite all his sins, he did do some good things and had a very good environmental record.

Thanks to President Gore for publicly recognizing the good in the man and showing us how to acknowledge that part of him with grace.

[MADem]

3. Gore has the gift of nuance, and can separate the good from the bad.

The EPA was a big deal back in the day, before the lobbyists deballed it.

Didn't Earth Day happen on his watch?

He did do a few good things, and he had the best worldview of any republican president since Eisenhower to the present day. He just had a horrible blind spot when it came to due process, essential fairness, and our own Constitution. He needed to go, but his good qualities were his good qualities, just as his bad ones were his to own as well.

[KoKo]

4. Who knows....maybe down the road some will applaud the Chimp for

some accomplishment...(but I doubt it). Nixon came from a different era and who knows how he was pushed by Congress to get on board with some environmental policy.

Nixon was a Crook. I can understand Al Gore having sympathy for a daughter of Nixon's but we might want to Google to see where the environmental legislation Nixon could take credit for came from.

I'll give Nixon this...wherever the legislation came from...he didn't veto it, deny the policy or do a "Signing Statement" to stop it.

So...from that standpoint...I suppose given what we've been dealing with from Bush I & II and Reagan...we should give him a small mote of credit. But...he was still a Crook who went after Democrats and tried to thwart an Election with criminal behavior.

[RestoreGore]

5. Agreed

The EPA is actually his only accomplishment as far as I am concerned. Quite a fall for us when Nixon actually begins to look good.

[blm]

6. Gore would know as well as anyone that Nixon's worst side was fostered by Poppy Bush

who had his hand in just about everything going on at that time, too.

Just as Bush1 maneuvered behind Reagan's back, he was also maneuvering behind Nixon's and Ford's.