Watergate: For The Record

I haven't spent a lot of time talking about Watergate recently, but I have encountered a few people who have tried to argue that Nixon didn't do anything that LBJ and Kennedy hadn't done before him. Some, I think, were not old enough at the time to recall, and have just heard, vaguely, that he did some bad stuff and concluded: well, most politicians do bad stuff; so what? Some, like Ben Stein, ought to know better but don't:

"Can anyone even remember now what Nixon did that was so terrible? He ended the war in Vietnam, brought home the POW's, ended the war in the Mideast, opened relations with China, started the first nuclear weapons reduction treaty, saved Eretz Israel's life, started the Environmental Protection Administration. Does anyone remember what he did that was bad?

Oh, now I remember. He lied. He was a politician who lied. How remarkable."

This sort of historical revisionism bothers me, so, for the benefit of anyone here who was either not around at the time or not old enough to recall, a few quotes to indicate why, exactly, what Nixon did was neither normal nor tolerable. First, William F. Buckley:

"On January 5, 1973, Howard Hunt, an old friend and my sometime boss in the CIA, came to see me, accompanied by one of his daughters (my goddaughter, as it happened). He told me the appalling, inside story of Watergate, including the riveting news that one of the plumbers was ready and disposed to kill Jack Anderson, the journalist-commentator, if word came down to proceed to that lurid extreme."

Riveting? Not the word I would have chosen. Ask yourself how Hunt would have known that someone was willing to kill Jack Anderson had it not been seriously discussed.

Next, John Dean:

"Even by the standards of the Nixon White House, the plan to blow up Washington’s pre-eminent think tank seemed crazy, presidential counselor John W. Dean III recalled here Monday.

But there was White House aide John Ehrlichman on the phone one day in 1971, telling Dean that “Chuck Colson wants me to firebomb the Brookings (Institution).” Describing the incident Monday to several hundred presidential history junkies at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Dean said he was dumbfounded.

“I said, ‘John, this is absolute insanity,’ ” he remembered. “People could die. This is absurd.” (...)

It seemed incredible, but now that he has listened to earlier tapes, Dean said he has heard Nixon “literally pounding on his desk, saying ‘I want that break-in at the Brookings (Institution).’ " "

From the Nixon tapes:

"Nixon: Did they get the Brookings Institute raided last night? No? Get it done. I want it done. I want the Brookings Institute's safe cleaned out and have it cleaned out in a way that it makes somebody else responsible."

This is not just the normal lying, cheating, and minor corruption (although Nixon had a particular flair for that: iirc, on the occasion of a candlelight vigil on the White House lawn, he brought up the possibility of using low-flying helicopters to blow out all the candles.) This is planning murder, arson, and of course burglary. In addition, there was a lot of financial corruption, and the use of the entire machinery of government -- the FBI, the IRS, you name it -- to go after those Nixon thought of as his political opponents. (Nixon, from the tapes: "Please get me the names of the Jews. You know, the big Jewish contributors of the Democrats. Could we please investigate some of those c---suckers?")

This is not just "what all politicians do". This was different: a completely lawless White House whose corruption went way beyond normal.

Just saying.

Comments

[Barry]

I'm sure that the trolls will be by shortly. Not to mention a couple of regulars (and I think that we know who they are).

I think that it's important to emphasize that Stein, Buckley, and others old enough to know better are flat-out 100% lying to protect a ciminal who abused his office and Hurt America (of course, he didn't 'Hate America', which, I guess, makes all of the difference).

This is not a matter of interpretation; these people sat down to lie. The only times that they aren't lying is when they leave out little things like when things happened.

[dmbeaster]

We live in an age of Republican fantasy making. Nixon revisionism, inspired by the Felt disclosure, is just the latest wrinkle.

I guess its time to take these Republcians at face value -- they see nothing seriously wrong with the Nixon crimes and apparently are happy to see Bush rule by deceit.

[John Thullen]

You're just saying and you said it well, as usual. Too bad it needs to be explained one more time.

Ben Stein, who reached his career pinnacle as the boring teacher in "Ferris Buehler's Day Off" has shamed his fine father with his statements recently. Brad Delong has some quotes from Stein in "American Spectator", the National Geographic of low, gutter-snipe journalistic sewage, pointing out Mark Felt's Jewish background and comparing him to Nazi criminals.

William F. Buckley, who's PBS show was the best of the political talk shows, outside of Macneil-Lehrer, back when "civility" had some cache, ought really to have a few words today for those who believe mistakenly they are his political spawn.

They are not. They are something brand new in American history.

The vomitus of Noonan, Stein and today's incurable romantics is all over us. They are victims. They will have their howling, rabid vengeance. It will get much worse until it is stopped by extraordinary means.

[Phil]

Stein, being an intellligent man, had to have intended to deliberately lie in order to simultaneously praise Nixon for having "ended the war in vietnam," yet condemn Nixon's Enemies for allowing "1.) The defeat of the South Vietnamese government with decades of death and hardship for the people of Vietnam." You cannot achieve that kind of cognitive dissonance except on purpose. Nixon had six years in which to win the war if he was capable -- something which he claimed to have a secret plan to do -- but he wasn't. So if the former is on him, so is the latter.

Friggin' Stein. Why couldn't he stick to light comedy? He's a lot better at it.

[Saintperle]

The Republicans seem to be more egregious where such things are concerned. They seem to believe if they can get out of office without being indicted, then they're home free (and usually are) so why don't we get over the stolen election of 2000? They want us to have short short memories, bit, of course, if you suggest they seem to have spent years involved in an unnatural ongoing fascination concerning Wee Willie's Winkie, they get upset, and do not like to be reminded that they still love to play with it over and over like some mad masturbators while ot passes for a debate topic on the Right Wing (NOT conservative in any way -- they don't conserve anything but their own nasty secrets) Right Wing talk shows.

As to Nixon -- he'll be rehabilitated in my sight right after Prince John the Usurper is rehabilitated and the GOP disses Richard Couer d'Leon as an England-hater advancing the Gay Agenda. Right after Torquemada is canonized by Prince Bent-Dick XVI. Right after pigs fly and Health-Food Nazi's palnt cigarette trees in the shade of the Big Rock Candy mountain.

Anyone with the merest amount of religious bent had to be impressed at his (Nixon's) funeral when they opened the grave and the sky suddenly grew dark and lightning and thunder showed up for the first time in many many years on the California coast.

And we all knew what it meant and all yelled "Hey Dick -- don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way into Hell." That vicious little troglodyte killed hundeds of thousands of civilians in his orgiastic and orgasmic post-re-election mad Christmas bombing of Vietnam, and for that mass murder alone, he's earned the right to sit in some room with all those bodies forever.
I remember how he (and Jenry Kissinger) talked about the "Madman"theory, that if you pretend to be insane, people (the VC) will want to settle sooner. And I remember realizing then -- and still -- they only THOUGHT they were pretending.

These people who defend him ... these people who are now talking about how we could have won in Vietnam are so full of ... they're ineffably tiresome...

If they were dogs, we'd feed them, calm them, and put them to sleep.

[RedDan]

Hey, you folks do know, of course, that Mark Felt in his Deep Throat persona was directly responsible for the Killing Fields in Cambodia, right?

The stench of hypocritical idiocy emanating from the writings and speech of these idiots (Stein, Buchanon, Noonan, et al) is truly remarkable.

But not surprising.

[ozoid]

Two things I'm taking away from the neo-fascist defense of Nixon:

1) They're telling Rove they're prepared to stand behind him if he orders the same kinds of felonies. I'm sure Rove has noticed.

2) They're showing the MSM how they would have used the same tactics to attack the revered Woodstein that they've been using on contemporary. This is almost a controlled experiment. I noticed, for instance, how Bradlee stood behind Woodstein when they made their minor error on Sloan's grand jury testimony and continued reporting, while Newsweek's Whitaker and Isikoff blandly agreed to eat shit. By the end of the month we'll know if any MSM editors have rediscovered their cojones.

[melior]

What was the refrain of the radical right just a few short years ago? "It's not the sex but the lying?"

How remarkable, indeed. A remarkable, lying bastard.

[lily]

Please excuse this interruption. Gary, if you are here, I wrote a note to you on the "Who Broke the Army Thread", iF you care to read it. It's a friendly note, meant to be anyway.
Also thank you to everyone who provided step-by-step directions on how to make a link. I have printed the directions out, and I will practice.
Now back to the discssion under way.

[rilkefan]

What's a little burglary?

[lily]

I feel almost nostalgic for the good ol' Watergate days. It was drama, but safe drama--bad guys got punished, the good guys won. Current politics seems much sicker.

[Gorkle]

The Bush White House is actually a bizarre parallel universe that has crashed into ours. Its like Nixon was still the chief dick but didn't have to do all those liberal things and could have a war in which the protesters could easily be demonized and he could break lots of laws and lie with impugnity. Psychotics rule.

[hilzoy]

So there I was, reading Atrios, and he had this Watergate post with a link to "some samples" of Nixon's worst moments, and I thought: cool, I'll see what I missed. And suddenly I found myself here. Which explains why we're at nearly 3000 hits on a Sunday.

[millicent]

I'm from Atrios, too. Noonan,Stein,Blankley, and all the rest trivialize Nixon's crimes because the Bush administration has done the same thing to just about all branches of govt. Worse, now GOP in majority in all three branches of govt. and the MSM lives in fear and loathing.....but plays the game.

Matthews has on Colson,Liddy and the like......give me a break....[are they whose criminal behavior was on the line], the experts on Felt's integrity? We are living through a Nightmare. The lunatics are running the Asylum.

[hilzoy]

Welcome, Millicent, and all the other people from Atrios and Brad and Ezra...

I do wonder, though: why this post? (Not that I'm ungrateful or anything...)

[bob mcmanus]

My honest reflections or remembrances on Watergate, from the position of a bright but stoned factory worker in a very conservative community...pretty apolitical:

1)The country had calmed down quite a bit by 73. The worse years for violence and hate were 69-71, when the left were pretty certain that nothing would be gained by lawful means and just started breaking stuff. Kent State quieted the students,the drawdown and lottery helped. The war was pretty clearly lost, and what was known about it was pretty ugly, sad, and embarrassing. The nation was exhausted and depressed.

2)Doubt anyone could have beaten Nixon in 72. Muskie did not impress, and McGovern, tho a good man in many ways, was not obvious Presidential material. Yes, the inmates took over the asylum at the convention, but it was a wake for several assorted Lefts.

3)The Nixon Machine was quite impressive. One of the first professional campaigns, and people like Haldeman, Erlichman, Mitchell on fund-raising were good. This kind of discipline was new. Yes, it was scary, but I honestly was not scared for the Republic. IIRC, Nixon and his crew were an isolated group, almost a Republican Part unto themselves, and everyone pretty well understood that that the Repubs would split into factional war upon the end of his term. As they indeed did.

4) The policy was very mixed, very complicated, and hard to judge. Part of the point of Haldeman & Erlichman was their ability to keep their own party in line in the face of some fairly repulsive policy. I think Nixon's policy was an utter mess, both foreign and domestic, and I am amazed at those who would defend it. I guess the domestic policy was pretty liberal, but wage-price controls and going off the gold standard were just radical and weird, and not necessarily favorable to the working man. OSHA and EPA and Headstart good.

On the foreign policy side, besides a large number of pretty questionable treaties, I even after thirty years am not that positive the opening to China was an good thing. And tying our foreign policy to Israel's was very questionable.

I still like Nixon's policies better than his Republican successors. I suppose he was a bad President, but mostly a very confusing one. In retrospect perhaps the most amazing aspect was the degree of discipline he was able to impose on a party both dying and being reborn.

[hilzoy]

Bob M: interesting. I was 13 in 1972, and I recall being just horrified by Watergate: it had never occurred to me that the government could be, well, criminals. I wrote a letter to McGovern after the election, when a lot of the story had come out, asking why we shouldn't have the election over, since Nixon had cheated. He wrote a rather nice long letter back, explaining that elections didn't work that way.

And then, of course, my Dad turned out to be on the enemies' list, which brought it home in a whole new way. It wasn't that he's my Dad; it's that he's one of the most decent, play-by-the-rules, public spirited people you'd ever want to meet; and the idea that anyone would think he was the sort of person against whom the power of the government ought to be deployed was just shocking to me. (Much more so than the later realization that this probably meant that a lot of my adolescent phone calls were wiretapped, and that that explained all those odd clicking sounds.)

[Rick Perlstein]

Thanks for cutting through the bullshit. Read Gordon Liddy's memoir "Will," by the way, and you'll have no doubts which plumber was talking about murdering Jack Anderson. That would be the one who kept up showing up on cable news talking about how dishorable Mark Felt is.

[bob mcmanus]

To repeat myself: Nixon at the time was scarey, but nor that scarey because:
We had been thru hell for years, including growing up with J Edgar Hoover
Nixon's policies were not completely awful
Nixon had no friends, and no apparent successors
Whatever badness Nixon did was illegal, and would end with Nixon
....
This current crew is enshrining their badness into precedent and law; do look for long term structural changes;have really awful policy; and think long term.

They are much scarier.

[Anarch]

"Can anyone even remember now what Nixon did that was so terrible? He ended the war in Vietnam, brought home the POW's, ended the war in the Mideast, opened relations with China, started the first nuclear weapons reduction treaty, saved Eretz Israel's life, started the Environmental Protection Administration. Does anyone remember what he did that was bad?

Bombed the f*** out of Cambodia? I seem to recall that not turning out so well...

[CathiefromCanada]

I think they are rehabilitating Nixon because they don't want to give up their demonization of Clinton. Just before this all came out, I heard a republican on some talk show say something like "the Clinton administration was the most corrupt administration the US has ever had" (and the dem he was on with just let this go whooshing by) -- they really believe this, too.

[hilzoy]

Anarch: and the idea that if any American was responsible for the genocide in cambodia, it was Mark Felt and not the guy who had the clever idea of deposing Sihanouk and invading the country is bizarre beyond words.

Did you know that Sihanouk has a blog? A friend of mine just sent me this. It helps to read either French or Khmer.

[Anarch]

Did you know that Sihanouk has a blog? A friend of mine just sent me this. It helps to read either French or Khmer.

Good god, no. That's très cool. I'm trying to figure out whether I'm more or less taken aback than when my dad said that he'd taken a seminar with Alexander Kerensky; I'm tempted to say more, simply because I don't associate "Cambodia" with "the internet" except insofar as "lack of". Thanks for the link; I'll forward it my dad ASAP.

[Anarch]

So there I was, reading Atrios, and he had this Watergate post with a link to "some samples" of Nixon's worst moments, and I thought: cool, I'll see what I missed. And suddenly I found myself here. Which explains why we're at nearly 3000 hits on a Sunday.

As an aside, can I recommend to our influx of new liberal visitors that a) they read the posting rules, and b) they read a number of previous threads before posting? Generally good netiquette, but particularly important here.

[Jesurgislac]

CathiefromCanada: Just before this all came out, I heard a republican on some talk show say something like "the Clinton administration was the most corrupt administration the US has ever had" (and the dem he was on with just let this go whooshing by) -- they really believe this, too.

Yeah, I've heard that meme. You'd think it would at least merit a snort of laughter - it still gets one from me, though I suppose it might not if I heard it more often.

[Anarch]

Thanks for the link; I'll forward it my dad ASAP....

...and it turns out he already knew about it. Goldarnit!

[otto]

Since it has not been mentioned in the comments yet, I thought I would offer a quote from Hunter S. Thompson’s obit on Nixon (so many good lines, it was hard to narrow it down to stay within the posting rules).

“If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin.”

[liberal japonicus]

This article by John Dean is rather interesting. It suggests one reason why leak from the current admin have not reached a tipping point, which is that those doing the leaking cannot command the kind of attention that the 2nd in command at the FBI could.

It seems it was Felt's position alone that gave Woodward, and in turn, Woodward's editor at The Washington Post, Ben Bradlee, confidence in pursuing a story that other news organizations initially largely ignored.

He goes on to note, however, that Ben Bradlee only knew that it was a highly placed Justice Dept source up until Nixon's resignation.

[Barry]

"William F. Buckley, who's PBS show was the best of the political talk shows, outside of Macneil-Lehrer, back when "civility" had some cache, ought really to have a few words today for those who believe mistakenly they are his political spawn."

John, please note that Buckley is one of the Nixonian revisionist liars. He's not a bystander, or a Grand Old Wise Man; he's a corrupt liar. The only words he'll be having with these people is how to do it better. Also, please don't confuse 'civility' with morality or truth. One can lie like a rug and be very civil, and wreak great evil.

"They are not. They are something brand new in American history."

By now it's undeniable that most of the spokespeople for the right-wing of US politics consider the Bush administration to be the worthy heirs of Nixon, with great hope for making Nixon look like a piker.

"The vomitus of Noonan, Stein and today's incurable romantics is all over us. They are victims. They will have their howling, rabid vengeance. It will get much worse until it is stopped by extraordinary means. "

Posted by: John Thullen

[Jackmormon]

I wasn't around for Watergate, but I grew up in the Bay Area and so accept Nixon as A Bad Bad Man. So I guess my question for this thread is:

Wasn't Nixon the last (and perhaps the first) to record his incriminating conversations? So that, when the web started to unravel, all the nastiness was documented?

I really would not like to speculate about what kinds of brainstorming happens in the Rove or Cheney offices, but I'm willing to bet that they're not being recorded for posterity.

[John Thullen]

Barry:

I realized after I wrote my comment that I had taken the Buckley quote provided by Hilzoy somewhat the wrong way and out of context. However, I'll stick by my comments on his PBS show, as would John Kenneth Galbraith.

And for the record, so there is no mistake: Were we to have a Watergate-style event and investigation and Congressional hearings today, (we have: Iraq) this Administration, its ideological gollums in the Congress, and the operatives who inhabit the press would foment open rebellion and violence against their enemies.

There would not be resignations and firings. There would be jailings and murders and the full force of the Patriot Act would be placed into action against 49% of the population. And, you wouldn't read about the copies of the Constitution urinated upon or kicked or mutilated at the domestic GITMOs, because Newsweek would be shut down by the government or firebombed by the goons in operation today.

And, yes, I do believe Buckley would speak out against this. The White House would then pillory him and have him confined to his estate without Internet privileges.

Chris Mathews, on the other hand, would be allowed to continue broadcasting as long as Gordon Liddy (a piece of filth; a walking, cowardly vessel of false testosterone who I suspect separated all of his postage stamps during his jail term, who has morphed into the likes of Limbaugh, Malkin and LGFs) was sitting close by with a gun pointed at him under the table.

Yes, something brand new in American history. So, we agree, no?

[Slartibartfast]

We live in an age of Republican fantasy making.

Thank you, but I doubt I'd have imagined a put-down substantially more Disraeli-esque than that. Or so I tell myself.

My position, JFTR: Nixon did some good, but he also participated in various crimes and coverups for which he ought to have been firmly punished. Do-gooding doesn't ever, ever get you out of the court of law unless you're being pardoned by President Ford.

On the other hand, Felt was, apparently, a fairly unpleasant fellow who spilled at least some corrobaratory (If that's not a word, consider it recently invented. It's part of my job; I also invented the word "inertialized".) beans. As far as I'm concerned, he could have personally been responsible for the Holocaust and that wouldn't do a thing to diminish Nixon's guilt.

The excuse that "the other guys were doing it" just doesn't wash with me. Crime is crime, even if someone else may be doing worse things (which, I'd like to say, I haven't seen anyone making a decent argument for).

[Barry]

I believe most of what you're saying, John, but Buckley has publicly declared his side. And he's old enough to have seen things played out on a longer scale, and should be wiser. What we are seeing is him joining in on the Felt pile-up, when he could simply refrain from speaking.

[millicent]

Two reasons you got such response from [Atrios, MyDD and TPM , etc bloggers] is that a) subject arouses ire as the chutspah level of criminals being asked to judge Felt is sickening... along with Noonan who is a particulary loony batwingnut....b) your site seems very well written and interesting.....and I believe we will return to you. Thanks for your comment.

[cleek]

...when he could simply refrain from speaking.

nobody gets on TV by refraining from speaking, unless they're on trial.

[Bernard Yomtov]

That Nixon's defenders are people who wanted Clinton's hide tells us all we really need to know about them. They deserve only contempt.

[Jeff Eaton]

As far as I'm concerned, he could have personally been responsible for the Holocaust and that wouldn't do a thing to diminish Nixon's guilt.

That pretty much sums it up for me, too, SB. Felt, from all I've read, was far from a saint. I mean, the guy was firmly on board with the sort of nastiness people only worry about with the Patriot Act.

[Gary Farber]

"I feel almost nostalgic for the good ol' Watergate days. It was drama, but safe drama--bad guys got punished, the good guys won. Current politics seems much sicker."

We call this "hindsight."