Kissinger: Nixon Was Loaded

Never elect a nerd the president. They can't handle the power. Their glands overwork, they miss thier favorite Sci-Fi channel programs, and their brains overheat, like Wyatt and Gary in Wierd Science (so ably played by Anthony Michael Hall and Ian Michael Smith, thank you, thank you ... ). According to the Associated Press, Nixon, during the elaborate maneuverings and countermaneuverings of the Watergate hearings and unfolding scandals, uhm -- how does one say this delicately? -- he got plastered.

The Leader of the Free World was getting quietly "tight":

"Five days into the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, with the superpowers on the brink of confrontation, President Nixon was too drunk to discuss the crisis with the British prime minister, according to newly released transcripts of telephone calls.

"Henry Kissinger's assessment of the president's condition on the night of Oct. 11, 1973, is contained in more than 20,000 pages of transcripts of Kissinger's phone calls as the president's national security adviser and secretary of state � records whose privacy he had guarded for three decades. The National Archives released them Wednesday.

"They show the powerful adviser trying to manage world crises even as Nixon's presidency teetered from the Watergate scandal that would consume his administration in August 1974.

"In October 1973, U.S.-Soviet tensions were peaking over the Arab-Israeli war, and British Prime Minister Edward Heath's office called the White House just before 8 p.m. to ask to speak with Nixon.

"'Can we tell them no?' Kissinger asked his assistant, Brent Scowcroft, who had told him of the urgent request. 'When I talked to the president, he was loaded.'"

Deep Throat? Try Deep Liver. Ka-Pow!

And that's not all, pookie: apparently Nixon, ever playing the macho, Yorba Linda alpha male in charge of a superpower (The Corsair's averted gaze suggests feigned detatchment), according to The Washington Times, joked about nuking Washington:

"Transcripts of telephone conversations with U.S. President Richard Nixon reveal he joked about dropping an atomic bomb on Capitol Hill.

"The disclosure emerged in the transcript of a discussion in March 1974 between Al Haig, then White House chief of staff, and Henry Kissinger, then secretary of state, the Washington Post reported Thursday.

"'I was told to get the football,' Haig told Kissinger less than five months before the president's forced resignation.

"'What do you mean?' asked Kissinger, who had called Haig to express concern the president might unwittingly unleash a Middle East war with his new, get-tough policy against Israel.

"'His black nuclear bag,' replied Haig. 'He is going to drop it on the Hill.'

"The exchange is among 20,000 pages of transcripts of telephone conversations Kissinger deposited in the Library of Congress in 1976 with the stipulation they remain secret until at least five years after his death.

"Kissinger turned the transcripts over to the National Archives in February 2002 after being threatened with legal action by the National Security Archive, a nonprofit group that campaigns against government secrecy."

What the fuck? Ka-pow!

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Ed Note: We are taking a well needed break from blogging and the day job for the Memorial Day weekend to recharge, see you back here, guys, same bat time, same bat channel, on Tuesday.

ka-pow