WASHINGTON REPORT: 'Sick Transit.':
Sisyphus
WASHINGTON REPORT `SICK TRANSIT .... f Nixon has involuntarily resigned the Presidency. His There were...
...This is a in part due to the mistrust of the French electorate for fact of considerable political consequence, and its signifthe Communists who backed him and who could have icance requires some retrospection...
...His foreignand some of these convicted...
...After the 23 August 1974: 446...
...Calvin Coolidge walk- restrain ourselves...
...f Nixon has involuntarily resigned the Presidency...
...Instead, they were fed deceptive and from the crimes of subversion of the political system, sloppy sentimentality that will help to delay necessary goes the argument...
...is• an extremely conservative one-his votes on minimum Four members of his Cabinet were indicted...
...At best, his voting record on civil to bad rubbish...
...Blows to a nation that had sobering times ahead with a new President, despite his already suffered three political assassinations, including disclaimer that the "long national nightmare is over...
...After speech of resignation was a cross between a college all, said Senator Thurmond of South Carolina...
...Internationalism took second place to patriotism, is important that such diverse leftist parties as the Parti and the Communists sought to convince the French Socialiste, the Radicaux de gauche, and the Parti Social- people that the Party was no less French for being inspired by the Soviet example...
...Nixon entitled "The Nature of Evil," "The Last Man," and chose an unsatisfactory way out-by deciding to resign, "The Taste of Ashes...
...old women across traffic-ladden streets...
...that of a President, and a scandalous war in Southeast Gerald Ford is an honest Nixon...
...It's a disciplining chore-by comparison, more streets of whatever community he found himself in...
...Grant him immunity cleansing candor...
...He is generally Asia...
...His farewell speech was typically deceptive: "If some More important, the Executive Branch will now be of my judgments were wrong-and some were wrong- headed for the first time by two men, the President and they were made in the best interests of the nation...
...WASHINGTON REPORT `SICK TRANSIT...
...The Communists' approval EMILE J. TALBOT, an associate professor of French at the Uni- of the Germano-Soviet pact of 1939, however, wiped versity of Illinois (Urbana), recently returned from an extended out whatever gains they had made in this area, and the stay in France...
...His mean- that TV occupies, performed its obscurantist role that spirited outlook added to the burdens of the dispossessed...
...His There were occasional truth-tellings, but the commencrew-cut lagos have departed-for trial or to California...
...ism continues to make inroads into our public and our This is unfortunate, because an estimated 130-million private lives...
...policy outlook is an aggressive one reflecting the exAs the Irish in Roxbury used to say: "good riddance tremes of the 1950s...
...ed the streets of downtown Washington...
...Vice President, who have not been elected to these posiThis sentence should be included in any English tions...
...a result of a general election...
...to those who would undertake to convince Americans Nixon was a political jock, to whom only winning that he was not involved in wrong-doing and was ousted mattered...
...Nixon valedictorian speech and a eulogy to a Founding Father...
...tary for the most part left Nixon's departure vulnerable He won't have James St...
...And in the live-and-let-live political repairs to the federal government and the political system...
...The muddled-middle, ted to govern...
...The 25th composition courses as a superb example of misleading Amendment, designed to provide a more rational line understatement...
...the political system well...
...This has major leftist parties in the May 19 Presidential elections, been possible in large part because the French Comunderscores the growing importance of the French Com- munist Party has exhibited over the past decade a new munist Party in the political life of France...
...President Jefferson, during his first day in commonsensical man he is portrayed-can help us to Office, ate at his boarding house...
...Americans viewed Nixon's 19-minute farewell speech...
...Soviets, attempted to become a more truly national As far as the future of French politics is concerned, it party...
...His first Vice President was a grafter...
...Hours of babbling inanities, passed-off as to escape accountability...
...Many Americans venerate the oc- said that he was somehow reminded of a passage from cupant of the Presidency...
...Newspapers and TV are al- Camus wherein a caller visited a friend, who was sick, ready beginning to encourage this attitude toward the and then went home and slept on the floor...
...His resignation did not serve commentary, preceded the address broadcast •at 9 p.m...
...and Kent State-and a record of an attempted coup Nor were Americans clearly informed about the d'etat that almost succeeded...
...It is clear, in fact, that under the leadership of Maurice Thorez, the French a victory of the left in France is now impossible without Communist Party, without loosening its ties with the the cooperation and assistance of the Communist Party...
...By doing this, he left the situation foggy...
...Presidents now travel with platoons During the Presidential crisis, a newly elected Senator of security agents...
...expected a half dozen cabinet posts had he won...
...Clair to kick around anymore...
...Commen- openness and flexibility that has revitalized it from tators will certainly argue that Mitterrand's defeat was within and gained it respect from without...
...John Mitchell, in one respect, told it like it was: portrayed as a genial, over-aged Boy Scout who helped "Don't watch what we say...
...In a sense, we have a Directorate...
...In fact, his His Administration, spanning more than five years, domestic voting record in the House of Representatives was a sleazy one...
...mawkishness of the times, he may receive immunity Commonweal: 445 informally if not formally...
...This has changed...
...Presidency to tempt an occupant, be it a Johnson or a Nor during the immediate period after Nixon's resig- Nixon, to trespass against us...
...SISYPHUS BOURGEOIS COMMUNISM IN FRANCE EMILE J. TALBOT New directions in French politics The impressive challenge of Francois Mitterrand, a iste Unifie were willing to work with the Communist Socialist and the common candidate of France's four Party in an attempt to capture the Presidency...
...and, only 22 So can we, the governed, who vote these people into years ago, Harry Truman occasionally strolled the office...
...To this should be added •an earlier of succession in case of a vacant Presidency, needs to sentence in his speech: "In the past few days, however, be altered, in the opinion of some members of Congress, it has become evident to me that I no longer have a to provide for a special election in the event that neither strong enough political base in the Congress to justify President nor Vice President has been placed there as continuing that effort (i.e., to resist impeachment...
...it does so well under the guise of bearing the news and His legacies to the nation included Haiphong, Cambodia commenting on it...
...In all, 17 wage, OEO, consumer and environmental protection of his principal assistants and their aides were indicted legislation being conspicuous examples...
...The inadequacy of the 25th Amendment, albeit an The three major television networks, in order to broad- unforeseen circumstance, is of course, a consequence cast his speech, canceled three programs, appropriately of the manner in which Nixon left the Presidency...
...The Senator new President...
...The Amendment, in this Both statements leave room for the Poujardist were- situation, is bad procedure, particularly as Big Brotherwolves to howl that Nixon was "fouled...
...But The French Communist Party, founded in 1920 when the converse is equally true, and perhaps more impor- a faction of the Socialist Party voted to adhere to the tant: Mitterrand's 49.3 percent of the popular vote Third International, was for some years content to follow would certainly have been lower by some 10 to 20 per- policies decided in Moscow...
...Children," he called them...
...difficult than Nixon's decision to walk the plank...
...Although Nixon left in disgrace in response to the pleadings of his Republican colleagues, and his Administration's scandals nearly wrecked our rather than to walk the last mile, the impeachment Constitutional government, most network commentators route...
...watch what we do...
...He immediately treated his speech in a fashion that deceived opened the way by which other Presidents could seek TV viewers...
...Party was outlawed on September 27, 1939...
...Some do still live below the themselves better, Beware the existing power of the salt-and others above the law...
...didn't steal, he didn't embezzle money, he didn't murder Americans, at that momentous hour, deserved a anyone, so let him go in peace...
...If, as we're told, new occasions teach said he didn't find many of his colleagues who were new duties, then Americans should resolve to govern willing to do this...
...rights legislation is one of benign neglect...
...If we are, as political nation was there any widespread recognition of a need rhetoric instructs, a resourceful people then we need to deflate the Presidency after 40 or more years of in- not place our aspirations upon one man or upon one flation, whatever good reasons there may have been at Office, the Presidency...
...President Ford-if he is the the beginning...
...Afterward, commentators gave the impression that the Many members of Congress argue otherwise...
...as can the 535 members of Congress...
...However, in the thirties, cent without Communist support...
...He disrespected the people he was twice elec- from office by scheming politicians...
Vol. 100 • August 1974 • No. 19
