From an editorial on the Felt revelations comes this somewhat strange (it seems to me) claim:
Actually, I suspect if more politicians went to monasteries to translate the Iliad -- and didn't come out until they were done -- the world would be a better place.
Betrayed by his own venality and paranoia, Nixon left the White House in 1974 in disgrace. That phrase and its variations - "disgraced former president Richard Nixon" being the most popular in my profession - came to define the 37th president, the only American president to resign from office. In disgrace.
He could have entered a monastery and spent 1972 translating The Iliad from the original Greek and he still would have crushed the hapless George McGovern. Instead he surrounded himself with amoralists who broke laws attempting to remove any doubt about the election's outcome.
Actually, I suspect if more politicians went to monasteries to translate the Iliad -- and didn't come out until they were done -- the world would be a better place.