Richard Nixon, supporting the troops

As surely as the sun rises in the east, those who shriek the loudest about how much they Luv America have contempt for other Americans. This appears in The Final Days by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein:

Almost from the beginning, Kissinger had secretly had all his telephone calls, including those with the President, monitored and transcribed…

Nixon was often on the phone with Kissinger for fifteen minutes or longer. The President was repetitive, sometimes taking minutes to come to a point, or he might suddenly shift to another topic…

During one call, the President drunkenly related to Dr. Kissinger the Vietnam policy of his friend Bebe Robozo…

During another call, Kissinger mentioned the number of American casualties in a major battle in Vietnam. “Oh, screw ’em,” said Nixon.

An interesting thing about this is that if it were about a Democratic president, it would be famous. Every schoolchild would learn about the hatred that Democrats secretly harbor in their hearts for our Brave Men In Uniform. In every presidential debate the Democrat would be asked how they could possibly convince the country they weren’t like their damnable predecessor. But since Nixon was a Republican, it’s dropped out of history entirely. (I can find only one reference to it online.)

AND: This appears later in the book:

In Haig’s presence, Kissinger referred pointedly to military men as “dumb, stupid animals to be used” as pawns for foreign policy.

Again, imagine a Democratic administration was getting frequent advice from a former Democratic Secretary of State who’d said this. You’d be able to hear the screaming from cable news on Neptune.