To celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of Watergate, which still has the press in paroxysms of self congratulation and narcissistic adoration, Gary Aldrich compares Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. The latter doesn't come off looking very well.

Nixon's behavior was reprehensible, and he betrayed many who trusted him. But at the end, he had the dignity to step down, for the good of his party, and the country. The damage Nixon did must include the Carter presidency, with double digit unemployment, inflation, and interest rates, Amy's insights in startegic nuclear policy, national malaise, and aquatic assault rabbits.

But what has intrigued me is that if you criticize Clinton's behaviour you are labeled a "hate filled" right winger, and perhaps even a conspirator. On the other hand, we have people who still, thirty years later, cannot discuss Nixon without risking apoplexy. And oddly enough, they are usually the same ones who would accuse me of being hateful if I were to remark that Clinton was amoral.

Hmmmm... I can discuss Clinton's loathsome excesses without raising my blood pressure or my voice, but every Mary McGrory piece about Nixon comes soaked with spittle and accompanied by a shrill screeching that sets dogs' hair on end. Who is comsumed with pathological hatred, again?

I live down the street from the Nixon Library. Last I checked he's still dead and buried there. Bill Clinton is still alive. And they're both still crooks.

Clinton is so crooked, that when he dies they'll have to screw him into the ground.

Sir, Nixon is responsible for so many thousands of deaths in Cambodia, North Vietnam, and Chile (indeed, hundreds of thousands, mostly civilian). You cannot compare a war criminal like Nixon with Bill Clinton. I'm really not all that fond of Clinton; I'm really not sure if he had any real convictions. And what he did with a White House intern was indeed, extremely unethical. Suborning perjury is also unethical, illegal. But none of Clinton's sins approach Nixon territory. Aside from the burglary job on the Democratic Party, he killed thousands and instigated a coup in Chile that brought the rise of Pinochet. Dignity in resigning? Nixon should have been jailed until his death.