I Also Dig Nixon Analogies

March 21, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Barack Obama, Richard Nixon 

My colleague John Taylor notes below President Obama’s conciliatory tone and possible attempt at wedging Iran from its revolutionary roots akin to President Nixon’s visit to China in 1972.

But are Obama’s media rounds and appearance on NBC’s The Tonight Show following the pattern of another ‘watershed moment’ in political exercise? In a 2004 article in The New Yorker, NBC producer George Schlatter describes Richard Nixon’s ‘68 appearance on Laugh-In as a factor in the race against Hubert Humphrey:

“While his advisers were telling him not to do it, Paul was telling him how much it would mean to his career,” Schlatter recalled. “And we went in, and he said, ‘Sock it to me.’ It took about six takes, because it sounded angry: ‘Sock-it-to-me!’ After that, we grabbed the tape and escaped before his advisers got to him.

“Then, realizing what we had done—because he did come out looking like a nice guy—we pursued Humphrey all over the country, trying to get him to say, ‘I’ll sock it to you, Dick!’ ” Schlatter went on. “And Humphrey later said that not doing it may have cost him the election. We didn’t realize how effective it was going to be. But there were other factors in the election, too—I can’t take all the blame.”

Nixon on “Laugh-In” is often cited as a watershed moment in the history of television—the unthinking man’s version of Nixon in China. What had once seemed antithetical—parody and power—had proved not to be. Was the joke on Nixon or on his hosts? Who could say? But, if the episode announced the new order, many people, including Nixon himself, seemed not to have noticed.

If Hubert Humphrey believed he could get away with what RN could do, aside from a lapse in taste, what exactly immunizes the likes of Michael Steele from overexposure?

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