“Former President Lyndon B. Johnson acknowledges that Richard Nixon, as a Republican President, has been able to accomplish some things that a Democratic President could not have…
“‘Can’t you just see the uproar,’ he asked during a recent interview, ‘if I had been responsible for Taiwan getting kicked out of the United Nations? Or if I had imposed sweeping national controls on prices and wages?’“‘Nixon has gotten by with it,’ he observed, an appreciative tone in his voice. ‘If I had tried to do it, or Truman, or Humphrey, or any Democrat, we would have been clobbered.’”
–from the Washington Star, Dec. 1, 1971.
“In some ways, [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] may have an opportunity that a Labour or more Left leader might not have. There’s the famous example of Richard Nixon going to China. A Democrat couldn’t have gone to China. A liberal couldn’t have gone to China. But a big anti-Communist like Richard Nixon could open that door. Now, it’s conceivable that Prime Minister Netanyahu can play that same role.”
–President Obama on the prospects for a two-state solution for Mideast peace, as reported in the Daily Telegraph today.