Tim Naftali Won't Be Kicked Around Anymore at Nixon Presidential Library

Burglar in Chief

​Six years ago--to the abject horror of Orange County's blue hair right wingers, historian/author Tim Naftali became the first legitimate director of Richard Nixon's presidential library in Yorba Linda.

A version of the library had been run by Nixon apologists whose brazenly absurd lies about their hero's misdeeds often prompted howls and tears of laughter inside the Weekly's newsroom.

Naftali's arrival, ordered by the National Archives, ended the library's shameless propaganda that Nixon hadn't committed criminal acts in the Oval Office but was rather the innocent victim of unethical, plotting political enemies determined to thwart a noble man's mission in Vietnam.

Please recall that this president ordered so many burglaries that under California's Three Strikes Law he would have become a permanent resident of Pelican Bay State Prison.

Now, as my colleague Matt Coker recently reported, Naftali is leaving his position to write more books.

This development is OC's loss.

But tonight, Naftali--a brilliant, classy man with a keen sense of humor--will conduct his final presentation at the library on the same day that he releases once secret Nixon grand jury transcripts.

The 90-minute event is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.

--R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly