Customer Reviews

Nixon - A Presidency Revealed

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I only wish the biography was longer, more comprehensive of his entire life's work, rather than going on mostly about the Watergate affair. But overall, a must-see, even if you're not at all a Nixon fan. It's pretty fairly balanced, for those who love him and hate him.

I think the video did a good job of explaining the presidency of Richard Nixon. However, I think the video should have focused more on Nixon's good qualities. The video could have dealt more on his early family history. The video could have mentioned something about his stance on Civil Rights early in his career. No one doubts that Nixon did wrong during the Watergate episode. In spite of this, Richard Nixon had a profound influence on American foreign policy. One question I ask is "What would have happened if Nixon had won in 1960?" We probably would not have had the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam debacle. I also think Nixon would have advanced Civil Rights in a more forward manner than Kennedy. The question will never be answered, but it is fun to think about.

Initially I was disappointed that this production focused mostly on Nixon's dark, "paranoid" (as some who knew him described him) side. But the longer I watched this I came away with a better understanding not so much of the man, but of his administration and how wrapped up in Vietnam and later with Watergate he got. The audio tapes are quite revealing of Nixon's abuse of power.

The downside to this production is that it doesn't go into his pre-political life. For that I suggest one watches the PBS Presidential version of Nixon, a good production that balances this one out. This work starts with Nixon's term under Eisenhower and how he rose to power in the 1950s.

Nixon's daughter is interviewed for this, Alex Butterfield, Sen Bob Dole, Henry Kissinger and a few others, but not VP Ford or others closely working with Nixon. That is fine, though as the tapes we get to listen to in part say enough of Nixon the man.

Sen Dole said it best that Nixon the persona overshadowed some of the laws that Nixon passed early in his administration: environmental laws and other seemingly-progressive laws that were later overlooked when Watergare came around. He would be considered a moderate-progressive to today's standard Republican and, according to Dole, never be nominated to the GOP. It makes one think of what could have happened had Nixon won the election in 1960 instead of Kennedy.

This is a nice addition to a presidential buff's personal library.

A worthwhile documentary but it could easily have been two discs focusing a lot more on Nixon's achievements than just one disc. It seems to just glance over selected highlights of his career then becomes preoccupied with Watergate. (which isn't a surprise)

Good DVD. Material is easily recalled, though, after a few viewings and it is no longer intriguing, nor new. I wouldn't actually recommend it, because it doesn't feature enough detail about Nixon or his life to warrant repeated viewings throughout the course of a 365 day year. A more thorough DVD is necessary to do this. The extras here are the same; awesome to watch a few times, boring and rote thereafter. Works well as a PBS special that airs once a year, where the viewer cannot memorize every single line being uttered by every participant. One thing: no interviews with either the late John Mitchell, the late Pat Nixon, the late Gerald Ford, or even the late Richard Nixon himself. DVD needed that actually encompasses the man's life.

This is a first class documentary about someone who could have been a first class President. Richard Nixon was as complex a man as any who ever occupied the Oval Office. His legacy has been tarnished by the bizarre and occasionally sinister deeds he authorized his plumbers and dirty tricks men to commit against his enemies. These enemies were very real but also very much a product of his initial machinations.

Those of us on the right are often confused by how much the left hates Nixon because we see him as the big spending, government bloating neo-leftist he actually was. With conservatives around like Nixon in charge of domestic spending there would not be any private sector remaining after awhile. The fact is that this man really did not have a political ideology outside the realm of foreign policy. In that department, with the aid of Kissinger, he accomplished great things. Yes, great things in both his dealings with China and the Soviet Union.

Was he brilliant? I think he was but no amount of mental wattage can outshine a disturbed psyche. The man hated and was hated in return. The vanity and narcissism of those ridiculous tapes is what destroyed him but destruction is a fitting and just end for someone who is narcissistic and vain. He was an incredibly insecure man who allowed those who served him to go to jail on his behalf. History remembers him now mostly as a disgrace which is how he deserves to be remembered.

President Nixon was a brilliant man, however he had difficulty forgiving. He held grudges against people that were critical of him. This led him to live in isolation and secrecy as President. He was right when he said if you hate the people that hate you, then you destroy yourself. He learned the hard way. If it were not for the distrust and paranoia he suffered from, he would have been one of the greatest Presidents.

While this is a nice account, Nixon was not complicated, and could never be mistaken  EVER  as "brilliant." Thus his "tragic flaw." The essence of this theory is that, by and large, rulers are not brought down only, or even mainly, by external events  rather, they bring ruin upon themselves because of some significant deficiency in their own character, a "tragic flaw" in their psychic and ethical makeup. They are consumed by overweening lust for power, or don't mind using immoral means in the service of good ends, or can't control their obsessions, etc. Think: "Macbeth," and ambition; "Othello," and jealousy; "Hamlet," and indecision.

Nixon's tragic flaw was his paranoia, needing always to know what his political opponents were up to, hence the break-in and wiretapping of the Democratic Party headquarters, the building of his "enemies' list," digging up personal information for his "dirty-trick" operations against political opponents, etc. Besides working with a substandard intellect (as we see in all republican presidents and agonizingly so in Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II), Nixon was typically conservative: the rules apply to others, but never to me. By the time he found out that they did, it was too late, and history has judged him a fool and a criminal ever since.