They were both known liers from the get go. Nixon lied from his first election, through Checkers, to trying to blame the assasination attempt on Wallace on the Democrats, to ordering dirty tricks that included breaking and entering into the Democrat's election headquarters. Clinton got caught lying about an affair. The American people, when they gave a virtually unprecidented off year election victory to the Democrats told the Republicans to back off. The American people wanted Nixon impeached when, after firing the special prosecuter and the attorney general, he was finally forced by the Supreme Court to give up evidence that showed his involvement in the coverup of breaking and entering.
Dan M. While on the whole I agree with you about Nixon - not about Clinton, whose pattern of lying about everything, not just an affair, was pathological and clearly crippled his Presidency - you're quite wrong about Checkers. One of the striking things about that incident was that Nixon was entirely and completely honest. The reason his speech was so impressive was that he revealed his entire family's financial circumstances and demonstrated quite convincingly that he had not improperly profited in the least - he was the first American political candidate to do something like that. While I have a _very_ low opinion of Nixon, it's difficult to argue that he was as _personally_ corrupt as, well, LBJ, for example. He was interested in power, not money. Gautam
