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If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin.

Hunter S. Thompson#87

PoliticsCriticismLegacyAngerDeath

About this quote

What does it mean?
Extreme disdain for a political figure expressed through graphic imagery.
In plain terms
He was a terrible man who should not be honored.
What can you take from it?
Some leaders deserve no dignity after leaving office.

Where it applies

  • political history
  • biography
  • debate

Putting it to work

  • evaluate leaders morally
  • study historical criticism

Questions to consider

  • How should we treat past leaders?
  • What makes a leader unforgivable?

Another view

Public figures deserve basic human dignity.

More from Hunter S. Thompson

  1. He could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time.

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  2. It is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character that almost every country in the world has learned to …

    Permalink to quote #88
  3. Some people will say that words like scum and rotten are wrong for Objective Journalism - which is true, but they miss the point. It was the built-in blind spo…

    Permalink to quote #85

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