Opinion by Hal Brown
Here’s the most well known part of what came to be known as Nixon’s “I’m not crook” speech:
Let me just say this, and I want to say this to the television audience: I made my mistakes, but in all of my years of public life, I have never profited, never profited from public service--I have earned every cent. And in all of my years of public life, I have never obstructed justice. And I think, too, that I could say that in my years of public life, that I welcome this kind of examination, because people have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I am not a crook. I have earned everything I have got. Read entire transcript here.
Nixon lied in saying he didn’t obstruct justice because in essence he denied trying to steal the election and this is what Watergate was all about. In this regard he was indeed a crook. As far as I know not being a presidential scholar Nixon generally abided by the law during his presidency until he decided it didn’t apply to him if he could break it with impunity in order to get reelected. Nixon wasn't a crook in the sense that he wasn’t trying to enrich himself though the presidency.
Trump has been accurately called a grifter, a con man, and a thief. No grift was too small fo him to grift. (Wordsmiths: grift can be a noun and a verb.)
Now he is trying his damnedest to steal the election.
It’s been said before and will be said again: who would have thought we’d have a president that made Richard Nixon look like a paragon of virtue?
His other famous speech dubbed “The Checkers Speech” demonstrated how he bristled at the accusation that he was using donor money for personal expenses.
At the 1952 Republican National Convention, presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower chose Nixon as his running mate. Two months later, the New York Post ran the headline "Secret Rich Men's Trust Fund Keeps Nixon in Style Far Beyond His Salary" above an article claiming that campaign donors were buying influence with Nixon by keeping a secret fund stocked with cash for his personal expenses (some $140,000 in today's dollars). Outrage followed, and many Republicans urged Eisenhower to take Nixon off the ticket.
On September 23, Nixon appeared on national television from the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood to defend himself. He said that the fund did exist, but the money wasn't secret, was strictly for covering campaign expenses, and that no contributor to the campaign fund ever received any special treatment. He produced the results of an independent audit of his finances and proceeded to reveal his financial history, touching on everything from money he made from speaking engagements, to the rent he paid for an apartment in Virginia the four years he was there ($80 a month!), to the $10 check he received from a supporter too young to vote that he promised never to cash. Reference
The speech also showed that unlike Trump he appreciated that children benefit from having pets:
One other thing I probably should tell you because if we don’t they’ll probably be saying this about me too, we did get something-a gift-after the election. A man down in Texas heard Pat on the radio mention the fact that our two youngsters would like to have a dog. And, believe it or not, the day before we left on this campaign trip we got a message from Union Station in Baltimore saying they had a package for us. We went down to get it. You know what it was.
It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he’d sent all the way from Texas. Black and white spotted. And our little girl-Tricia, the 6-year old-named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we’re gonna keep it.
It’s also instructive to remember that Nixon was way, way more intelligent than Trump and understood both American history and the Constitution. Nixon is known for attending the small private Whittier College for his BA, but it is less known that he received his law degree from Duke University, sometimes called The Harvard of the South. Consider this from the “I’m not a crook” televised question-and-answer session with Associated Press editors:
Q. Do you feel that the executive privilege is absolute?
The President: I, of course, do not. I have waived executive privilege with regard to all of the members of my staff who have any knowledge of or who have had any charges made against them in the Watergate matter. I have, of course, voluntarily waived privilege with regard to turning over the tapes, and so forth.
Let me point out it was voluntary on my part, and deliberately so to avoid a precedent that might destroy the principle of confidentiality for future Presidents, which is terribly important.
If it had gone to the Supreme Court-and I know many of my friends argued, "Why not carry it to the Supreme Court and let them decide it?"--that would, first, have had a confrontation with the Supreme Court, between the Supreme Court and the President. And second, it would have established very possibly a precedent, a precedent breaking down constitutionality that would plague future Presidencies, not just President.
I could just say in that respect, too, that I have referred to what I called the Jefferson rule. It is the rule, I think; that we should generally follow--a President should follow--with the courts when they want information, and a President should also follow with committees of Congress, when they want information from his personal files.
Jefferson, as you know, in that very, very famous case, had correspondence which it was felt might bear upon the guilt or innocence of Aaron Burr. Chief Justice Marshall, sitting as a trial judge, held that Jefferson, as President, had to turn over the correspondence. Jefferson refused.
What he did was to turn over a summary of the correspondence, all that he considered was proper to be turned over for the purposes of the trial.
And then Marshall, sitting as Chief Justice, ruled for the President.
Now, why did Jefferson do that? Jefferson didn't do that to protect Jefferson. He did that to protect the Presidency. And that is exactly what I will do in these cases. It isn't for the purpose of protecting the President; it is for the purpose of seeing that the Presidency, where great decisions have to be made--and great decisions cannot be made unless there is very free flow of Conversation, and that means confidentiality--I have a responsibility to protect that Presidency.
At the same time, I will do everything I can to cooperate where there is a need for Presidential participation.
If there is a Heaven and Richard Nixon made it past the Pearly Gates and it has the Internet and he is keeping up with the news he has to be thinking “and I was going to be impeached and convicted for a small change deal like Watergate” and this guy real crook may get away with stealing his reelection.
Those of us who, like me, were old enough to be aware of the Watergate scandal never thought that we’d ever think that compared to a president in our lifetime we’d see Nixon as a paragon of virtue.