Nixon: In His Own Words

LuLu: Why are you watching a documentary on Nixon? He was a cheater! 

Me: He was one of the greatest President's ever. Respect the man in the arena.

LuLu: So? He was cheater. He lied as President.

Me: You mean he got caught. That's the only difference.

The documentary we watched was "Nixon: In His Own Words," and it used audio from his tapes to narrate his Presidency. It was pretty neutral, but you see a bit of an anti-RN slant in some of the editing. In particular, they loved to contrast his actions with his vulgar rants about that subject behind the scenes.

But, like me, Nixon was known by his associates to vent his anger by going over-the-top in his grumbling, then going ahead and doing what needed doing anyway. If you aren't aware of that - and/or haven't read 100's of pages of the tape transcripts, you probably watch the flick and think "what a hypocritical nut."

His sins were great enough; there's no need to fictionalize alternatives.