I just want to thank Salon for publishing this, which is so much more useful as 'real' information on what's going on, as opposed to the much less useful, typical commentary the public receives by politicians and pundits about such issues, based on little fact, simply driven by political need.

If wrongful behavior is to be reduced, a way to do it is to have organizations with real standards, transparency into activities, and accountability. Otherwise, it's all too easy for the activities to be buried in a huge, anonymous bureacracy.

And thanks to the letter writers on both sides for helping to air the discussion, even if one side is disengenuous (and at least one must be, based on the conflicting information). Just having the case by the disengenuous side is helpful, rather than only one side of the issue.

The other thing that's helpful are whistleblowers to wrongdoing. Too often, the public takes them for granted, when the cost to the whistleblower can be terribly expensive. We should protect such people and reward them for exposing things that are all too easy to cover up and evade rules.

No.

It's useful to learn about his good work, and there is much as the article points out.

But our nation has deep, important, fundamental flaws yet in the thinking of our people which result in bad policies, and we need to learn those before we learn about the nice things Nixon did. What Nixon did wrong is more important for our nation than what he did right.

Our nation still does not understand, for the most part, the lessons of the Nixon administration; at least insofar as how to prevent the re-occurance of electing a man who will repeat his wrongs, since we have done so with the current occupant (as John Dean notes in the title of his book, the current president is "Worse Than Watergate".)

Like a woman who learns only to leave batterer after batterer but not how to stop picking them as partners, simply condemning Nixon isn't enough. What is it that breaks down between the theory of democracy as the people should elect a 'great man', and the practice which can lead to a man who puts himself above the law and, among other policies, continues a war in Viet Nam?

It's worth asking. Why was Nixon the nation's choice ahead of the decent, competent Hubert Humphrey (or, for that matter, able to run neck and neck in the popular vote against the very attractive, war hero, Pulitzer-winner, wealthy, extremely well-spoken John F. Kennnedy?) Especially in light of his already shady appearance as 'tricky dick'?

Were it not for some freakish strokes of luck, such as a top FBI official willing to help reporters and a tape system recording incriminating conversations that he'd inherited and which was revealed inadvertantly, all of his wrongs may not have even seen him 'brought to justice', insofar as resigning. He may have been a 'successful' two-term president.

The lessons we need to learn are ones of how poorly our democracy does at selecting men better than a Nixon, how fragile the system of impeachment is, how unable the people are to stop a war like Viet Nam which Nixon was able to not only continue for years, but to secretly expand greatly into Cambodia.

The blank look I suspect the typical reader may have at wondering how to prevent the next Nixon - something I can not specify - shows how little we have learned the lessons of his presidency, and how pointless it is to pat him on the back for taking care of National Parks and Native Americans in comparison to fixing our political system and culture.

The great direction of this nation begun by FDR, continued through LBJ (apart from Viet Nam), ended by assassins and the political shifts of the all-important southern states' electoral votes to republicans following LBJ's civil rights bill and Nixon, resulted in the plummeting of this nation since Reagan into a dark return to the robber-baron culture where virtually all of the nation's economic growth has gone only to the top 10% or so, and the top 5% have gone from a 50% share of America's wealth to a 75% share.

Understanding the lessons of the president who led the way away from the FDR-LBJ liberal era is important to our nation.

Part of that is to keep kicking Nixon around, not for the pleasure, but to try to ensure the harms are not repeated.

I understand that writers often exaggerate the importance of irony - wow, Nixon was a liberal - but keep it in perspective.

He's villified for a reason. His presidency was one that paved the way for the current president's (and vice-president's) secrecy, for being able to pursue a 'secret war' and put the president above the law. Some forgotten good domestic policies don't mean that history should put those good policies ahead of the criminal wrongs.

Call me an ex-Bugliosi fan.

I thought his book on the O. J. Simpson trial - a topic he'd be pretty well-informed on as a former LA DA - was great.

His tirade on the Supreme Court's decision in the 2000 election was much less coherent.

But the points Talbot makes here are right on target - inexcusable intellectual dishonesty and misrepresentation.

As someone who has spent a good amount of the time on the issue, and is still uncertain between the Oswald alone and the Oswald linked to a conspiracy - laid out as well as anywhere in Thom Hartmann's "Ultimate Sacrifice" - we need better arguments than the ones from Bugliosi as quoted by Talbot.