Nixon
prided himself on being an accomplished debater, and he showed as
much in the first - ever televised presidential debate
against John F. Kennedy, whom the media were already touting as a great intellect.
His own pet proof of «why there almost certainly is no God» (a proof in which he takes
much evident
pride) is one that a usually mild - spoken friend of mine (a friend who has devoted too
much of his life to teaching undergraduates the basic rules of logic and the elementary language of philosophy) has described as «possibly the single most incompetent logical argument ever made for or
against anything in the whole history of the human race.»