I'm trying to be amused rather than offended by Richard Nixon's view of abortion and biracial children ("necessary") that Dana wrote about, but something's still bugging me, not just because of what he said, but how Nixon said about is necessary when pregnancy results from rape or an interracial relationship. I don't think it's a coincidence that those two are linked in his mind. It's hard to imagine that Nixon was referring to an interracial marriage; an interracial couple who get married aren't likely to want or think it's necessary to abort their child on racial grounds. Given that Nixon seemed to buy wholesale into racial myths regarding Jews and blacks, I think it's likely that he assumed that rape was related to sex that produced an interracial pregnancy, if the two weren't, in his mind, the same thing entirely.
At any rate, the whole thing really makes you wish Nixon was still alive to see Barack Obama become president of the United States. I can only hope he's looking on from somewhere: How do you like them apples, Dick?
-- A. Serwer
