When one looks back at crises in American history, the top of the list are the Civil War, the Great Depression, Pearl Harbor, and the Cuban Missile Crisis up to that time in our history.
But in all four situations mentioned, we had a strong, decisive President who handled the situation extremely well.
We were fortunate to have Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy as our Presidents at the times of these crises.
But once one goes beyond these four transformational moments in our history, then we come to the Watergate scandal and the resignation of Richard Nixon on this day 41 years ago.
Yes, the argument can be made that Richard Nixon had a dramatic and positive effect on areas of domestic and foreign policy, during his five and a half years as President.
But Richard Nixon was also, without question, the most corrupt, dangerous President we had ever had in our history, bar none.
Richard Nixon had mental issues, and saw opponents as enemies, and seemed willing and able to allow aides to abuse power, and for himself to set out to destroy opposition in any way possible.
There was concern in the tense times of the summer of 1974 that Nixon might try to declare martial law, and his Chief of Staff, Alexander Haig, had already told the Pentagon to ignore any potential order from Nixon to suspend the Constitution, which would have established a dictatorship.
This is not to say that Nixon actually would have done so, as he was well aware of the need to do what he could to protect his damaged legacy in history, in any way that he could, but still, the threat, and the sense of mental instability was terrifying at the time.
And this lesson of Richard Nixon makes clear that the news media must be aggressive in pursuing the truth about the true character of all Presidential candidates, and despite attacks, make us aware of their shortcomings, particularly in the mental health area, as the nation cannot afford to elect a man or woman who might be dangerous to our national security and safety due to mental instability.
No one is entitled to be President, and we do not need an unstable person holding the powers of the most significant political position in the entire world!