Borked 0

I remember the Saturday Night Massacre (if you don’t, follow the link to understand the rest of this). I was watching television with my parents.

I had followed the Watergate story from its beginnings. I had long since realized that the Nixon administration was corrupt and power-mad.

As the news unfolded, my father disappeared from the living room.

My father was not a particularly politically liberal person, not at all, but he was morally straight and valued honesty, integrity, kindness, and decency.

As my brother said recently, talking of some fairly obnoxious persons of his acquaintance who are fond of describing themselves as “good Christians” (they aren’t–they are selfish, spiteful, and vindictive*), “Daddy was the most Christian person I have ever known, and he would have been the last person to call himself a ‘good Christian.'”

I realized later that he was calling Western Union, sending telegrams to his elected representatives incongruously assembled to inform them that he was done with Richard Nixon and his entourage.

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*I don’t know anything about their politics, but “selfish, spiteful, and vindictive” screams “religious right.”