Frost/Nixon/Clinton/Obama

I saw Frost/Nixon this past weekend, the story line was flimsy, but that’s not the point. As the film rightly points out, television, and maybe even film, has a reductive quality. So it doesn’t matter that much of the movie was filler because the film showcases the quote that everyone who has seen the trailer can recite, which, to put it mildly, is not very Democratic, “When the President does it, that means it’s not illegal”.

After seeing the film I had to find the actual footage of the Frost/Nixon interview. When I did, I was struck at how oblivious Nixon seemed to the idea of accountability. He doesn’t scream, “When the President does it, that means it’s not illegal”! He says it calmly and is actually trying to explain himself; when he says he made mistakes, it doesn’t seem like he is talking about anything larger than himself; when he goes on about his political opponents twisting a knife into his back, he is completely serious. Nixon’s was a narcissistic and I am not the first to say it. Hunter Thompson didn’t, but he did say that Nixon represented “the dark side of the American Dream”.

As I sat on the couch this afternoon, watching Primary Colors, Nixon’s statement was still fresh in my mind. After watching Libby’s funeral, I couldn’t take it anymore. Something was bothering me. I got up, paced for a second, and then started into the living room. “I don’t how at eighteen, someone as political involved as Libby could have been so naive”, I said, showing off my own naiveté to my Father. “What” he responded? “Ya know Primary Colors”, I asked? “Yea” he said. “Well in the scene where Libby presents the political dirt on Picker to Jack and Susan, she rants about the 1972 Convention, and how she couldn’t believe that Eagelton actually received electroshock therapy. She goes on about how the CIA must have drugged him and forced it on him and says that her side needs the same thing. Then Jack, the Clinton character, says, Libby we don’t need dirt because our ideas are better. That’s pretty powerful, huh?” “Yea”, my Dad replied, “it is”. I went on, “I guess what I was having trouble with is, how it is that anyone of the those characters could have been so idealistic? Even at eighteen, didn’t they know what politics was like?” He said, “It was before Watergate”. It was also before the Clinton scandal, the 2000 Election, the entire Bush Administration, and a laundry list of other events.

The last forty years in American politics have been dreadful. As I think about all the events that have happened, I think about Barack Obama. The burden he bears is unbelievable. What happens if he screws up? What if there is a scandal and he breaks our hearts. A dreary thought, but it has been on my mind recently. For what its worth, I do not think he will because I actually think he has a new politic, one that is informed both by Nixon and Clinton. When I hear Barack Obama speak, its like hearing the inverse of Nixon. Nixon thought he was the country; his problems were the problems of the entire nation. When I hear Obama talk about the problems of the country, they seem to be his problems as well.