The Bootblack Stand
Plunkitt, George Washington
The Bootblack Stand - Dr. George Washington Plunkitt, our prize-winning political analyst, is celebrating the publication of his new book, which is now available...
...Plunkitt: What the hell are we to do...
...Nixon to his grave, it becomes almost impossible to argue that any additional (albeit more traditional) punitive measures are called for...
...Justice may be blind, but it is not undiscriminating...
...Nixon's case, as Ihave attempted to demonstrate, is unique...
...Consider, for example, that even as all the keepers of the nation's conscience are in such a dither over the pardon, Mr...
...Your friend, Jay Stringfellow Campaign Director Dear Mr...
...I thought he was a salesman for the Living Bible...
...But on the other hand, neither have there been loud protestations of innocence, nor any attempt to encourage the development of the so-called "myth of the martyred President...
...What with the opening of Mr...
...they have not made the contributions to the nation that Mr...
...Nixon has...
...GWP downfall simply does not wipe all this off the slate...
...If your constituents continue to grouse tell them that the Congressman was drunk...
...active promotion of the Silver Slipper, The Scene, and the career of "the Argentine Firecracker," it seems entirely possible that Washington will soon rival New York as a cultural center...
...Or blame the whole thing on Nixon...
...How about some evening next month...
...Or consider the 50,000 young Americans who avoided service in the armed forces during the Vietnam unpleasantness, who are currently developing their more refined theory of civil The Alternative: An American Spectator December 1974 27...
...So what if he now tries to give a boost to adult librairies, genuine art films, and /a danse...
...Nixon is not...
...This man Mills misled me—he told me his name was Wilbert—into thinking he was a man of refinement...
...Box 877, Bloomington, Indiana 47401, Continental U.S.A...
...George Washington Plunkitt, our prize-winning political analyst, is celebrating the publication of his new book, which is now available at avant-garde bookstores throughout New Jersey...
...The real point, it seems to me, is that the pardon is a perfectly defensible and in many ways appropriate act—and that the virulence of the reaction to it is both indefensible and inappropriate in the extreme...
...He still orders Moon Pies at Sans Souci , does he not...
...Then along comes some TV cameraman who gets a shot of old Wilbur with his arm around a cop...
...When the cops pull him out of the car his face is bleeding like a ruptured blood vessel, his breath is combustible, and one of the broads leaps into the Tidal Basin...
...There has been no ex-plicit admission of criminal liability, and none is likely to be forthcoming...
...GWP Dear Dr...
...Third, there is the issue of mercy, which should take into account the extent to which the individual in question has already been punished for his wrongdoing...
...To the degree that anyone who receives a pardon can be said to have earned one, Mr...
...How the hell can we explain this to the stuffy ignoramuses who have been reelecting the old boy since the McKinley Administration...
...And when in addition one considers (as Mr...
...Tuesday morning old Wilbur is driving around the Jefferson Memorial with a car full of strippers and his lights out...
...Indeed, this author is himself somewhat ambivalent on the issue, both in terms of its timing and its possible impact on more mundane matters such as the 1974 elections...
...We need not, I think, tarry too long over this point...
...If you could come by my office I would be glad to show you my collection of campaign buttons...
...Moreover, Mr...
...but I hardly think that Mr...
...The Bootblack Stand by George Washington Plunkitt Dr...
...Stringfellow: Frankly I do not understand the lurid pother that the philistines in the media have stirred up over this very unexceptionalaffair...
...These facts were easily available 'to the Washington Post, but their male chauvinists saw me as a stereotype or something...
...Nixon has "suffered enough...
...When the gentlemen of the law informed me of his real identity I was so mortified I attempted to have done with myself by leaping into the Tidal Pool...
...Address all correspondence to The Bootblack Stand, c/o The Alternative, P.O...
...Nixon should not escape the criminal sanctions imposed on subordinates like John Dean or Charles Colson...
...President Ford was much impressed by this factor, as evidenced by his oft-quoted (and occasionally derided) language to the effect that Mr...
...Tell them he always drinks when he drives so that if he has an accident he will be relaxed...
...But to make heavy weather of this issue, as so many are doing, is rather superficial...
...Plunkitt: As a woman and as a stripper I have suffered a great deal of distress due to the press' exploitation of my misfortune at the hands of one Wilbur D. Mills...
...He still wears white socks, does he not...
...Plunkitt expects to earn ten million dollars from sales of his new book, he has agreed to continue to advise public figures through this column...
...Mills' constituents could be displeased...
...Ford clearly did) the physical and emotional difficulties that will accompany Mr...
...If you are dissatisfied with these suggestions give Ted Sorensen a call...
...I was never very impressed with the women libbers, but it is apparent from the coverage my misfortune has received in the press that there is a great deal of sexism shown toward women who have chosen stripping for a career...
...and realistically, they have not been subjected to anywhere near the suffering that he has...
...Heartbroken, Fanne Fox, the Argentine Firecracker Dear Miss Fox: My dear, you have been shamelessly deluded by a low rascal indeed...
...I personally would not be caught dead with a Congressman or any other sort of politician...
...The fourth factor to be weighed is the degree of contrition displayed by the wrongdoer...
...Mills...
...Dean and Colson were not President of the United States...
...The press has totally neglected the fact that most strippers have great pride and dignity...
...I cannot imagine how Mr...
...Initially, this seems impressive: Dean and Colson, after all, are going to jail, and Mr...
...There are factors to be weighed in the scales of equal justice in judging a former President that are simply not present elsewhere...
...Plunkitt's book is about the importance of altruism in politics and it is titled What's in It for Me...
...Not since the days of Camelot has a Washington solon shown such a lively interest in high culture...
...Daniel Ellsberg is flitting about from one campus and talk show to another, cashing in on his illegal revelation of classified material, and all the while being acclaimed as a moral hero for doing so...
...Now all of this is not to say that the pardon of Richard Nixon is so clearly right that no reasonable person should disagree...
...Finally, there is the whole question of "equal justice"—the argument being that Mr...
...Perhaps more profound displays of mea culpa would be appropriate...
...Personally, I cannot fathom what such a punishmenf would be...
...Although Dr...
...I shall be glad ,to consult with you privately...
...Nixon's largely ignored statement issued as he accepted the pardon did indeed express both his genuine remorse for the grief he had caused the nation, and the personal guilt he bore as a result...
...I take it as an extremely auspicious sign when I hear that Congressmen are again patronizing the arts...
...He is faced with these sorts of difficulties all the time...
...There is, I submit, no clearer illustration of how warped and hysterical our discussion of political events in general, and of the Presidency in particular, has become...
...And he still comes forward with the most extravagant boondoggles...
...Nixon's case is at its weakest, and to some degree this is true...
...Here, many would contend that Mr...
...Dear Dr...
...Hirshhorn's museum, and now with Mr...
...Nixon qualifies...
...Nixon's possible deficiencies on this score constitute a decisive argument against a grant of clemency...
...If there are individuals who can conceive of a more profound, lasting, or fitting punishment than being forced to become the first man in history to resign the Presidency in disgrace, I congratulate them on their imaginatively punitive minds...
Vol. 8 • December 1974 • No. 3
