For my blog post today on Nixon: Ruin and Recovery, 1973-1990, I will quote what Stephen Ambrose says on page 432.
"'How
can you support a quitter?' [Nixon] bitterly asked Ziegler. He told a
story about the time he was running a one-mile race in school, and there
were fifty yards left and only two competitors running, with nothing at
stake but next to last place. Still, he sprinted those last fifty
yards."
President Richard Nixon did not want to resign from the
Presidency during the Watergate scandal. As he said in his resignation
speech: "I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is
completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body." But he said that
he was resigning for the good of the country.
I wrote a post
a few months ago about staying the course and quitting. In my opinion,
there are times for me to stay the course, and there are times for me
to quit. What would I do if I were running a race, there were only two
competitors left, and there were "nothing at stake but next to last
place"? Well, maybe I'd quit out of sheer exhaustion, but I would hope
that I would finish the race. Why? Because there is self-esteem that
comes from finishing what one started, even if one does not win. And
there is a possibility that others would respect me for finishing what I
started.