We still have Nixon to kick around!

Barack H. Obama is our 44th president and the first bi-racial president.

Richard M. Nixon was our 37th president and a psychopathic criminal.

He ordered break-ins and cover ups, sold his office for campaign money, stole public funds for private use, cheated on his taxes, used the IRS and Justice Department to harass his political opponents, hired goons to beat up anti-war protesters, spied on Democrats and investigated their private lives, illegally wire-tapped journalists' phone calls, lied to the American people about Vietnam, and was forced to resign in disgrace.

And that's just some of the bad stuff he did.

But despite all that, Nixon was really worried about America losing its soul. He thought America wasn't moral enough. And as the latest bunch of White House tapes released today from the National Archives reveal, he was against abortion -- except in certain circumstances.

On the tape out today -- recorded on January 23, 1973, the day after the Roe v. Wade decision came down from the Supreme Court -- Nixon says there are times "when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white ... Or a rape.”

Wow! So if Tricky Dick had had his way, Barack Obama would never have been born. In Nixon's mind, Obama's conception was basically akin to rape. Yuck!

Dick Nixon's brand of dark, dishonest, fear-based politics has had a lasting impact on today's Republican party. Anyone who lived through the last eight years of the Bush presidency knows that. (Former VP Dick Cheney got his start in the Nixon administration. Big surprise.)

In the early 1970s, of course, George W. Bush was too much of a drunken slob to work in a diner let alone in the Nixon administration -- but his daddy did. When this tape was made, George H.W. Bush was the UN Ambassador here in NYC and Nixon called him on New Year's Eve, 1971.

This tape, though short, is fascinating. First, it was recoded late that night but Nixon is alone at the White House. You see what a weird, introverted loner he was. Second, you hear what a desperate pathetic kiss-ass Bush Senior was. Third, Bush makes a passing comment about living "in royal splendor" -- that splendor being the Waldorf Astoria hotel.

At one point, Nixon asks Bush about "fighting that New York society crowd" and Bush says that he doesn't like living in NYC or having his family here. Of course, that didn't stop Nixon from moving to NYC after his presidency and, of course, Bush was descended from a rich Wall Street family!

What hypocrites! But then again, how typical of Republicans.