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Neal Gabler And The Politics Of Resentment

December 6, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under News media, Richard Nixon 

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Most congenial: Good friend and Whittier classmate Hubert Perry says that RN might have not been the most talented player on the college football team, but he was the most popular.

In recent times, Neal Gabler’s penchant for originality has seemed to atrophy.

His latest article in the Los Angeles Times – in which he asserts that Sarah Palin has inherited the “politics of resentment” from RN– appears to have been ripped out of the pages of Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland:

In contemporary times, no one mastered it as well as Richard Nixon, who came by his anger honestly as a poor boy growing up in Southern California, where he felt ostracized by the local “in” crowd. He spent a lifetime trying to get even. Nixon was able to turn his entire existence, much less his political career, into a battle between them and us, the Brahmins and ordinary folk, which made his loss to John F. Kennedy more than a personal political loss. To him, it was a galling defeat of the common man by his presumed social betters.

Gabler goes on to rant bitterly about how RN would subsequently tap into the social resentments of the “silent majority” and would ride those resentments all the way to the White House in 1969.

Hubert Perry, a 96 year-old life long resident of Whittier, California, and a boyhood and college friend of RN, says Gabler’s statements indicate bad research at best, or at worst an outright lie.

Perry, who attended both Whittier High School and College with RN, remembers an affable and hardworking young man, who was very much part of his local community.

“At night he went out for football,” Perry explained. “he wasn’t the best player, but he gave the team a shot-in the arm.”

RN was also a skilled debater and tried out for several plays in college.

In his junior year, RN was elected student body president (far from being a resentful wound licker, he was elected as an officer — usually president — of every class between high school and college).

A fellow Quaker, Perry’s father Herman L. Perry was the branch manager at the Bank of America in Whittier. “He knew everyone in town,” Perry explained, and would later help RN join a Whittier law firm, following his graduation from Duke University law school and his acceptance to the California state bar.

If it matters much, he was very in with the local “in” crowd. So much so, that he was approached to run for office early on. The President in his own words:

I joined the Kiwanis club of La Habra and the 20-30 Club, a group for young business and professional men between those ages. By 1941, I had pretty well established myself in the community. I had been elected president of the 20-30 Club, and was the president of the Whittier College Alumni Association., president of the Duke University Alumni of California, president of the Orange County Association of Cities, and the youngest member ever chosen for the Whittier College board of trustees. I was approached by several of the town’s Republican leaders about running for the state assembly. I was flattered and interested in this suggestion, but the war intervened.

After his service in World War II, RN was encouraged by Herman Perry to run for California’s 12th district against Democratic incumbent Jerry Voorhis:

Dear Dick:

I am writing you this short note to ask if you would like to be a candidate for Congress on the Republican ticket in 1946.

Jerry Voorhis expects to run – registration is about 50-50. The Republicans are gaining.

Please airmail me your reply if you are interested.

Yours very truly,
H.L. Perry

P.S. Are you a registered voter in California?

Gabler also apparently fails to grasp some key historical trends.

In a series of debates, RN successfully challenged Voorhis on the issues. But his eventual surge to victory reflected the national mood of the 1946 midterm elections. President Harry Truman became increasingly unpopular for his handling of the economy, and was hampered by a dreadful approval rating of 32 percent.

The Republicans would pick up 55 seats nationwide and take control of the House of Representatives.

It’s no wonder that Gabler’s Times piece (which talks about resentment, but positively seethes with it) reflects a failure to understand what RN and his times were really like.

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Community man: RN with PN and daughter Tricia at their house in Whittier in 1946.



Comments

7 Responses to “Neal Gabler And The Politics Of Resentment”

  1. Raymond Schultz on December 6th, 2009 7:18 pm

    Mr. Gabler’s article is a real stretch for sure. His effort in trying to reach a sound comparison between President Nixon and Sarah Palin falls flat. Of course people who read his article will be entertained at the expense of accurate history and objective truth.

    Was not Richard Nixon Vice President of the United States when Alaska became a State in 1959? I wonder what Sarah Palin thinks of President Nixon after hearing herself compared to him?

  2. David Frisk on December 6th, 2009 11:59 pm

    Gabler personifies snotty West Side, LA Times liberalism. He is never worth reading.

  3. DAVE in UT on December 7th, 2009 4:48 am

    “JEEZ” = And I thought RESENTMENT only referred to ” The BIG GAMES ” in college football!

    Michigan – vs. – THE Ohio State U.

    “Cal” / viz.: Berkeley – vs. – Stanford.

    ["In the day"] The U of the Pacific (nee: CoP) vs.- San Jose State U!

    [Insert your teams of choice]! ;-)

  4. DAVE in UT on December 7th, 2009 4:56 am

    AND … speaking or writing of the Former Alaska Governor =

    THERE WAS A [recent!] TIME, when supporers of (a) MITT ROMNEY and/or (b) JEB BUSH et al — e.g. (c) JIM BAKER of The Baker Institute (on the campus of Rice U in Houston, TX) wanted to “move-on” – then beyond – the R. W. Reagan legacy.

    An overture was made, including a planned visit by Mrs. SARAH PALIN with the widow, Mrs. NANCY REAGAN at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.

    BUT – Mrs. PALIN backed-out ==

    … Then a special, “by-invitation-only” event occurred @ that Presidential Library for ONLY former Reagan White House or CA gubernatorial staff.

    WHAT’s UP?

  5. DAVE in UT on December 7th, 2009 5:33 am

    During the circa. 1962 RN campaign for CA Governor vs. Edmund G. “Pat” Brown — I had just completed one year’s [post-baccalaureatte] graduate study and was awaiting a post-Christmas start date for the USAF Officer Training School [commissioning program] in San Antonio, TX.

    The interim work before USAF active duty was in KCRA-am/fm/tv News Department [election night coverage frm Associated Press offices in The CA State Capitol building] and on the TV Studio Floor -oving props & giving camera “cues” to our entertinment & news talent on-the-air.

    The RN campaign features ive (5) – as best I can recall – strategic TV sales markets wee identfid, then three hours of “prime time” were purchased for a campaign presentation — oincluig Hollywood conservatives (a ‘rare breed’, at that – even then) THEN some screened “call-in” questions for RN as the GOP gubernatorial candidate.

    RN lost – and after a long, exhausting, no sleep night – the San Francisco press conference – the next morning – was that notorious, and – IMO and that view of so many others – quite wrongfully covered comment = “You [media] won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around any more” [sic.]! ;-)

    WELL, the Sacramento “political special” at KCRA-TV was memorable for both me and my new wife at that time.

    The tactical campaign format would be later used – in less than two years – for the far more memorable AND SUCCESSFUL presidential campaign run!

    SO TO THE above MEDIA writer from “The Times” – of Los Angeles – “GET A LIFE, DUDE”!

    Ever since that newspaper’s ownership moved East to Chicago – clearly the quality of writing and editing has TURNED SOUTH!

    With one exception … “The LA Times” capital bureau in Washington, DC – formerly under the guidance and tutelage of “The Times” now-columnist DOYLE McMANUS!

    Doyle can be seen once a month, on PBS-tv “Washington Week” program.

  6. GMoney on December 21st, 2009 1:11 am

    trying to suggest that crook/liar/war criminal nixon was not a bitter jealous angry petty man because he was in the debate club and joined kiwanis?? wow, now there’s a real party guy! what else, a-v club? how many times did thr cool kids give him a wedgie and stuff him in his locker?

  7. Jonathan Movroydis on December 21st, 2009 11:38 am

    No that’s not what I am arguing at all. I’m arguing against Gabler’s assertions that RN wasn’t accepted by the local in crowd. The historical record proves otherwise.

    The historical record also proves that RN helped create a more peaceful world.

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