Compare And Contrast Bill Clinton And Nixon

Clinton's life was highly different than Nixon’s, however, some of his political turmoil and successes was similar to Nixon’s. Bill Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe to William Blythe and Virginia Blythe on August 19, 1946, in Hope, Arkansas; however, his dad died a few months before he was born. Later, when Bill was about four, his mother married Roger Clinton. Roger was a heavy alcoholic who often beat Bill's mother. Like Nixon he experienced a large amount of death and violence. Although Clinton grew up in a violent broken home, he still worked very hard in school, receiving top grades and finishing fourth in his class. After graduation, Bill was selected to be a part of “Boys Nation”, where he traveled to D.C. and met with President

This part of Clinton's life was the most different to that of Nixon’s as Clinton was able to attend large respected college. While at Yale, Bill Clinton met his wife Hillary Rodham. Bill Clinton then went on to become the youngest governor of Arkansas. During his term as governor, Clinton improved the highway system and faced a cuban refugee crisis within Arkansas. Similarly to Richard Nixon Clinton also was faced with scandals that jeopardized his career. During the 1992 primaries, Clinton was faced with an alleged affair with a nightclub singer named Gennifer Flowers. Clinton bounced back dramatically from the scandal and continued his successful career; and In 1992 Clinton won the presidential election over Bush. Also, Clinton faced several foreign affair issues during his presidency, primarily in the African countries of Rwanda and Somalia. These affairs were similar to Nixon's issues in that the American public scrutinized the issues and Americas reason for involvement. Clinton’s highly successful career, however, would come crashing down similar to Nixon's Watergate

However, both of these presidents careers would be destroyed by similar cases and similar felonies. Nixon’s case was a matter of political coverup and corruptness known as Watergate. “On June 17, 1972, the watergate complex attracted attention as the site of a failed burglary. At around two o’clock in the morning five men dressed in business suits and wearing surgical gloves were arrested during an attempt to break into the Democrat national committee headquarters” (Fienberg 15). This is what started the entire Watergate scandal that ruined Nixon’s entire reputation and career. These men arrested, on of them a CIA agent, had planted wiretapping devices in the Watergate building (Fienberg 27). Immediately after the breakin, Nixon's white house staff quickly shredded incriminating documents, and payed off the burglars not to give names of people (Goldman 107). Nixon, however, did not become fully involved in Watergate until the “Saturday night massacre” (Fienberg 69). Previously, before this night Nixon had already been accused of being part of the coverup as to what had been done during the breakin; However, the “Saturday night massacre” proved to be catastrophic to Nixon. Nixon was already being pressure to release tapes of his conversation in the White House but he refused to give them up (Fienberg 74). Nixon proposed an alternative on October 19, by giving the court a summary