How Gordon Brown isn't like Richard Nixon

The McBride scandal - or Smeargate if you really insist - is starting to lead to a resurgence in that old comparison between Brown and Nixon. It is a compelling comparison - one I've made on this blog before now. And on many levels it works.

Both figures are deeply flawed. Both figures are brooding misanthropes; paranoid, socially awkward and with very, very nasty sides. They both have that odd misconception that they were in some way deserving of the power they achieved, and that no-one else could offer what they could. And with that in mind, any tactic, any smear was fair game to keep the Right One in power.

There is even a physical similarity between Nixon and Brown. Go look at some photos of them both and compare. Both are dark, grey figures. There is something ghost like about the pair of them; as if the weight of simply being presses down on them and damages them. Their physical appearance reflects their personalities - grey, grim and ghoulish. And both went from being what some might describe as handsome young men, and turned into twisted, jowly versions of what they once were.

But there, it stops. Because whilst Nixon was a warmonger who promised peace, a man who was apparently drunk at times of international crisis and a man driven by terrifying demons, he also achieved a great deal in his life. He did bring peace to Vietnam, although his means was a torturous as it was murderous. More impressively, Nixon - the once virulent anti-Communist - was the President who strengthened relations with the Russia and re-opened relations with China. The ending of the Cold War under Thatcher and Reagan was made possible by the giant leaps forward under President Nixon.

Compare this to the achievements of Gordon Brown. At best, at best, you can point to the G20 as a triumph for Gordon. He managed to persuade world leaders to spend over a trillion dollars of money they don't have on nebulous and non-existent programmes without requiring those leaders to ask the poor sods they represent for their opinion. Even if you do regard that as an achievement rather than a massive con, it doesn't quite compare with helping to end the Cold War, now, does it?

And then there is the reason why Nixon was so into his smears - he was a fighter. A proper, arrogant, nasty political fighter. He had no issue with fighting for power, and fighting elections. He ran for the House of Representatives, the Senate, the Vice-Presidency (twice) and the Presidency three times. He won, in 1972, one of the most stunning victories in recent US electoral histories. His conduct in elections may not have been outstanding, but at least he had the backbone to put his neck on the line and fight. Compare this to Gordon; a man who has ducked every election he possibly can, and who appears pathologically afraid of putting his neck on the line and actually going out the the voters.

Nixon will always be a deeply divisive figure who is hated by some; and I can really understand why. But he did achieve things in his lifetime - things that he was justly proud of. Whereas Brown hasn't managed to achieve anything.

The sad truth for Gordon Brown is - even against the deeply flawed figure of Richard Nixon - he comes across as a failure.