Investigating Power: Mike Wallace: A Friendship With Richard Nixon

Source:The New Democrat

What I get from this interview of Mike Wallace is that he liked Richard Nixon because he was impressed by the man's intelligence and knowledge. That they could talk about a wide range of issues and that he would learn things from Nixon that he didn't know before. That Nixon was intelligently interesting and was someone you want to talk to and to get to know. This is not even a five minute video, but if that is what Mike Wallace likes about you, you should take that and be happy. Because Wallace I believe is the best news interviewer of all-time because of his own intelligence about a wide range of issues and his preparation and ability to interview anybody about anything.

NBC News: Meet The Press- U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon (1960)

Source:NBC News- U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon (Democrat, California) on NBC News's Meet The Press in 1960.

Source:The New Democrat 

"Vice President Richard Nixon appears on Meet the Press on September 11, 1960" 

From NBC News 

Vice President Richard Nixon trying to make the point that America was still stronger than Communist Russia at this point across the board. This was one of the biggest issues of the 1960 presidential campaign between Vice President Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy: was America moving forward and advancing and at its strongest point possible to take on Russia if it needed too. 

The Vice President seemed to believe that America was, but that we could always do better. Senator Kennedy constantly making the point that America stagnated especially economically with the recession of the late 1950s and early 1960s and that we needed to get moving again.

Bob Parker: VABC News Nightline: October 1980 Presidential Campaign

Source:The New Democrat

By 1980, but probably much further back than that going back to 1968 or 64 TV and TV news especially was already a huge factor in how Americans got their political news and other current affairs news. Because even by 1980 ABC News, NBC News and CBS News broadcast news was the really the only game in town when it came to TV broadcast news coverage from. There was radio, but most Americans got their radio news in the car and not so much at home except when they are getting ready to go to bed or getting ready for work in the morning.

CNN was the only cable news network on TV and they were just getting started in 1980 and C-SPAN again had just gotten started and them along with CNN probably had about the same amount of viewers as PBS. This was way before the whole menu of cable news networks and so-called news networks like FNC, MSNBC and RT. This was also pre-internet, so of course there were no blogs and as a result the print publishing business was in much better shape with newsmagazines and newspapers. So broadcast TV news was the leader at this point in how Americans got their news.

Carla Anthony Online: ‘Martha Mitchell- The Loud Belle of Watergate’

Source:Carl Anthony Online- Washington insider & gossip queen Martha Mitchell.

Source:The Daily Post

“Martha Mitchell: The Loud Belle of Watergate. For further information, to ask questions or to leave comments, please go to:Carl Anthony Online." 

From Carl Anthony Online

According to Martha Mitchell, the wife of John Mitchell, the scandal that was dubbed Watergate in 1972 by the American media, was planned by the Richard Nixon presidential campaign in 1968. That they were planning to break in to Democratic headquarters before even coming to office. We now know, or at least of heard that John Mitchell is a logical source and suspect as far as who was the person who ordered the 1972 Watergate break in.

Keep in mind a couple of things: John Mitchell was the Attorney General of the United States, the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the United States and he could’ve if not most likely was the person who ordered the Watergate scandal. And perhaps even hired the crew who did the botched burglary. Mitchell was also the head of the Richard Nixon Reelection Campaign Committee For President in 1972 and a very accomplished lawyer himself, like Dick Nixon.

I mean, these were the people working for Dick Nixon the President of the United States, criminals who would break the law to do what they believed was right. And not just breaking the law, but violating constitutional rights of American citizens as well. And you can see how the President of the United States who came to office with high hopes and having a country behind him and expecting him to good things. And leaving office disgraced and viewed as a criminal.

David Von Pein: Richard Nixon on the Jack Paar Show (1963)

Source:The New Democrat

Richard Nixon actually showing a human side of him. A likable funny side that if he showed more people in public and in private, especially with his taping system, instead of coming off as a mean old, well dick (pun intended) he would've been more popular in public and in the media and would've had an easier time politically. And would've gotten more positive attention for his laundry list of accomplishments and Watergate probably never happens, let alone needed to be covered up, or brought out in the open. Because he would've ended up liking and trusting more people with the same feelings towards him from others.

Time Life: The Dean Martin Roasts- Governor Ronald Reagan: Man of the Week (1973)

Source: Time Life- Governor Ronald W. Reagan R. CA.

Source:The New Democrat 

Lets see the life of Ronald Reagan? Well he grows up in small town Illinois roughly two-hours or so south of Chicago and comes from a family with a loving, but struggling mother and an alcoholic father who was somewhat absent. And from that he manages to become a lifeguard of their local  swimming pool, which was as important and a prestigious of a job as being their town Mayor. And from that he manages to get himself a college education and gets a job in Iowa as one of the Chicago Cubs broadcasters. And telling Cub fans and others what wasn't happening on the field.

Ronny moves out to California to become an actor and makes it small as a b actor. Well as big as b actors can be, but runs into trouble with some of his movies flopping as badly as a Bill Maher comedy festival and a Richard Dawkins lecture at a Southern Baptist Convention. Ronny discovers in the late 1950s or so that perhaps he's not quite cut out to be a b actor and sees if there are any openings for c actors and discovers there are no such thing as c actors and moves all the way down through the alphabet and finally arriving a w and discovering there are no w actors and decides that perhaps he needs to find a new career.

Ronny finally gets a job as a General Motors spokesman and hosting the General Motors Theater on NBC. And as he's doing these appearances for Corporate America he finds that he actually believes the, well garbage (even I have my standards as a blogger) that he's telling other people and finds his political voice and becomes a spokesman for Senator Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign which is where he finds his political voice and from that he gets recruited by California businessman to run for Governor of California in 1966.

Ronny wins the California gubernatorial election in 1966 and not only discovers that he's not the dictator of California, but Governor of California and that he has a Legislature to deal with and that it is run by the Democratic Party, both the Assembly and Senate. He also discovers that it is also the 1960s and that the hippie movement is in full view especially in California. And then talks to some of his well trusted political advisers who know almost as much about politics as fish know about cars and planes. And tells them "if I knew these things about being Governor of California going in, I wouldn't of run in 1966".

Governor Reagan's political advisers talk the Governor out of resigning and from trying to impeach himself. By telling him that "the voters of California voted for you and trust you to do the job they elected you to". And also telling him that "governors can't impeach themselves, only the Assembly can". Ronny stays on as Governor, gets reelected in 1970 after he was successful in making sure no one else was allowed to run against him by personally erasing all of the other names from all of the ballots. And Dean Martin and his crew take it from there.
Source:Time Life

CBS News: Face The Nation- Richard Nixon October 27th, 1968

Source:CBS News.

Source:The New Democrat

Politically and ideologically Richard Nixon would be called what we call a Northeastern Republican today at least on social issues and even as it related to the safety net. He wasn't against the safety net, but didn't want it running people's lives for them and believe mentally and able body people who could work should be required to work. Even though he was from California and lived there, or at least had a home there his whole life he was ideologically very similar to a New York or New England Republican on those issues.

People like to call Dick Nixon a Centrist or perhaps even a Progressive or Liberal today. But the fact was he wasn't crazy about big government in our economic or personal lives. (Unless he felt it benefited him politically, IE Watergate and other snooping operations) He was a true Federalist when it came to economic issues and the safety net at least. Believed in a strong national defense and was a Conservative Internationalist on foreign policy. Law and order, I mean he had serious traditional Conservative Republican leanings, but wasn't as far to the Right as the Tea Party or even Ronald Reagan.
Source:CBS News