Frost/Nixon: The Liberal Film As Conservative
by Andrew KlavanI finally got around to watching Frost/Nixon, and I was struck by how often the conservative view of the world—that is to say, reality—snuck in past the filmmakers’ strenuous attempts to bar the door against it. We see, for instance, that Nixon was right: the media was out to get him. The bitter hate-filled James Reston Jr. (Sam Rockwell) is shown as obsessed with destroying the already-disgraced former President. In the end, Reston’s childish triumph is that television was able to reduce Nixon to a single image of guilt, thus eradicating all the complexities of his legacy. Then there’s ABC’s Bob Zelnick (Oliver Platt). Zelnick ridicules Nixon’s complaints that a lovestruck media Obamanized John F. Kennedy. But in that ridicule the facts come out: the mob-linked, priapic Kennedy started the Vietnam war and made enough tactical Cold War errors to drive the world to the very brink of extinction. No, the bias of the mainstream media—and its smallness, meanness and dishonesty—are well on display for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.
Sure, for the most part, the liberal mythos has its way with the truth throughout the picture. This is still a Hollywood film, after all. Nixon gets no credit for helping to expose Communist infiltration in American government, or for stopping the spread of Communism in Asia through his hard line war policies. The left takes no responsibility for the millions of murders brought about by the coming of “peace.” And, of course, we hear that the slaughter-happy Khmer Rouge was a creation of American policy: that comforting old leftist nursery story that no evil exists except when we make it—so if we’re very, very good, the bad men won’t hurt us.
But never mind. At the center of Frost/Nixon is a warning that every conservative should heed. Nixon committed the crimes and follies of Watergate—and abased himself in front of Frost—because he made a terrible mistake. He cared what the left thought about him. He wanted the Ivy League intellectuals and the New York Times and the Camelot Pretenders to like him. He respected their opinion. It was truly his tragic flaw. If he had only known, really known in his heart, that, for all their education and sophistication, they are nothing but high-toned rascals and humbugs more concerned with their own sense of virtue than with virtue itself, he might have done what Reagan did: treated them with the blithe indifference they deserve while acting on his principles with courage and joy.
Instead, he feared their contempt and therefore hated them, as a man always hates the people he fears. And as he himself said, “Those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.” We should keep that in mind while dealing with the current crop of what, for lack of a word more accurate and yet still printable, I will call journalists.
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53 Comments
Very well said. Well the left needed someone else to kick other than W. And they found they still could kick Nixon around. It is funny that had Nixon been a media darling like two other notable pols you mention, the whole Watergate thing would have been a victimless toe stubbing, because Nixon was going to win by a landslide anyway.
Ah perception shaping the new reality. Viva social re-engineering through the MSM! How sad.
The "smallness, meanness and dishonesty" that you refer is considered large, loving and honest by the left. Unless, of course, the right does it.
What troubles me is that one day we will need a free and honest media to combat true evil and it will be gone.
Truth can leak out at the seams, but the surface is all the average moviegoer will absorb, having been taught that 'facts' are mutable and that history is merely 'names and dates' and not worthy of their attention.
Try to explain the facts of who started, escalated and is responsible for the loss and abandonment of Viet Nam to your average boomer. Mm hm. Go ahead. We'll wait.
Hopefully the abandonment part won't repeat in Iraq.
Hey dragonash;
A free and honest media is already gone and if you had a conservative bone in your body you would know that already. They have not changed since they went out to destroy Nixon the man who got us out of Viet Nam.
Ronnie: It's not all gone, yet.
From what I understand, big-eared Opie's intent in "Frost/Nixon" was to use Nixon as a metaphor for George W. Bush. In so doing, if Nolte's right, he also showed that the parallels between Kennedy and Obama are striking
with the exception that Obama seems to be a loving father and husband. Nixon was sabotaged by the media, Kennedy's win in IL and WVA was "questionable". (I don't question that Obama won the national election without
any chicanery, however, I do wonder how much ACORN contributed to his getting the nomination over Hillary).
Kennedy made a horrible mess of the Bay of Pigs; Obama seems on the verge of abandoning Israel; Kennedy got us into Viet Nam; Obama's talking about invading Pakistan. The parallels are striking and frightening.
“Those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.”
Thanks for mentioning President Nixon's quote, Mr. Klavan. I'll try to remember that when coming across more examples of hate, especially by the left.
I'm very interested in the history of Nixon, but you can't actually find any history anymore. It's always "Watergate" with the left and "He got us out of JFK's war" with the right. I hope in some time, like they recently did with John Adams, we finally get a realistic understanding of what happened with Nixon portrayed in film. The story is unbelievably ripe with interesting occurrences and being the 30 year old pup I am, I don't know any of it.
Or is there something out there now that I don't know about?
Yes, funny how LBJ's war became Nixon's. When he wouldn't simply surrender on day 1, the war was now his for all time. Ah, the libs love the myth so much more than the truth. That is why Hollywood is full of them. They LOVE myth.
BO is sending 17K more Marines to Afghanastan. Wonder how the lib media will attempt to sell this as consistent with SMART POWER. If GWB sent them today, he would be crucified as a war monger!!!!!
If GWB had devoted some real troop power to Afghanistan instead of Iraq, he would be praised for remembering who actually attacked us on 9/11
My mom quotes a history professor of hers who told them that you can't write decent history about an event or a person until 50 years have passed. We are finally beginning to get some decent perspective on FDR. Perhaps we will get a good history of Nixon in a couple of more decades.
Well said as usual, Andrew. Is it just me or does director Opie Howard look more wacked out each time he makes a new movie slamming people and institutions that helped create the fabulous country from which he benefits?
"My mom quotes a history professor of hers who told them that you can't write decent history about an event or a person until 50 years have passed. We are finally beginning to get some decent perspective on FDR. Perhaps we will get a good history of Nixon in a couple of more decades."
I keep reading this, especially where it applies to George W. Bush. What I don't understand, however, is how, fifty years down the road, with the media, professors, etc. being such committed Democrats, just HOW the truth CAN get out.
Fox and Friends has a weekly series in which a professor points out four outright lies and/or distortions in the textbooks used to teach our students. Always slanted leftward, of course.
Reread "1984". There IS a ministry of disinformation and it is active right now.
It was truly amazing how slanted my schoolbooks were when it came to President Nixon (more than the usual). In many ways, his desire to be liked by the left and the media was similar to President Bush. In the end, it did him little good.
http://the100mostannoyingthings.blogspot.com/
BHO is sending about 40,000 troops to Afghanistan over the next year or so, starting with the 17,000…in that, I agree with him. I have a nephew who'll be going back.
You can still find history out there, but you need to visit a library and get books written by more reputable authors. Movies and Internet soundbytes don't cut it.
Seems like most people who "came of age" (20-30 somethings) in the last decade are very, very poorly educated with respect to history, politics, and science. They consider themselves to be terribly well "informed" due to the proliferation of Internet content, as if surfing to a few different websites every day has everything covered.
Getting "off the grid" for while and finding facts the old-fashioned way, through real research, would go a long way towards enlightening those folks. I find, however, that most of that generation takes comfort in a smug assurance of its certitude regarding all ideological matters, big and small.
Guess they will have to learn the lesson the hard way like the rest of us.
Laura you are correct, that is because all parties must be dead to get a objective viewpoint. "John Adams" was a book, (first, by the way) written by an historian and not a journalist. Journalists write from their point of view on one aspect of a particular moment in time; a perspective that is usually pretty narrow. Historians write from a distance and with a 360 degree perspective.
Nixon was encouraged to contest his razor thin defeat in '60, but declined because he believed doing so would be dangerous for our democracy. Historians have since proved Kennedy bought West Virginia and – imagin this – Illinois – particularly Chicago & the Daley Machine. In no small way this past election – just as in 2004 – was still being influenced by the mess in 2000. ACORN, the gaming of election boards (the backbone of which is largely volunteer), the conspiracy theories over electronic voting, and the massive amount of monies Dem's devoted to get out the vote (and assisting the homeless to excersise a suggested franchise) make Nixon's supposed legacy as a dirty trickster lame by comparison.
When the mass media decides to destroy you today, how can you survive? How do you withstand the attacks and humiliation and come out in one piece? It's so much to ask of a human being. It seems overwhelming.
Why do conservatives feel any need to defend Richard Nixon? Nixon certainly never stood for OUR principles.
This is the man who put Harry (Roe V. Wade) Blackmun on the Supreme Court, who imposed price and wage controls, who presided over the greatest expansion of domestic spending in U.S. government history, who created the EPA, and who kowtowed to Brezhnev and Mao. If conservatives rally around Nixon, it's only because of misplaced loyalties and a belief that, if liberals hate Nixon, he MUST have been a pretty good guy.
Truth to tell, if liberals weren't so blinded by irrational hate, they'd see that Nixon was the President they always dreamed of!
Well he did both. In fact, if you remember, Afghanastan was going well and then we did the surge in Iraq because it was thought to have worked well in Afghanastan.
Either way, I doubt very much if anything GWB would have been reported on as positive. If he saved a dying dog, the press would find a way to make it seem like a bad idea.
Afghanistan didn't technically attack us on 9/11, Al-Qaeda who they harbored did. Saddam also harbored Al-Qaeda and other Muslim Brotherhood groups some as well, openly in many cases. Saddam offered Bin Laden assylum in 1999, fired at our planes, tried to assassinate our POTUS in addition to financing and harboring Muslim Brotherhood groups.
Bin Laden and Zawahri both are on record saying Iraq was the Central Front in the war against us, not Afghanistan. This follows their actions as well, which we stood tough on and soundly defeated them.
I think Nixon/Bush were both sensitive to the widespread "You are dumb" rhetoric by the Elitist on the Left, whereas Reagan viewed them thinking that as a good sign he was right.
Andrew,
Thank you for another profound observation. The tragedy of Nixon is that the opinion of the elites who desised him mattered so much to him, and colored his decisions both in and out of office.
Whatever faults he had–and they were many–he was a rare politician who genuinely put his country's welfare above his own. In both the 1960 election and Watergate, he chose the national interest over his own ambitions. Contrast this with the bile injected into the national psyche by Mssrs Clinton and Gore, who chose the opposite.
I draw encouragement by the fact that the MSM, who so actively sought the demise of both Nixon and Bush, appear to have expended both their credibility and their financial capital.
[...] WRITER Andrew Clavan makes a *very* good point I need to remind myself of daily: At the center of Frost/Nixon is a warning that every conservative should heed. Nixon committed the crimes and follies of Watergate—and abased himself in front of Frost—because he made a terrible mistake. He cared what the left thought about him. He wanted the Ivy League intellectuals and the New York Times and the Camelot Pretenders to like him. He respected their opinion. It was truly his tragic flaw. If he had only known, really known in his heart, that, for all their education and sophistication, they are nothing but high-toned rascals and humbugs more concerned with their own sense of virtue than with virtue itself, he might have done what Reagan did: treated them with the blithe indifference they deserve while acting on his principles with courage and joy. [...]
It's not 50 years, it's 30. The point of that isn't about distance or perspective, it's that important documents aren't accessible for several decades after an event. Governmental classification of pertinent records is supposed to last 30 years, although I'm not sure how it works now with all this "transparency" (hahahahaha… yeah right, we'll be waiting another 70 for the Obama doc's).
The problem with Nixon is that people my age (College student, History Major) are pretty convinced that the world already knows about him. Brian Hines is totally correct in saying that the only things people think about regarding Nixon are Watergate and Vietnam. We tend to forget his diplomatic ventures in Communist China, and, my personal favorite which I bring up in every discussion of him (Liberal's are entirely convinced that this is a nefarious lie on my part); Nixon is responsible for creating the Environmental Protection Agency. His legacy so far outshines both Watergate and Vietnam that it's shocking that younger generations aren't better informed. The documentation is out there now, though, so perhaps someone will write a fair and factual examination of his presidency.
You have no idea how true this is. I'm 22 and the ignorance that I see among my peers is so infuriating. When we were in HS, I gave them lots of slack, because it wasn't entirely their fault. They had pathetic public school teachers and parents who weren't invovled. But now, they are adults like me and they still know NOTHING about research. Their idea of research is to google something. The only books they read are current event books. I have a lot of liberal friends. When you're my age, that's really all that is out there (on the college scene and work scene). Almost all of my liberal friends tell me that I am the only "conservative" friend that they have. Crazy…
Yes your of course right dragonash that is why they are working to bring back the "Fairness Doctrine"
Liberals now have the White House, Congress, and the Senate but still need to stiffle the few remaining conservative voices.
I thought Nixon came off pretty well in the movie even though I know this isn't the effect Ron Howard was looking for. Reston and Zelnick looked like petty jerks.
Nixon was human and he had his weaknesses. But even in the movie, Nixon's accomplishments far outweighed his failings.
Laura,
You should also know that history is usually written by the leftist "scholars". The same ones who are teaching it to our children now!
Richard C,
Then I guess Bush's war is now Obama's war, right? Oh, no, sorry. It only works the other way.
Well said, tiger. I think if you look in the book "1984" you'll see a picture of the NYT and other leftist MSM outlets. There may even be a stick-figure picture representing Keith Oberman!
Your naivete on Nixon is laughable. He was obsessed with his own interests like most politicians. The difference is the means used. Nixon had no clue how to affect anything without using deception or intrugue. And his mistrust of his fellow man was his downfall.
Now if you want to express your interests or opinions, please make them genuine and lay them on the table. Do not be like Nixon and go looking for scapegoats as your strategy.
What is it like to view everything through an ideological lense? It must be a very sad
That is because there is no such thing as a rightist scholar. They don't exist.
BHO will send some troops, maybe all he plans, then something will happen. Pick a scenario, or create one. He manipulates surrounding countries into closing the borders, we can't resupply, so we come home. We surge, win a few battles, big media plays it up, The Barack declares victory and we come home. The only way we stay is if the left in congress decide to do a Vietnam. Fight not to lose instead of win. Or to put another way, tie up the military just enough to humiliate them and the US. And so on … Here's the bottom line, there is no reason to believe BHO and Democrats want to win.
Nixon was no prize but for different reasons then the leftist mythology machine give. Price controls? Come on. Same with Bush. Nominates his secretary for the SC? Worse he asked !! Harry Reid !! what he thought and NEVER consulted his own party before announcing her nomination. Bush gets Drunken Ted to write No Child Left Behind. Etc., etc., Talk about abasement!
"He cared what the left thought about him. He wanted the Ivy League intellectuals and the New York Times and the Camelot Pretenders to like him. He respected their opinion."
This applies precisely to Bush ** AND ** the Republican hierarchy since, at least, Nixon (save a brief Newt break) continuing until now. How else do we get the NYT's pick for Republican's presidential nomination?
Never vote for another Republican again. Vote for a Conservative with a proven history. Otherwise walk away. The party will never change if we continue to vote for the "lesser of two evils." Do they care more about what the left thinks of them OR what we, the rank and file, thinks of them.
“To thyn own self be true.” This is a definite lesson of Ronald Reagan and why Sarah Palin is such a threat to the brittle left. Nixon-Agnew were definitely paranoid of the press we all remember Agnew’s now famous statement to paraphrase, “nattering nabobs of negativism,” and remember the indignation of the press at the time. This now is prophetic, look were we are now. The MSM is totally in the pocket of the Immaculate One. We are approaching the brink I fear. Watergate was paranoia run amuck, Nixon clobbered McGovern if only, right?
Russell Kirk
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Thomas Sowell
Milton Freidman
Lee Edwards
Charles Krauthammer
… and just about anyone who believes in individual freedom.
"He cared what the left thought about him." Bravo, Andrew. That's the crux. Conservatives should not care a whit how the liberals view them.
[...] Read more « The Obama Road to Serfdom: Good Morning Socialist States of America! [...]
I have almost come to blows with fellow conservatives for actually liking Frost/Nixon. Yes I knew there were major flaws in the historical context that was given but I was pleasantly surprised that Nixon came across like the victim at the end.
Former KKK leader Robert Byrd is presented in the film as the symbol of the Democrat party, fighting the good fight. The left has no values other than checking "D" when they vote. REMOVE HIM!
Indeed, I would suggest that if BO is still President in 8 yrs and we are still in Iraq, the media will still call it GWB's war. Works whatever way they want it to.
Reagan was a master at this issue of speaking TO the folks, not down at them. He encouraged us with his assurance that we can do what we need to do, that we didn't need big govt to do it.
Haven't heard that one in a long time.;
No need to rally around Nixon, he had his issues.
But he did not start the VN war as most libs today feel. He got it ended, but not fast enough for the libs of the 60s. That is just the fact of it.
I find this line both frightening and encouraging:
the parallels between Kennedy and Obama are striking with the exception that Obama seems to be a loving father and husband.
…which implies that we've already had at least one president who was more morally bankrupt than Barack Obama.
".which implies that we've already had at least one president who was more morally bankrupt than Barack Obama. "
I find this post confusing and out in left field (pun intended).
The simple answer is to look at Reagan. He talked over the media and directly to the American people and ignored the "chattering class".
As has been pointed out before, Nixon's, GW's, and McCain's fatal flaw is the same fatal flaw that keeps taking down the GOP every single time; trying to get the leftist run media to say nice things about you.
Rush is right, the only way conservatives can win is when we wake up and realize that the DNC, the MSM and the leftist intelligentsia are our mortal enemies and FIGHT them with the goal of DESTROYING them, not getting along with them, not getting invited to their dinner parties and have them write nice things about us on the OpEd page. Further we need to completely abandon this foolish notion that you can get them to see the light.
Kid–my daughter is 26 and has a handful of friends that are conservative. The rest are crazy insane with the liberal tripe they've been fed through school. I think the only thing that saved my daughter from such a fate was 1) dad in military, 2)mom involved in the classroom as volunteer, 3) some very careful discussions with deprogramming in mind. You are not alone. Stand strong!
Great piece. Very well said and Nixon's quote is something to remember. I'll try to keep that in mind when dealing with my left moving family!!
I was referring to Obama being more together as a parent and spouse than John F. Kennedy. He's as much of a lefty pie-in-the-sky type as JFK, but we haven't heard any rumors of him dealing with any Marilyn Monroe types.
Thanks for explaining. I don't see JFK as a Lefty. He was IMHO an old-style Democrat in the mold of HST, Scoop Jackson, some others. (FDR I think WAS a Lefty — just didn't have the guts to say so).
Like Obama, JFK had the rails greased for him (JFK by his father's wealth; Obama's most likely by affirmative action to some degree.
Both JFK and Obama led "charmed" lives, both are considered physically attractive, both married women considered physically attractive, both had the media gaga for them, both had media help in getting elected and, most importantly, both had help from groups with questionable ethics (ACORN and (allegedly) the MAFIA. Both entered the WH at shaky time for America with absolutely no experience.
Wow John,
Not all of us petty mortals are equipped with a handy Olympian lens with which to peer into the souls of others to ascertain their real motives. The rest of us just have to draw our best conclusions from the evidence.
The best evidence available is that Nixon's involvement in the cover-up was based on the desire to protect members of his staff, for whom he felt a sense of loyalty. Place this in contrast to the tendency of Clinton (and now Obama) to throw retainers under the bus whenever their presence becomes an embarrassment.
Do you mean 'scapegoats' like the straw dog Nixon from "Frost/Nixon", or the "BushHitler" template of the Nutroots?
From my feeble mortal powers of deduction, I might conclude that you were projecting your own tendencies onto me.
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