What would Nixon do?

[HysteryDiagnosis]

Poll question: What would Nixon do?

When Dick Nixon found himself embroiled in the comparatively mild scandal that was known as watergate... what were his options.. and what did he do?

[LiberalEsto]

1. Erase the tape

and freeze wages

[NorCalDem]

2. Resign under a scandal

and officially kill the dream that was Democracy.

[batsauce]

5. ?what ?

Are you saying that Nixon killed the dream the first time he resigned, or that Bush would kill the dream if he resigned now?

[NorCalDem]

8. Both,

I guess, not quite sure what I meant :D

[batsauce]

9. oh.

i think i was a little confused myself.

I had the idea they were asking what would Nixon do if he was in Bush's situation.

But they weren't.

[Ken Burch]

3. You left out MY choice:

"Overthrow a left-wing South American government."

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. Sorry.... I did the best I knew how..... but that is a great one!!

[NoSheep]

4. Resign in disgrace. THOSE were the days!

:eyes:

[SalmonChantedEvening]

7. First #1,then #3,then #6, then #9

[batsauce]

10. I kinda wonder

what would have happened if he had actually been impeached and found guilty.

Clinton was found guilty and didn't seem to slow him down much.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

11. How many people died because of Clinton's impeachment or

rather the reason for it?? Not too many.. eh?

[batsauce]

13. No one died because of the Plame incident.

so if he is impeached based on that

it probably won't affect his presidency much, based on recent history.

We don't know what would have happened if Nixon had gone the impeachment route, rather than resigning, but it is interesting to note that no one died because of Watergate either.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

18. The "Plame Incident" helped to launch an illegal war. That is what it

is really all about.

[Crankie Avalon]

14. Clinton was never "found guilty"...

...if he had, he would have been removed from office--that's what "impeachment" is.

You need a two-thirds vote in the Senate to convict, and the "reason" for the articles of impeachment against Clinton were so frivolous and unworthy that even a few of the Republicans were too ashamed to vote for it (and when something shames even a Republican, that's REALLY saying something). On two of the articles, they could only get 50 votes, and on the third they only got 48, if memory serves. They needed 67.

Nixon had no hope of avoiding a conviction if the articles of impeachment against him had come to a vote. He could only count on about 10 or 12 hardcore wingnuts in the Senate to vote not to convict--and he needed 34.

Both Nixon and, as is becoming more and more apparent, Bush, were caught in serious abuses of public power. Clinton had illicit sex.

[batsauce]

15. mea culpa...

He was not convicted. I agree that is a very important fact to consider here. I really should have known this important piece of history.

But he was impeached.

" Clinton was the second U.S. president to be impeached by the House of Representatives. He was tried in the Senate and found not guilty of the charges brought against him. He apologized to the nation for his actions and continued to have unprecedented popular approval ratings for his job as president.

In the world, he successfully dispatched peace keeping forces to war-torn Bosnia and bombed Iraq when Saddam Hussein stopped United Nations inspections for evidence of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. He became a global proponent for an expanded NATO, more open international trade, and a worldwide campaign against drug trafficking. He drew huge crowds when he traveled through South America, Europe, Russia, Africa, and China, advocating U.S. style freedom. "

www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/bc42.html

[Crankie Avalon]

16. Yes...

...and I think that should Bush be impeached, he will be able to easily find 34 votes from the 55 Republicans currently in the Senate to avoid conviction--no matter how serious, well-founded, and even indisputable the articles against him might be.

The Republicans have completely changed the landscape from what it was during the Watergate era--for a while now, they have come to believe that politics trump any notion of the nation's greater good.

[batsauce]

17. that is too sad.

[pinkpops]

12. Nominate Rove for the SCOUS