What if Agnew had still been veep when Nixon quit?

[ironflange]

:scared:

Count your blessings.

[madrchsod]

1. not as dumb as bush but close

[Neshanic]

2. He was entertaining. Ya gotta give him that.

[niyad]

4. at least we all understood that "the wit and wisdom of spiro agnew" (for those of you too young to

know this, it was a blank book) was actually kind of funny. if there was one on *, it would be regarded as a sad commentary.

can anyone here IMAGINE * trying to spit out "nattering nabobs of negativism"????

[ironflange]

6. Ever read Mrs. Agnew's Diary in National Lampoon?

:rofl:

"Spiggy."

[Dr.Phool]

7. That was the best ever!

"Spiggy's farting in the bathtub, and snapping at the bubbles with his teeth".

Nancy Reagans sex education classes were a hoot too. And this was back in the '70s.

[Gabi Hayes]

10. ahhhh....Death! remember that issue?

[ironflange]

12. Remember it? I have a copy!

The poor doggy, the editorial in an issue a couple of months later informed us that there weren't enough issues sold, so BOOM! It showed a picture of two black & white dog legs pointing at the sky.

:rofl:

Good thing there was no PETA back then. Was there?

[Neshanic]

3. He was entertaining. Ya gotta give him that.

[Erika]

5. He was your usual GOP corrupt guy

The Republicans wanted to slither away from Agnew and Nixon. You know, pretend they didn't exist.

[regnaD kciN]

8. Irrelevant question...

If Agnew had still been V.P., the Democrats in Congress would never have impeached.

Agnew was known as "Nixon's insurance policy," because nothing would be done against him as long as that meant an Agnew presidency. Too bad for Tricky Dick's sake that he picked someone who turned out to be even more transparently corrupt than he himself. Once Spiro was out of the way, Nixon was toast.

[ironflange]

9. That's very interesting!

Maybe Cheney works the same magic on Commander Cuckoo-Bananas.

[SheilaT]

11. Agnew was so openly

corrupt that it was almost easy to get rid of him. Keep in mind that back then vice-presidents were real non-persons. Half of the time most Americans couldn't name the sitting v-p. They had no official duties (still don't constitutionally)and generally went to funerals and national park openings. Things like that.

While he was governor of Maryland, Agnew took bribes quite regularly, and if I recall correctly, continued to do so while v-p. It was obvious to the most casual observer that he was totally unfit to replace Nixon, even as bad as Nixon was. I think that part of the reason Nixon selected Ford was that Ford was such a non-entity himself that Nixon thought he'd still be safe from impeachment, that no sensible person would want Ford as President. He was wrong. Ford was seen as an amiable, competent Congressman who could simply be a place-holder for two years.

But the whole Watergate thing continued to unravel. And it was going to continue to unravel, no matter who was v-p. The "smoking gun" tape would still have surfaced. Nixon still would have resigned. But Agnew as president would have meant an openly corrupt president, somewhat like we have right now. Maybe in the end we'd have been better off, because voters would have turned against Agnew and the Republicans even more strongly than they did against Ford and his pardon. Reagan would not have risen to power, would not have done the damage he did to this country for eight years. And without Bush as v-p and then President, we'd NEVER have gotten W in the White House.

[ironflange]

13. We've all heard what John Nance Garner said

He once described the office of the vice presidency as being "not worth a bucket of warm piss."

Wow, he died 15 days short of his 99th birthday, and it sounds like he was a spry old bird.

Anyway, seems to me that Cheney is trying to turn that phrase around, with the collusion of the boy king.

[BrotherBuzz]

14. Hoot, we would have had Pat Buchanan and William Safire vying for head speech writer!

to dazzle us with pearls like:

In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism.