President Nixon’s memo to staff after the 1971 White House Correspondents Dinner made the rounds on Twitter this weekend—with Trump’s Saturday afternoon announcement that he wouldn’t attend the yearly banquet for press, traditionally hosted by the president, inviting an historical comparison.
Seems like a good day to once again tweet the best presidential memo ever. @dick_nixon @maggieNYT pic.twitter.com/XezM6AtjRZ
— Karen Tumulty (@ktumulty) February 26, 2017
To the Nixonism the press is the enemy Trump tacks on “…of the American people.” The expanded sentiment is one Nixon might appreciate, probably now more than ever were he still around.
As it happened, Nixon skipped three correspondents’ dinners in his six years, meaning he endured one more than Jimmy Carter—who skipped two of the four he might have emcee’d while in office. Rather than play the good sport, Carter followed Nixon’s example; he declined to attend every other opportunity, as if he’d been burned too badly to return without an extra year off.
“I don’t see how the White House press could be any more negative under any circumstances,” he wrote in 1978, “and I’d rather show a sign of strength.” Carter’s personal diary, which George Condon quoted from in National Journal, details this decision, against the wishes of Press Secretary Jody Powell—
Carter was the last Democratic president to cower thusly from the popular press. When he skipped the banquet in 1978, Powell filled in. But when he did attend the following year, it was right around the time—spring of ’79—that he had to fend off a hissing swamp rabbit as it swam toward his fishing boat. Powell relayed the story to a reporter, and a few months later the Washington Post ran it under the headline, “Bunny Goes Bugs, Rabbit Attacks President,” hardening an image of Carter’s comically ineffective leadership. Which just goes to show, Nixon was probably right about the risks of playing along. Perhaps “treating them with considerably more contempt is in the long run a more productive policy.”
