I’m willing to bet the farm that nobody, nowhere, never-ever expected to see a picture of Richard Nixon gracing my blog. Not in this lifetime!
And twice that many (two times zero is still zero, right?) would be totally shocked, appalled and mortified to learn that Richard Nixon was the first president I was old enough to vote for… And did!
Nixon’s name will always be synonymous with wire-tapping and the Watergate Scandal. Yet you can’t knock the guy’s foreign policy. History has borne out the fact that he did, indeed, do some really good work while in office, but unfortunately it will always be overshadowed by his mistakes.
And today it’s been 39 years since he resigned the presidency. Thirty-nine years already since he walked away from the Oval Office! Know how many other presidents have done that?
Exactly none.
Nixon resigned in order to avoid the embarrassment of impeachment proceedings, which surely would have resulted in his removal from office. Two other presidents faced impeachment, Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, and both were acquitted.
What pressure. What stress. What gut-wrenching, horrific thing it must be to decide walk away from the very thing you most coveted and desired your whole life.
But haven’t there been times when, to a somewhat lesser extent, we’ve all done the very same thing?
Think about it.
