I am a bit of a history buff. I like nothing more than to intersperse my Netflix binges with history documentaries or books. I am no Max Hastings or Mary Beard but I can distinguish between the two world wars, or as an enlightened cabinet minister helpfully told us “the two second world wars”, and I can tell apart the various Caesars. The trick is to look at the head not the pose. For example, Julius Caesar is always depicted with a comb-over.
A particularly interesting documentary popped up on my YouTube recommendations last week: Presidents at War: How WWII Shaped Our Nation’s Leaders by the History Channel when it was still dedicated to history and not a bonkers channel of pawn stars and ancient aliens. It tells the story of the war through the eyes of future US presidents, from Eisenhower to Bush Senior, and how they emerge from conflict as leaders, especially how the crucible of war shaped the decisions they eventually took during their presidencies.
One particular anecdote stood out for it contains the seed of this future president’s ignominious exit from the White House. Richard Nixon was a naval reserve in the South Pacific and, by all accounts, fought a very brave war. But he found a way of making money off his war service by opening a fast-food joint which he called ‘Nick’s Snack Shack’ and realised quickly that he could become very popular with the boys by giving them what they want – at a price.
When his fellow soldiers did not have the funds, he horse-traded: a Japanese gun here, a bottle of whisky there. Nixon, as he had hoped, became “the most popular officer in the South Pacific” and ‘graduated’ to playing poker with the cool guys, winning $5,000 dollars in the process. This money later funded his presidential campaign. He learnt that wheeling and dealing, that bending the rules worked to win power and keep it, until he bent them till they broke and he lost it.
The scandal that resulted in his downfall became known as Watergate and with it also came the dubious moniker ‘Tricky Dicky’. In a series of celebrated conversations with David Frost in 1977, we get a glimpse of how far Nixon stretched presidential powers when in reply to a pointed question about his dubious decisions where he had cited the national interest, he replied: “When the president does it … that means that it is not illegal.”
Nixon thought he could weasel his way back into politics with a carefully curated media blitz but Americans thought that Nixon was still trying to cover up, they still thought he was guilty of obstruction of justice, and thus he deserved no further role in public life.
Nixon’s wartime jinks, his political demise and attempted rehabilitation reminded me of the plight of one Joseph Muscat. He fought no war and was no US president, though, according to his sycophants, he did ‘nearly’ become the president of the European Council, but boy, did he wheel and deal, bend and break the rules, long before his assault on public life. Didn’t he also allegedly enrich himself while supposedly serving the nation? Wasn’t it President Truman, a First World War veteran, who also said: “No man can get rich in politics unless he’s a crook?”
The Artful Dodger still thinks he can avoid detention by mobilising his troops- Alessandra Dee Crespo
An anecdote from his school days perfectly sums him up and became the blueprint for his brand of politics. It was recounted by himself with a certain relish, and knowing Muscat as we do now, not without a bit of malice. A month after winning the 2013 General Election, the newly-minted prime minister visited St Aloysius College, ostensibly to thank the Jesuits for his education, but actually he wanted to brag to the assembled students how he had hoodwinked the prefect of discipline and got off detention by taking shortcuts.
Artful Dodger indeed. In typical Muscatian fashion, instead of using his visit to instil the values of responsibility and accountability to a younger generation, he uses it to demonstrate that wheeling and dealing and bending the rules can get you places or out of them, in this case. At the end of the visit, one of the students gave an address and told Muscat: “You are our inspiration for us to be protagonists in the future leadership of this country.”
Quite.
Nixon was the first US president to resign. Muscat was not the first Maltese prime minister to resign, but the first one to do so in disgrace. Both Nixon and Muscat were crushed by their hubris and their astonishing self-belief that they are always right, whatever the incontrovertible proof. Like Nixon, Muscat tried to court the press after resignation and so he sat for an interview with this paper. Those of us who are not brainwashed could tell that he was still trying to cover up and that he deserves no further role in public life.
But not in his head.
In his head, the Artful Dodger still thinks that he can avoid detention by mobilising his troops and by threatening to go back into politics. Sadly, for Muscat, and happily for this country, the four walls of his washroom, from where he now broadcasts to the nation, seem to be shrinking every day.
Just as Nixon ran out of tricks, so is Muscat running out of dodges.