SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
“Sock it to meee?”
That awkward query by presidential candidate Richard Milhous Nixon (on the September 16, 1968 episode of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In’) was probably haunting my mind on August 8, 1974.
On the afternoon of that fateful day, I tagged along as my flea-marketeer mother purchased antiques from farm couple Gerald and Kate Killingsworth. On the Killingsworths’ TV, the usual game shows and soap operas were interrupted by newscasters speculating about the next move by one Richard M. Nixon, the law-and-order president who had been impeached days earlier for the cover-up of the Watergate Hotel break-in.
(The broadcast journalists rehashed countless then-familiar names and terms: Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Liddy, White House Plumbers, Nixon’s Enemies List, Deep Throat, 18-and-a-halfminute gap and so forth.)
That evening, our family attended a church party at the home of Duard Earl and Gladys Jean Foster. I was in the yard when someone came to the door and notified celebrants that the president was about to make a televised address to the nation.
As we solemnly watched, Nixon announced that he was resigning from office, effective at noon the next day.
Everyone had a different reaction. Some commented that Nixon’s transgressions were small potatoes compared to those of other politicians. Some thought the U.S.A. needed prayers more than ever. Some hoped that all the hubbub would distract competitors from scarfing the last of the pimento cheese “sammiches.” (It worked. Oops.)
What has been the legacy of that dark period of our history?
The phrase “expletive deleted” in redacted transcripts of the infamous Nixon tapes scandalized genteel citizens; but 50 years later, our PG-13 world is almost to the point of essays about “The %$#@ best part of my first day of preschool.”
Speaking of the tapes, people at the time marveled at how foolhardy it was to maintain such incriminating evidence. But the children and grandchildren of those people now think nothing of (inadvertently) spicing up their job interviews with wanton social media posts. (“I see you’re already quite familiar with our business. That is you streaking through our midtown location in high-definition, isn’t it?”) Headline writers developed a knee-jerk response of adding a “gate” suffix to every prominent scandal. This hit a low with “Timmy has a bigger slice of pie than me”-gate.
Certainly, the celebrity status of “Washington Post” reporters Woodward and Bernstein sparked a generation of idealistic wannabes. But reporters in 2024 are a tad less motivated. (“Shoot! I wanted to cite unnamed sources in my explosive exclusive about the sun rising in the east, but all my sources already have names: Me, Myself and I. No third Pulitzer Prize, darn it!”) Nixon rehabilitated his image marginally with his 1977 TV interviews (conducted by David Frost) and his 1978 memoirs. He demonstrated that former residents of the White House could stay in the public eye, whether volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, establishing foundations or serving as elder statesmen of their party.
Along those lines, expect big diplomatic developments in January 2025.
I’m traveling to Papua New Guinea to forgive the descendants of the cannibals who ate my Uncle Bosie. No joke. But they’d better not try any of that Nixonian. I am not a cook, malarkey with me! And if they crack wise about Uncle Bosie “sammiches,” those lying, dogfaced pony soldiers better hope I don’t still have the nuclear football in my garage!!
