A Tale of Two Speeches

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Tonight, I've been musing a little about the funny games that history sometimes likes to play with mere mortals like us.

No, this isn't a tricky lead-in to Kenneth Walsh's latest installment in his series of articles in U.S. News & World Report about the most consequential U.S. presidential elections — although, while I'm on the subject, I do recommend this week's article, which is on George Washington's election as president in 1789.

Actually, what I'm talking about is something that anyone who is over 40 should remember — at least in part.

If you're my age or older, you probably remember both events.

I refer to Richard Nixon — who may have experienced the highest of his political highs and the lowest of his political lows on two August 8ths.

On this date in 1968, Nixon accepted the Republican nomination for president at his party's convention in Miami.

Now, being nominated for president was not a new experience for Nixon — he had been nominated in 1960. But the circumstances were different.

Nixon was part of the incumbent administration when he lost to John F. Kennedy in 1960. As such, he was required to defend and support the record of the Eisenhower administration.

Defending a record requires different skills than attacking a record. And Nixon's style was more suited for the role of attacker.

He was always a combative politician, whether he was staring down Alger Hiss early in his congressional career or challenging allegations of a secret fund in his "Checkers" speech as a vice presidential candidate.

Or fighting to keep possession of his tapes during the Watergate scandal.

By 1968, the incumbent Democrats had achieved great things domestically, but they were unpopular because of the Vietnam War. And the economy struggled at times under Lyndon Johnson.

Nixon came to Miami prepared to hold the Democrats' feet to the fire.

The question, he said in his acceptance speech, was "whether we shall continue for four more years the policies of the last five years?"

(With a few modifications, that isn't a bad model for Barack Obama to follow as he prepares his acceptance speech for later this month. It might serve to re-focus the debate.)

On that August night in 1968, when Nixon accepted the nomination and unveiled his new catch phrase, "the silent majority," he did so with the knowledge that, if he could contain George Wallace's support in the South, he had a good chance of winning the election.

And being president was the thing he coveted most in life.

With the exception of five Southern states that voted for Wallace that November, Nixon did manage to contain him enough in the South to win the election. It was another cliffhanger, just like the one Nixon lost to Kennedy in 1960.

Six years later, speaking to the nation from the Oval Office, Nixon announced that he would resign the next day.

In 1968, Nixon chastised the opposition, as a good nominee is expected to do. "When the strongest nation in the world can be tied down for four years in a war in Vietnam with no end in sight ... when the richest nation in the world can't manage its own economy ... "

Historian Theodore H. White called the speech a "return to the tested themes of the primaries," and it united the delegates on that evening, giving the Nixon-Agnew ticket some momentum heading into the fall campaign. But Nixon barely hung on to win the election, and, after taking office in January 1969, he struggled with both the war and the economy until the Watergate scandal overwhelmed his administration.

That is one of the ironic twists of the story.

In the history books, it says that Nixon resigned on August 9 — and, indeed, he did. Gerald Ford was sworn in as president that day, and the Nixons flew home to California.

For drama, Nixon's farewell to the White House staff on the morning of August 9 had no equal. Later, Nixon's son-in-law, David Eisenhower, reported believing that Nixon was about to come mentally unhinged as he lurched through a maudlin, sentimental, nationally televised speech that paid tribute to his mother ("She was a saint," Nixon told the staff) and spoke unself-consciously of a need for "good plumbers" in America (if you weren't around in those days, a little background may be useful here — "plumbers" was the name that was given to Nixon's secret goon squad that was assigned to squelch political leaks).

As a speech, the one Nixon gave on Aug. 8, 1974, announcing his intention to resign the next day, is really memorable only for what it represented — the American Constitution had emerged as dominant even over the most powerful official in the land.

Contrary to the implications of Nixon's behavior, the president was not above the law. And that means that no one is above the law.

But I have to wonder if some of Nixon's words from his 1968 acceptance speech didn't come back to haunt him, even as he announced plans to voluntarily give up the office he had desired so long.

"When the president of the United States cannot travel abroad or to any major city at home without fear of a hostile demonstration," Nixon told the GOP delegates in Miami in 1968, "then it's time for new leadership for the United States of America."

As Nixon was delivering his address in 1974, announcing that he would resign, protesters had gathered near the White House and were chanting, "Jail to the Chief."

It was, as Nixon had proclaimed six years earlier, "time for new leadership."