Hillary Clinton Reminds Me of Richard Nixon

Image Source: BusinessWeek

Hillary Clinton reminds me of Richard Nixon. I'm not 100% sure why. But as I'm sitting here watching some of CNN's Ballot Bowl coverage on TV and seeing her coldly deliver blatantly manipulative half-truths (at best), it triggered something. I am not someone who is steeped in the nuances of American political history, so take this perceived likeness for whatever it's worth. But I have read almost every word published by Hunter S. Thompson, and his consistent characterizations of Nixon as a cold, ruthless professional political hack have stuck with me. When I see Clinton on the trail, obviously willing to say and do anything to get herself into the seat of power, I see a political cockroach on a mission of stubborn defiance and self-interest, no matter how much she tries to cloak herself in the trappings of populist advocacy and compassion.

A few of Thompson's quotes about Nixon strike me as a particularly apt way to sum up my sense of Hillary right now:
(Source: The Liberal Avenger)

"He was the real thing--a political monster straight out of Grendel and a very dangerous enemy. He could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time."

"As long as Nixon was politically alive--and he was, all the way to the end--we could always be sure of finding the enemy on the Low Road. There was no need to look anywhere else for the evil bastard. He had the fighting instincts of a badger trapped by hounds. The badger will roll over on its back and emit a smell of death, which confuses the dogs and lures them in for the traditional ripping and tearing action. But it is usually the badger who does the ripping and tearing. It is a beast that fights best on its back: rolling under the throat of the enemy and seizing it by the head with all four claws."

"...honest historians will remember him mainly as a rat who kept scrambling to get back on the ship."

I also did a quick Google to see if anything else had been written about the Hillary and Nixon comparison. Found this from Matt Taibbi. I'm not usually a fan of his writing. It seems to me that he deliberately over uses venomous, skeptical slants no matter what the subject. But there is no arguing that he is a knowledgeable and intelligent observer of American politics.