‘New York Times’: Nixon Tapes Prove That Conservatives Should Give Up Principles

If you want a perfect example of how the left works, not to mention another example of how the Old Media establishment is thoroughly sold out to the far left, we have but to look to an August 23 piece in The New York Times by Francis X. Clines where we are told that the Nixon tapes show that Republicans should give up their principles and accept the left’s concepts and political policies.

Clines spends most of her piece talking about the release of the last batch of tape recordings made by Richard Nixon in the White House. Nixon’s tapes are, of course, a never ending source of fascination for liberals and from time to time also reveal an interesting window into the man’s soul, so the release of this last batch nearly 40 years after the President ignominiously resigned from office–the first (and only) president to do so–is of interest.

But buried at the end of her piece, Clines also unwittingly give us a window not into Nixon’s soul but into both hers and the leftist media’s souls.

Clines talks of how Nixon is heard on the tapes discussing why he bucked his conservative followers when he famously opened the door to communist China. Nixon said on the tapes that he never thought anyone else would hear that he softened on Red China to avoid nuclear war. Nixon is heard saying that if the US did not approach China, “in the end we would reap a nuclear war. No question.”

OK, well and good. Whether Nixon was right or not is a matter of opinion since he did open that dialog and we never got to that confrontation based on our hard line views of China.

But hear is the window into the leftist media. Clines wrote the following:

Quite unintentionally, Nixon thus offered a lesson to politicians across the ages about the value of easing an obsessive political identity. It could resonate creatively these days as zealous Republicans cling to hard-line intransigence.

Note that Clines thinks only Republicans should heed the advice to “ease” their “obsessing on political identity”?

She doesn’t think the left should “ease” its hard line views on abortion, high taxes, big government meddling, the UN, its anti-gun positions… or a host of other hidebound, left-wing ideas?

Nope. Only Republicans should learn this lesson.

Typical, eh?

Share this!

Enjoy reading? Share it with your friends!