Frank Rich on Nixon, Bush, and 'failed presidents'

Frank Rich on Nixon, Bush, and 'failed presidents'
RAW STORYPublished: Saturday June 2, 2007

"Failed presidents ain't what they used to be," writes Frank Rich for his Sunday New York Times article this week. Comparing notes on two men whom many consider to be among the worst presidents in modern history, Rich concludes that while Nixon's overarching paranoia and need for control earned the deep-seated hatred of many Americans, President Bush is simply "too slight to hate."

"Unlike Nixon, President Bush is less an overreaching Machiavelli than an epic blunderer surrounded by Machiavellis," writes Rich. "He lacks the crucial element of acute self-awareness that gave Nixon his tragic depth."

Analyzing a current state of affairs that has promoted a backlash that, while agressive and all-encompassing, has differed markedly from the impeachment of Richard M. Nixon. Most Americans "simply wish the Bush presidency would end," Rich writes, and would rather hold out for someone to undue the present damange.

While Americans are nearly uniform in their dissatisfaction with the direction the country is going in, each party is rife with crippling infighting and political disunity. Trapped by their need for party-line adherence, Rich notes that "what the angriest proselytizers on the left and right have in common is a conviction that their political parties will commit hara-kiri if they don't adhere to their bases' strict ideological orders."

Despite all the gridlocked rhetoric, Rich believes, American are moving towards clear change on the issues that are currently dividing their parties the most, Iraq and immigration. "This relatively unified America can't be compared with that of the second Nixon term, when the violent cultural and political upheavals of the late 1960s were still fresh. But in at least one way there may be a precise political parallel in the aftermaths of two failed presidencies rent by catastrophic wars: Americans are exhausted by anger itself and are praying for the mood pendulum to swing."