1995: "An Insight review of how Gephardt wound up with a luxury beach house worth more than $700,000 suggests that the Democratic leader may have violated various banking and tax laws, as well as financial-reporting requirements of the Ethics in Government Act. As a result, the 10-term congressman could end up under close scrutiny by the House ethics committee."

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_n33_v11/ai_17248505/pg_1

Therefore it wasn't enough to say that you disagreed with Nixon's policies on the war, crime, poverty, etc (though it's interesting to note that much of our current bloated regulatory federal gov came about under Nixon's watch - most notably the EPA.) No, it wasn't enough to oppose politically - the boomers made it personal. And because they were on the side of the Angels, anything they did was by definition justified: Unsubstantiated slander, innuendo, deliberate distortions of the record, outright lies, assumptions about what the opponent would do if he got his hands on the reins of power [I think the psychological term is "projection"] etc.

Nixon was ridiculed in every possible way, held up as not only a politician whose programs were opposed, but a despicable, evil, venal, ridiculous and laughable figure. Every weapon in the arsenal of pop culture was turned against him: Movies, television, music, etc. I vividly remember all of the products sold mocking Nixon: T-shirts, belt buckles, buttons, etc. They were fairly common wear even at the fairly conservative suburban elementary schools I attended then. And even though I was but a youngster (I was 6 in 1968 when Nixon was first elected to office and 12 when he resigned in '74) I could see that the attacks against him were not just about his politics, they were a calculated attempt to completely undermine and delegitimize the president.

To be fair, Nixon brought a lot of this on himself, being egotistical (which is of course one of the requirements of the office of president - see our current emperor/god for confirmation of that) vain, paranoid and - the worst crime of all - not media savvy, Nixon stoked the very fires that were used to immolate him. Eventually, the anti-Nixon forces got their wish and the man resigned in disgrace. But even at 12, I could see that, for all his flaws, Nixon was not the monster he was popularly portrayed as by the media talking heads, and it's interesting to see that as time goes by his reputation has been somewhat rehabilitated.

But even as they got what they wanted, a few of the more reasonable heads on the Dem side started to realize they'd created something of a monster. After all, sooner or later they would have their own man in the White House and they certainly didn't want all of that anti-president energy they'd created to be used against them. So they backed off a bit. Gerry Ford was treated with kid gloves compared to Nixon, except by the talentless hack Chevy Chase who launched his own career by turning a couple of stumbles into a caricature of a bumbling president (who was also somehow an expert skier and former athlete.) By the time Jimmeh (AKA History's Greatest Monster or HGM for short) got into office much of the anti-president energy had evaporated. Towards the end of his term, of course, HGM was mocked by a few on the right of center for his failed policies, but he never got the personal attacks that Nixon had to endure for his entire 6 years in office.

But then, along came Reagan, and all the old slanders resurfaced, energized by the Left's failure to keep HGM in office.

Now I know you remember this, Mike, because we're about the same age. Remember those "Reagan Hates Me!" T-shirts? Remember all the invective and ridicule hurled against Reagan for his entire term? Warmonger, cowboy, idiot, bumbler, manipulated by others - doesn't that sound familiar? There wasn't one single cheap shot that was taken at GWB that had not been taken at RWR 20 years before. Not one. It continued when Poppy Bush took office with Dana Carvey stepping into Chevy Chases shoes to make the inarticulate 41st president look like a clueless moron.

But then came 1993 and a strange thing happened: Conservatives started to "get it." By which I mean they started to realize that you don't win a street fight playing by Marquess of Queensberry rules. They started to use the same tactics against Clinton that had previously only been used against Republican presidents, and like Nixon, Clinton's own dirigible-sized ego and lack of self control only fanned the flames.

When the Republicans were able to actually impeach Clinton in 1998, the left went into a frenzy of both panic and hatred, and like a beer bottle that had been shaken for two years, all that hatred and rage came spewing out in 2000 when Bush was elected.

So the bottom line is that the few interludes of "civility" that have been present in the body politic for the past 40 years or so have been rare and exceptional. Like it or not, the scorched-earth style of politics is here to stay, and it's here to stay for two significant reasons:

1. Because these issues are important. They are meaningful and they matter so it's ridiculous to think people won't pull out all the stops in order to get their agenda pushed forward, and...

2. Because it works.

Actually as I recall it began during Reagans Presidency; that’s when the Democrats invented what would become known as “the politics of personal destruction”. It started with Robert Bork’s nomination to the supreme court. You see, even before Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell’s expected retirement Senate Democrats asked liberal leaders to form “a solid phalanx” to oppose whoever President Reagan nominated to replace him. On the same day of Bork’s nomination to the Court, Ted Kennedy (D-MA) took to the Senate floor with a strong condemnation of Bork in a nationally televised speech. Here’s Teddy:

“Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is — and is often the only — protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy… President Reagan is still our president. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and the next generation of Americans. No justice would be better than this injustice."

Now there’s some REAL civility from the lion of the Senate, eh?

And then there was the so-called Biden report, prepared for Joe Biden, then the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Bork later said in his book, “The Tempting of America”, that the Biden report, “so thoroughly misrepresented a plain record that it easily qualifies as world class in the category of scurrility.”

Say it ain’t so Joe!

Their next victim was John Tower. Big Bush nominated him for Defense Secretary in 1989. But the Democrats, still smarting from the Dukakis debacle, chose to use this as an avenue of revenge. They alleged that as the former Senator from Georgia, he was far too cozy with many of the large defense contractors there. And, although seemingly incredible today, Tower was criticized for rumors of heavy drinking and womanizing; the Democrats were shocked, Shocked!, that a single man would be involved with women…

And of course, we are all familiar with the BDS inspired venom and hatred that has spewed for the last 8 years. And while many may try to use the war as an excuse for their dishonorable, disgusting, uncivil behavior, the fact is that it had begun long before, owing to the Democrat sense of the entitlement of Al Gore to ascend to the Presidency following Clinton…

I mean, the one! had rose petals strewn in his path, effectively, at his inauguration; Bush had eggs thrown at his car as well as hundreds of federal employees, GWU and Howard U students-and their professors-line his parade route with their backs turned to him…

Now there’s civility for you!

No, the left in this country has worked hard during the perpetual campaign of the last 8 years, and sown the vile and divisive winds of today; now they can reap the whirlwind…

The Democrats then had the temerity to complain about the reaction Bill Clinton got. Pretty par for the course for them - when you got the bulk of the media, you use it. And when you know they will cover any bad behavior, and spin it so that it seems to be normal, then you go all out on that.

But now is different. Bill Clinton could fight back against personal attacks. He was capable of it.

The new guy? Barack Obama? Man, I don't think he could take a hundredth of what Bill Clinton or Gerald Ford received, let alone what Ronald Reagan and both George Bush's took. Obama is too defensive already - his press secretary going after Fox News and the President himself attacking a radio commentator - and all of that before the first two weeks were up! Hot-house orchid indeed; President Fragile Blossom right there.

I think the Democrat operatives, both in the official party and the media have woken up to this fact, and have looked at the calendar and realized that they now have to try and get their touchy guy with the tissue-thin skin through four years of the toughest job ever. I think they are scared witless - they banked everything on getting this guy in, they sold every inch of their credibility, they publicly prostituted themselves to do that, and they won. Their guy is in. And if he fails then they fail too. They know this. Rush Limbuagh knows this.

Lord, I would be enjoying this more if I didn't live here.