Hillary Clinton just floated the possibility of contesting the 2016 election
Thanks to obvious voter fraud in Texas and Illinois, Richard Nixon was cheated out of the 1960 election, knew it, and kept silent because he felt the stability of the country was more important than Richard Nixon.
So Hillary might concede the moral high ground to Richard Nixon? Can the ground get any lower than that?
It's complete fiction that Nixon didn't contest the 1960 election results:
ReplyDeletehttp://articles.latimes.com/2000/nov/10/local/me-49741
It's amazing how many things the Republicans have engaged in revisionist history over, and it's amazing the public willingness to believe their historical revisionism.
This is a longer version of the same article: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history_lesson/2000/10/was_nixon_robbed.html
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ReplyDeleteIn all the years since the election, nobody has ever come forward to say that Nixon personally supported a challenge - in public or private - not his biographers, not his enemies, not his closest intimates, not his political associates. If he ever did, it has remained the world's best-kept secret. Nixon's friend Bryce Harlow said that he begged Nixon to dispute the results, and Nixon refused from the get-go. Former President Herbert Hoover talked to Nixon shortly after the election, and said that Nixon totally and curtly blew him off when he suggested a challenge. Nixon's campaign manager, whose name I have now forgotten (Something Hall, I think) said the same thing, and was so disappointed in Nixon's answer that he defied his boss and initiated some quiet challenges.
In contrast, not one person has ever come forward in all these years to contradict those stories and cite Nixon's support for a challenge.
Those two articles skirt around that point by saying "Well, gee, if his allies and local Republicans took some action, Nixon must have been behind it." Maybe. It seems like a plausible supposition, but there's absolutely zero evidence to support it. NOTHING supports it other than an assumption based on disdain for Nixon. And this comes from a man who is second to none in disdain for Nixon!
He may have fibbed about Ike's position to make himself seem more noble, but there's no indication that he ever advocated a challenge. If he had, surely somebody would have come forward and revealed that in the past 50-some years, because it would have sold a lot of books.
Sidebars:
(Even Nixon's lie was a small one by his lofty standards of dissembling, because Ike supposedly did initially advocate a challenge, but he scrubbed that notion, so in claiming that Ike advocated a challenge, Nixon was not lying, but telling a misleading truth that was missing the proper context.)
I don't think there is any doubt about Nixon's position, but I personally think it had nothing to do with being noble. There is probably a self-serving reason why Nixon felt a challenge was inappropriate. (Hey, he was Nixon.) He think he knew that he also had dirty laundry which would come out in the wash. Some have hypothesized that he would not consider a general challenge because he was afraid of exposing Republican dirty tricks in other states, and would not consider challenging Illinois because of GOP vote fraud in Southern Illinois, where the Republican bosses were just as corrupt as the Daley machine in Chicago. I think that's probably the real explanation.
As I've observed before about you Scoopy, you are clearly a literal person (nothing wrong with that, but I think you leave yourself being open to being lied to through lies of inference.)
DeleteIn this case, among the allies here was the Chair of National Republican Party. Had Nixon not wanted to pursue a challenge, I think Nixon would clearly have asked him to stop. Allowing this investigation to continue, while denying involvement, is referred to as 'plausible deniability.'
It personally really doesn't matter if Nixon called for the investigations personally or if he did nothing to prevent them, as either way the exact same investigations were pursued.
The revisionist history of Nixon claiming the moral high ground on not pursuing an investigation 'for the good of the country' appears to have been started by Nixon himself and enabled by lazy journalists starting in the early 1980s who took Nixon at his word.
Yeah, I don't agree with that. As I said, it was been 57 years, and not one person has ever come forward to say even that Nixon was neutral on that matter, let alone wanted to pursue it. If he had ever slipped up and said, "I'll look the other way," somebody could have sold a lot of books by saying that, but nobody ever did, not even after Nixon's death. The only ones who have ever suggested otherwise are liberal revisionist historians who can't possibly believe Nixon did the right thing, and they do so without evidence, based on the supposition that Nixon was slimy.
DeleteFurthermore, as I said, his real reason for not wanting to pursue it probably had to do with his own dirty tricks in Southern Illinois and perhaps elsewhere, which would have come out in the wash.
I don't agree with that. There was no original liberal revisionist historians. Whether Nixon had anything to do with it or not, the correct original history was that the Republican Party at the highest levels contested the election result. Whether Nixon had any personal involvement in them being involved isn't important, because, as I wrote previously, the investigation conducted into the allegations of vote count fraud was the exact same as it would have been with or without Nixon's involvement.
DeleteWhether Nixon personally gave any word that he was involved or not involved really doesn't matter (not to me anyway) as he could have asked that the Republican Party not insist on any investigation and didn't. My view is that given that this investigation would have been for his benefit, the idea that he had didn't give at least a tacit approval makes absolutely no sense.
This wasn't part of the initial discussion, but I also take issue with that idea that if one candidate cheated to win the election, that not contesting that is 'doing the right thing.'
There is an immense difference between local political corruption and a hostile foreign power colluding to choose a leader who will work for their interests and to harm our international influence, our way of life, and our values.
ReplyDeleteIf this 'Russian collusion" is so readily apparent, why hasn't Mueller come out with anything yet? Surely, he should have enough by now to at least intimate that the problem does, indeed, exist and that he is taking steps to set up prosecution for it. And yet... nothing. Why is that, do you suppose, Mr. Unknown?
DeleteBecause he is doing his job properly, not just running his mouth off with accusations, like your hero
DeleteAll powerful nations try to interfere in the elections of others when they have an interest in the results. It goes without saying that Russia meddled in the election, if only with hundreds or thousands of social media posts. They would be fools not to, and Putin is no fool. The USA itself has meddled in - well, who knows how many elections, especially in our hemisphere. (Chile being perhaps the most famous.) And often, we have further meddled to foment dissension after the election if "our guy" lost. (Ukraine, e.g.)
DeleteDid Trump's hand-picked guys participate in that Russian meddling? Based on Trump's apparent efforts to cover things up (the Comey firing and the ridiculous Don Jr. excuse statement), there must be something to hide, but I'm not sure what. It may be that Trump, like Nixon, has screwed himself by trying to cover things up rather than simply dismissing a bunch of subordinates who were naive or out-of-control on his behalf (possibly including his son and son-in-law).
Anyway, don't these corrupt dudes usually get their comeuppance as a result of cover-ups rather than what they actually did in the first place?
Back to the issue, what would be the sense in challenging the legitimacy of the election NOW. That would only divide the nation further. The time to do that, if at all, was before Trump got to name a Supreme Court justice. As it now stands, he's holding all the cards and a 5-4 edge in the Supremes. Check and mate.
While facts have the advantage of being *true*, the conspiracy theory is much more entertaining...
ReplyDeleteNixon was just starting to pull on a green visor and build his case for a recount when the Gambino Family came to him and said, "Patience jackass, you'll get your turn." The rest is shadow-history - Joe Kennedy's son was not the Mafia-friendly prez they were expecting, Gambino and Carlos Marcello hired Joe Roselli from the Trafficantes to whack JFK. Roselli was set up to get caught, escaped anyway, it got pinned on Oswald. Roselli went to prison for something else, started running his mouth inside about JFK, was later found stuffed into a barrel bobbing in the Gulf.
So '68 finds Nixon topsy, everyone else turvy. What an amazing coincidence!
Oh and when she says "contest", I assume Hillary just means "whine some more about".
ReplyDeleteThat is more than likely true. After all, if there was fraud to have been committed, who do you think would be the likely perp? The billionaire businessman? Or the woman with a string of murders trailing just far enough behind her to not be provable 'beyond a shadow of a doubt'?
DeleteGood lord, The Gent is even more of a loon than I thought. What's the matter, Gent? Did you also forget about the child sex ring that Hillary ran out of a pizza parlor?
DeleteYour comment is absolutely irrelevant to this discussion.
DeleteRE:
DeleteOh and when she says "contest", I assume Hillary just means "whine some more about".
Yup. I believe you are probably correct.
Jesus Christ. Hillary didn't float the idea of contesting the election, the *interviewer* floated it and she didn't rule it out.
ReplyDeleteThe interviewer posed it as Russia's influence being "deeper than we know", which is an all-encompassing phrase. It could mean nothing, in which case she obviously won't contest the results, or it could mean "Russia hacked our voting machines and changed the voting results in a way that determined who won." If that was somehow was proven beyond a doubt to be true, everyone and their brother would *demand* she contest it. There is no high-ground being ceded if a foreign power actively chose our president.
"Not ruling it out" is meaningless. I'm not planning to cut my own dick off, but if it got wedged between two rocks in a cave "127 Hours"-style, maybe I'd do it. I won't rule it out.
Don't ask me how it got wedged in there.
This whole story is bait for the vulnerable and you fell for it.