presidential dick: In Tapes, Nixon Rails About Jews and Blacks

YORBA LINDA, Calif. — Richard M. Nixon made disparaging remarks about Jews, blacks, Italian-Americans and Irish-Americans in a series of extended conversations with top aides and his personal secretary, recorded in the Oval Office 16 months before he resigned as president.

The remarks were contained in 265 hours of recordings, captured by the secret taping system Nixon had installed in the White House and released this week by the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.

While previous recordings have detailed Nixon’s animosity toward Jews, including those who served in his administration like Henry A. Kissinger, his national security adviser, these tapes suggest an added layer of complexity to Nixon’s feeling. He and his aides seem to make a distinction between Israeli Jews, whom Nixon admired, and American Jews.

In a conversation Feb. 13, 1973, with Charles W. Colson, a senior adviser who had just told Nixon that he had always had “a little prejudice,” Nixon said he was not prejudiced but continued: “I’ve just recognized that, you know, all people have certain traits.”

“The Jews have certain traits,” he said. “The Irish have certain — for example, the Irish can’t drink. What you always have to remember with the Irish is they get mean. Virtually every Irish I’ve known gets mean when he drinks. Particularly the real Irish.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/us/politics/11nixon.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

Hell, go back a couple centuries and you had presidents OWNING black people as property. But I agree, by today's standards, Nixon's remarks are pretty outrageous and ignorant. However, it would be foolish to assume that common things we do today will not be considered outrageous or ignorant at some point in the future. Who knows.

:P