One of the advantages of having multiple movie channels (as on my cable box) is that you might be forced to watch something you resisted for years.

So it was with me and Oliver Stone's Nixon.

For me the most powerful moments came at the end, in Bob Dole's eulogy, spoken at Nixon's actual funeral. "The last half of the 20th century will be known as the Age of Nixon," he said. And I think we're still in it.

Stone's theme is self-delusion, and critics argue that Stone himself engaged in it heavily, adding scenes that never happened, filling in the famous 18 1/2 minute gap, exploring the character of Nixon's mother and the theme of loss.

Stone's sympathy for the tragedy of Nixon's character is lost to critics as he gives Nixon personal responsibility for all the evil of his time, as though he were saying that Jesus died for your sins but Nixon lived them. (Or, as Hannah Nixon said, struggle in this life, joy in the next.)

I think we all delude ourselves, quite often. I know I do. My kids do. When you have to square your self-image with reality, it's the natural defense. Much of our politics is an exercise in delusion, on all sides, an attempt to fit imaginary, simple narratives to complicated events.

Nixon's own words (image is from Shilohrelics) were delusionary as well, as in the long monologue from August 9, 1974, which I watched from a few miles away in Washington D.C. To Stone these were the most illuminating words Nixon ever spoke in public, the climax he leads us to. He gives the speech to Hopkins, merges his fictional re-telling with images of the real event, and then leaves us with the actual Nixon walking to the helicopter.

Nixon engaged in delusion, Stone engaged in it, I engage in it, you engage in it, and right now the United States is as filled with it as at any time in its history, in a world that is also quite filled with it. Clarity, honesty, and truth are all in very short supply.

If we looked honestly at our world we think it might kill us. In Stone's movie it's what Nixon says as he drinks and drinks and abuses prescription drugs and listens obsessively to the tapes. And it's only in that drunken despair that he comes close to really seeing himself, which may explain a lot of drug-taking by a lot of us.

In his book "The Greatest Generation" Tom Brokaw turns the men and women of Nixon's era into shining heroes. But my father, like Nixon, came from that time and he, like Nixon, was at best a plaster saint, noble only in his cups, pursued by guilt, insecurity, and a fear of not measuring up to his self-image.

I wonder sometimes if Brokaw did his subjects any favors. They were heroes in youth, with no choice in the matter. The vast majority couldn't match that degree of heroism in their later lives -- who could? And it ate at them. It also ate at their kids. It eats at me, still.

But this country will be unable to get beyond The Age of Nixon until we can put that aside and look soberly and honestly at the world again.

Maybe in our childrens' generation.