The Republican Party's real legacy - Not much

It's bad to be remembered as an evil and corrupt politician. But what's really bad is to be remembered as a mediocre evil and corrupt politician.

Billed by Life Magazine as "Spiro T. Agnew the stern voice of the silent majority".

Richard Nixon picked Spiro T. Agnew, the liberal governor of a small state, and transformed him into an arch-conservative attack dog the likes of which the nation had not seen since... Well, since Richard Nixon.

Agnew was sent out on the campaign trail, and later as vice president, to attack the hippies, leftists and pinkos that Nixon felt were primarily responsible for the decline of America (which couldn't possibly have been his fault). Armed with a series of ad hominem zingers penned by Nixon's sleaze purveyors Pat Buchanan and William Safire, Agnew made many memorable contributions to the history of destructo-politics with gems like these:

"A Nixon-Agnew administration will abolish the credibility gap and reestablish the truth — the whole truth — as its policy."

"The criminal left is not a problem to be solved by the Department of Philosophy or the Department of English--it is a problem for the Department of Justice.... Black or white, the criminal left is interested in power. It is not interested in promoting the renewal and reforms that make democracy work; it is interested in promoting those collisions and conflict that tear democracy apart."