Buchanan And Farah Disagree On The Greatness Of The Nixon Years.

WHY BUCHANAN IS WRONG ABOUT NIXON

Exclusive: Joseph Farah disagrees with his friend about 37th president's legacy

Published: 14 hours ago

 JOSEPH FARAH About | Email | Archive

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We just experienced one anniversary involving Richard Nixon – his resignation as president.

We’re about to experience one less remembered, but just as important in measuring his legacy.

My friend Pat Buchanan, who is right far more often than he is wrong, has been waxing eloquent about the good old days of Nixon.

I have to admit, I just don’t get it.

Unlike Buchanan, Nixon was wrong far more than he was right.

The best thing he ever did was to step in during the 1973 Yom Kippur War and help save Israel from what looked like certain defeat at the hands of a joint Syrian and Egyptian surprise invasion. Nixon resupplied Israel with massive amounts of military equipment that quickly turned the tide of the war in Israel’s favor. Israel had been on the brink of total collapse. Golda Meier and Moshe Dayan had a conversation about going nuclear before the U.S. resupplied the Jewish state.

Other than that, I have to tell you there’s not much to like about the Nixon administration.

For instance, let me tell you what today is: Today is the 43rd anniversary of Nixon announcing a 90-day freeze on American wages, prices and rent.

Let me repeat myself: Nixon misused his executive authority to tell employers and employees that they could not negotiate higher wages between themselves. He froze prices in every store in America. He interfered in the relationship between landlords and tenants by freezing rents.

This was not some minor deal. You might say, “Well, it was only for 90 days.”

Maybe so, but it set an ugly precedent. Because if the president of the United States has the power to freeze wages, prices and rent for 90 days, doesn’t he have the authority to do it for 120 days, a year or 10 years?

Imagine if we woke up tomorrow to hear Barack Obama say he was freezing wages, prices and rents for 90 days. I think we’d all go ballistic – and rightfully so.

So think about that. Richard Nixon abused his executive powers in a way even Obama hasn’t done. That’s pretty bad.

By the way, while we’re discussing Nixon, he did not – I repeat, did not – as he is often accused, use the Internal Revenue Service to target his political enemies. He did suggest it as a possibility to his treasury secretary, who quickly explained that it was illegal – refusing to hear any more about it. And that was the end of that. However, the charge was used against him in the articles of impeachment that led to his resignation.

Obama clearly did use the IRS to target his political enemies. So that might even the score a bit.

But the point is, Nixon was not the saint Buchanan and many other Republicans portray him to be.

In fact, listen to what Lyndon Baines Johnson said about Nixon before he resigned: He said Nixon was “fulfilling all of the campaign promises of the Democratic ticket. You almost don’t need the Democrats if the Republicans are willing to do all our dirty work for us.”

I couldn’t say it any better.

What Johnson was talking about, primarily, was the way Nixon expanded the welfare state beyond Johnson’s wildest “War on Poverty” dreams.

In 1971, Nixon effectively ended the gold standard, promising the dollar would retain its value – but the dollar today is worth less than a fifth of its 1971 value.

He was no conservative. Government grew much faster under Nixon than it did under Johnson – even in a bad economy, which he then passed on to his hapless, unelected, handpicked vice president, Gerald Ford.

Pat Buchanan’s new book, “The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose from Defeat to Create the New Majority,” has a lot of good history to share. But his fond reminiscences of the man leave me a little cold.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/08/why-buchanan-is-wrong-about-nixon/#sruoc2P55ROpWWiQ.99