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from: Michael Hirschorn

Exhuming Nixon; Reviving Dole

Posted Thursday, Feb. 25, 1999, at 3:54 PM ET

Safire's ongoing exhumation of Nixon's legacy has always been a source of wonder. No one has ever questioned Nixon's intelligence or much of his policy instinct, with the notable exception of that quasi-socialist period where he trumped for wage and price controls (let's see Safire exhume that). It was Safire, I believe, whom we can blame for the promiscuous use of "-gate" to brand every ethical quagmire from Korea- on to Travel-, a kind of hidden-hand campaign to devalue Water-. But, you're right, this particular bit of mush-mouthed hackery is particularly odd: God knows people aren't hankering for a return to Clinton's Policy Guy persona circa 1991-94. It was as pose-y as his bitten lip (Clinton's, that is, not Juanita Broaddrick's), a way to signify with maximum tedium that you were a policy-crunching New Democrat and not one of those Cro-Magnons still spewing past-due-date dogma circa 1975. I believe we still value actions more than words, and that Safire does as well, though Clinton, in doing only a handful of actual tangible things over his six years, seems to have achieved better results than he would have had he actually articulated and followed through on an intellectual/philosophical vision.

A final thought: I keep thinking that given Clinton's priapism there's something terribly, heavens-tremblingly wrong and yet metaphorically apt about Bob Dole's fake public-service ads (actually a shill for Viagra) on behalf of something called erectile dysfunction. Mim, could you ask your doctor about that?

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516
from: Michael Hirschorn

Exhuming Nixon; Reviving Dole

Posted Thursday, Feb. 25, 1999, at 3:54 PM ET
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Michael Hirschorn, formerly editor of Spin magazine, has just exited the 18 to 34 demographic. Mim Udovitch has written about pop culture and other premillennial topics for Esquire, Rolling Stone, and the New York Times Book Review.
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