Quote:
Originally posted by xoxoxoBruce
I think JFK got our attention. Then Nixon taught us the lesson of how dirty the politicos really are.
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JFK was a clean administration much as the Eisenhower and Truman administrations before it. Johnson set new standard for corruption. But Americans had so much trust in presidents that we did not even question Johnson. Nixon also could have also gotten away with corruption. But Nixon was so blantantly crooked (and made little effort to hide it) that eventually it took a Watergate hearing to demonstrate how corrupt his administration was at virtually every level.
Post WWII America never had a reason to question a president - until Nixon. Even then, America still refused to believe what Woodward and Bernstein wrote.
Nixon's plumbers were caught red handed in bugging. In most countries, that would have been obvious political corruption. Watergate was exposed long before a Democratic candidate had even been selected. Yet Americans denied the corruption for years - long after Nixon was reelected! It took years even after Watergate for America to believe a president could be corrupt.
You younger folks don't really have anything that can portray the mentality of America back then. Even years after Watergate and with so much damning evidence from Woodward and Bernstein, still most major American news organizations refused to believe the administration was that corrupt - or would even assign reporters to investigate it. Virtually most all news about Watergate was only reported by the NY Times and Washington Post. Dan Rather was about the only TV newsman to report anything significant about Watergate - and suspects the plumbers tried to break into his house as a result. Most all Watergate stories were only reported as "The Washington Post reported today..." Yes, Watergate was almost completely ignored by most every American new service for one year.
People also forget that most Americans were against sending military to liberate Kuwait. People tend to forget how much they were in denial back then. It is a very human condition to suddenly claim they supported liberation of Kuwait when most Americans were against it.
Most people denied Watergate until those live hearings every day for weeks on TV. No soap operas and game shows for weeks! Americans did not believe Watergate plumbers were traceable to the White House even after the Saturday night massacre!
Nixon changed America's preceptions and trust of the White House. Previously presidents, with the exception of Johnson, were not blantantly corrupt. We know today that Nixon was so crooked that he even refused to admit so right up to his death. And so we have the famous Nixon news conference where he outrightly says he is not a crook - when his own staff had already concluded they were all at great risk for jail.
Before Nixon, nobody ever thought, had even the slightest idea that any American president, with so much press exposure, could ever be so corrupt. Nixon set new standards for corruption in spades.