Elvis and Nixon, America's Beloved Pill-Popping Paranoid Red Baiters
On this National Day of Celebration (Elvis Presley's Birthday), let's remember the most important moment of our greatest president's administration: when a bloated pop star visited the Oval Office for a half hour.
All the wonderful facts about this most wonderful occasion, after the jump.
Because there's nothing funny about the Nixon Era, the picture of the pair has been embraced by a fallen nation constantly trying to pretend there was anything "cool" about the 1970s. The National Archives and the Associated Press both claim the Nixon-Elvis picture is the No. 1 most-requested photograph, while the Nixon birthplace museum in Yorba Linda, California, makes a fortune peddling Nixon-Elvis gewgaws such as mouse pads and coffee mugs.
And today at the Orange County museum, you can see a very special exhibition of various items from the Holy Day, such as Elvis' black velvet coat and, uhm, Nixon's shoes.
Presley was in his second pathetic decline on the December day in 1970 when he schemed his way into the White House. Bloated and crazy, "The King" was desperately trying to get somebody to anoint him as a Federal Agent so he could fight his own very special War On Drugs.
When the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs turned down Presley's absurd request and informed him that nobody but the president could veto the decision, Elvis ordered his driver to take him to the White House. The "Do the Clam" singer was shaking hands with Nixon a mere two hours later. (That's not the way the White House deals withridiculous celebrities who show up at the White House without an invitation these days.)
Deputy White House Counsel Bud Krogh set up the meeting because he was an Elvis freak. And what does Presley pull on Nixon when they meet? A Colt .45 revolver . Sadly, the crazed pop star didn't shoot Nixon, which would've led to the bountiful years of the Agnew Administration, victory in Vietnam, the end of world poverty and the development of $150 solar-powered automobiles.
Instead, Nixon accepted the gun as a typical White House gift and rewarded Presley with the dope-agent badge -- mostly because Elvis nervously jabbered the whole time about how he had inside knowledge about the communist plot to get fans of '50s rockabilly addicted to smack.
Presley really just wanted the badge so he wouldn't be troubled by real federal drug cops. Elvis was addicted to about a dozen different narcotics at this point, and he could only get so much from Memphis dealer Dr. Nick.
Because everybody loves a list, here are some fun things that Nixon and Elvis had in common:
* They're both dead.
* They were paranoid.
* They popped pills.
* They both had big hits in the '50s but faded away in 1960.
* Both made improbable comebacks in 1968.
* Both had a Southern Strategy: Nixon's version courted southern racist Democrats in 1972, while Presley's version was that he was a southerner.
* Both dated actresses.
* The Presley and Nixon families were both made up of poor religious nuts.
* Both men were proud military veterans.
* The two superstars were born just one day (and many decades) apart: Elvis on January 8 and Nixon on January 9.
* Nixon and Elvis were both homosexuals, and their love child is blogger Micheal Fumento.
The last one is maybe not confirmed by historians, but all the rest are true!