[alanmcorcoran]

Having been alive and pretty well informed at the time of things political, all things considered (and there is a lot of not so good shit to consider) I would probably take Nixon over some of the folks that have been in that office of late. The guy was grasping, abusive of power, probably a racist and and anti-Semite, but he was not afraid to tackle tough problems head on and he had (the arrogance?) of confidence to believe he could fix things. Even though he was power mad, and an egomaniac, I think he strove to do (at least in his mind) what was best for America. Like Obama, he inherited a messy war, and like today, it was a lengthy, relatively fruitless effort that wrecked our economy and divided our country. First he tried to win it by force, then he basically just shut it down. Having turned 18 in 1976, even though I am not a republican and there is no question he abused his office way beyond basic dirty politics, I will be forever grateful that both the Vietnam war and the draft ended before I had to get involved.

He was a complicated man - an interesting mix of very bad and very capable.

People often only remember Nixon for Watergate, and I suppose that is fair. But this was a guy who lost a very close race (some would say fixed) to JFK, beat Ronald Reagan out for the Republican nomination in 1968 and eked out a win in a tough three way race that included George Wallace, who mostly siphoned off votes that might have gone to Nixon. His reelection, wasn't even close.