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Mississippi | Sep 19 2004

Lately I’ve been trying to figure out what politics is. I mean, what the word means. And what I think it means, or what I think it’s about, is the practicalities of power—who has it, what’s done with it, and to what end. Doubtless this definition is incomplete and possibly misguided, but I don’t mind.

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with Watergate. Though only eleven at the time, I kept a scrapbook of newspaper articles about it, including a complete transcript of the Watergate tapes, which I read obsessively and which were better than anything David Mamet ever wrote or Shakespeare ever wrote because they were real.

NIXON: The point is that ah, now if he’s going to have this pissing contest (unintelligible) all right, bring it out and fight it out and it’ll be a bloody god damn thing. You know in a strange kind of way that’s life, isn’t it. (unintelligible) probably be understood and be rough as a cob, an’ we’ll survive and some people you’ll even find (unintelligible) in Mississippi you’ll find a half a dozen people that will be for the President.

HALDEMAN: (Laughs) Be a lot more than that.

NIXON: (unintelligible) No. We do still have some support in the country, I hope. But, uh.

HALDEMAN: Yep.

NIXON: But we shall see, do you agree?

HALDEMAN: Absolutely.

NIXON: (Laughs)

HALDEMAN: No question.

NIXON: Ya, ya, that’s right despite all the polls and all the rest, I think there’s still a hell of a lot of people out there, and from what I’ve seen, they’re, you know, they, they want to believe, that’s the point, isn’t it?

Then Ford pardoned Nixon and I achieved enlightenment. It’s a bloody god damned thing and it’s rough as a cob, but there are a hell of a lot of people out there who want to believe.