“My Fellow Americans . . .”

By James Fallows
Photograph by Eric Ogden
Source: Vanity Fair

From left: Checkers writer Douglas McGrath, cast members Anthony LaPaglia and Kathryn Erbe, and director Terry Kinney pose with the stand-in for Nixon’s beloved cocker spaniel. Photographed in New York City.

The central sacrament of 19th-century American politics was the rousing Independence Day oration. For our time, it’s the direct-to-camera televised plea by a politician in a bind. He has gotten into trouble—it’s always “he”—because of the leaked bank records, or the surveillance video gone viral, or the sexual partner who has decided to talk. As long as he thinks he might beat the rap, he takes the tone of outraged innocence so memorably associated with Bill Clinton (“I did not have sexual relations with that woman!”). Once he knows he’s been caught, he throws himself on the mercy of an understanding public. He is racked by guilt; he knows that what he did was so very wrong; and—while he wouldn’t dream of making excuses—the truth is he paid too much attention to the public’s well-being and too little to his own. Ideally his wife shares the camera time; better still if she looks hurt but not disgusted.
Sometimes the ritual leads to a second act in politics (Bill Clinton, Barney Frank) and sometimes not (John Edwards, Larry Craig). Sometimes it’s takes a while to tell (Eliot Spitzer, Anthony Weiner). All are following a trail blazed 60 years ago by Richard Nixon—the subject of a new play, Checkers, by Douglas McGrath, opening October 31 at Manhattan’s Vineyard Theatre.
Senator Nixon in 1952 was an ambitious young pol, the Dan Quayle or Paul Ryan of the time—the first of his generation with a shot at national office as a G.O.P. vice-presidential nominee. Between him and that prospect stood a fund-raising scandal that broke only six weeks before Election Day. Dwight D. Eisenhower, at the top of the ticket, kept a studied distance and left Nixon to defend himself—as he did, in a mawkishly self-pitying but effective performance that included his wife, Pat, and became known as the “Checkers” speech because of Nixon’s reference to criticism even of Checkers, the family’s dog (which had been a gift from a supporter).
Checkers is directed by Terry Kinney, a Steppenwolf Theater co-founder, and stars Anthony LaPaglia as Richard Nixon and Kathryn Erbe as Pat. The relationship between the Nixons—as powerful and complex as that between the Reagans, the Carters, and the Clintons—is the emotional center of the play. To any White House speechwriter (as I once was), the Checkers episode also resonates for another reason: it was the moment modern televised politics began.


OMG, I LOVE the photo. Kathryn looks amazing. I need MORE photo shootings with this woman!

Please check the Vineyard Theater twitter account when you have tickets for tomorrow or Wednesday. Maybe Sandy will quit your stage date with Kathryn.