And Spiro was a great guy, too

Ben Stein on Richard Nixon:

That is his legacy. He was a peacemaker. He was a lying, conniving, covering up peacemaker. He was not a lying, conniving drug addict like JFK, a lying, conniving war starter like LBJ, a lying, conniving seducer like Clinton -- a lying, conniving peacemaker. That is Nixon's kharma.

When his enemies brought him down, and they had been laying for him since he proved that Alger Hiss was a traitor, since Alger Hiss was their fair-haired boy, this is what they bought for themselves in the Kharma Supermarket that is life:

1.) The defeat of the South Vietnamese government with decades of death and hardship for the people of Vietnam.

2.) The assumption of power in Cambodia by the bloodiest government of all time, the Khmer Rouge, who killed a third of their own people, often by making children beat their own parents to death. No one doubts RN would never have let this happen.

So, this is the great boast of the enemies of Richard Nixon, including Mark Felt: they made the conditions necessary for the Cambodian genocide. If there is such a thing as kharma, if there is such a thing as justice in this life of the next, Mark Felt has bought himself the worst future of any man on this earth. And Bob Woodward is right behind him, with Ben Bradlee bringing up the rear. Out of their smug arrogance and contempt, they hatched the worst nightmare imaginable: genocide. I hope they are happy now -- because their future looks pretty bleak to me.

Ben Stein always impressed me as being a reasonably intelligent guy, and his comments on his game show always suggested a general awareness of the real world around him, long-standing conservative credentials aside. So I have a little difficulty believing that he wasn't fully aware of how smelly this turd was even as he was pinching it out. Ben Bradlee & Co. went after Nixon because of Alger Hiss? LBJ started the war in Viet Nam? Pol Pot savaged Cambodia because Mark Felt spilled the beans on the clinically paranoid Richard Nixon and his morally bankrupt administration? South Viet Nam lost the war in the 50's, 60's and early 70's because Nixon was forced to resign in '74?

Boy, I can't wait to hear why he thinks we're getting our asses handed to us in Iraq. I suppose he can always lay it at the feet of those treasonous, anti-Bush mothers who won't let their kids enlist.