Nixonland Book Salon

Rick Perlstein will be chatting about Nixonland over Firedoglake today, Saturday, April 25, 2009 - 5pm EST/2pm PST.

The paperback version of Nixonland is now out (although I'd go for the hardcover if you can). His earlier book on Goldwater finally went back in print last year, too.

So head over and get your Nixonland fix. After this week and all the new torture revelations, it'll be nice to talk about lying, power-abusing officials who weren't just in office.

Update: Here's the direct link to the chat.

Update 2: Here's my favorite bit. Teddy Partridge asked, "Do you marvel at the resilience of Pat Buchanan and his perverse relationship with MSNBC?" Rick Perlstein responded by linking this segment:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

He also wrote:

A lot of it is what Digby says: the opinion elite of this country comprises a “village,” and the main qualification for admission is how nice you are to the other people in the village. Buchanan also exploits a special weakness of this elite: their anxiety that they’re out of touch with the “heartland.” People like Buchanan have skillfully exploited that neurosis to convince the rest of the villagers that hard-right conservatives have some mythic connection to that heartland. When he says something wingnutty, villagers don’t think: “that’s crazy.” They think: “gee, maybe I should think that, too, to be ‘in touch’ with the ‘real’ America.”

Horseshit, of course.

Also, in response to another comment, about Muskie "crying" and Broder recanting on that, I linked two pieces on that I've used before.

(Cross-posted at Blue Herald)