>>149164482
also this; Nixon was still alive to see the first 11 of his mentions/appearances in The Simpsons (theoretically, we don't know if he did)
in regard to his "I am not a crook" catchphrase, he clearly was crooked making this a further lie and he said that at a time when a) Presidents were expected to be broadly truthful, whether or not they actually were, and b) public officials caught in a lie were expected to resign, with dire polling numbers if they did not resign after lying, and c) he said that 8 months before he actually resigned and it hung over the remainder of his presidency; he resigned rather than face impeachment (which was a near-certainty)
Nixon had already been VP under Eisenhower and had no excuses as to being a political innocent caught up in someone else's criminality as President (his paranoid self-taping had already incriminated him and many others); his resignation destroyed Ford's career as well (Ford hung on as President because he was already VP, although the 76 election probably gave a lot of people ideas because of how close it still was, plus the Reagan elector thing, though probably ideas tempered by the 74 midterm results)
Nixon also knew his first VP, Agnew, was crooked - Agnew pled no contest to tax evasion and Congress strongarmed Nixon into taking Ford as his second (because Ford was a bonehead but basically OK); Ford's vacated House seat was won by a Democrat, Richard Vander Veen
as a result of Watergate cleaning out the upper levels of viable Republican candidates, Reagan (among others, and for other reasons as well) was able to become prominent as a candidate and eventually President; critiquing Nixon isn't just about Watergate, it's about the shitshow that followed as well; it didn't help that Nixon was the first Republican President in 8 years, only the second since 1933, and extremely different in policy and style from Eisenhower who would have cleaned his clock for pulling Watergate had Eisenhower not died by then
