October 31, 2016

"Forty-five percent of voters say they agree with Trump’s claim that Clinton's email scandal is worse than Watergate."

According to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll (conducted after Comey's letter to Congress).

I wonder if people being polled today really know enough about what really happened in Watergate to use it as a standard of comparison. I remember growing up in a time when Teapot Dome was the standard of comparison. Worse than Teapot Dome was what people said, but no one ever quizzed them about Teapot Dome.

Nixon was a contemptible, horrible man — as we knew him, not personally, but from press reports. And so we came to understand that Watergate was the epitome of a scandal, which was convenient, because we lived through it, and then we never had to feel embarrassed about not knowing much about Teapot Dome.

But you kids today — Watergate is for you what Teapot Dome was to me — the symbol of presidential scandal, to be used in cogitations about whether something new is worse. So thanks, everyone, for answering Politico's question.

Now, can I add a little subtlety? Do you remember how Watergate looked on the eve of the 1972 election? We knew about the Watergate break-in when we went to the polls. Here's how we voted:



Here's a Watergate chronology. The break-in occurred in June 1972. The burglars, caught in the act, were indicted on September 15th. Nixon had made an announcement on August 30th that his counsel John Dean had done an investigation that determined that no one in the White House was involved, but on September 29th, WaPo reported that Attorney General John Mitchell "controlled a secret Republican fund used to finance widespread intelligence-gathering operations against the Democrats." On October 10th, WaPo reported:
FBI agents have established that the Watergate bugging incident stemmed from a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage conducted on behalf of President Nixon's re-election and directed by officials of the White House and the Committee for the Re-election of the President.
So that's what people had to think about when we reelected Nixon in the biggest landslide ever. (I was 21 and it was the first time I was eligible to vote, though the voting age was suddenly 18. All that youth vote — which represented a lot of opposition to the war (and, especially, the draft) — wasn't enough to stop Nixon. Like everyone I knew, I voted for McGovern.)

The news that there were audiotapes of White House conversations didn't come out until July of the following year, and without these tapes, Nixon would have hung onto the presidency. The slow roll out of the Watergate scandal went on for more than a year after that before Nixon resigned. It was August 8, 1974. Almost 2 years after that landslide election.

So let's look back in 2 years and see how Hillary's big trouble looks compared to Watergate. But if you want to compare it to Watergate now, try comparing it to how Watergate looked on the eve of the 1972 election. And think about what it was like to go through those 2 years from landslide election to forcing the President to resign. What an ordeal! But I'm not saying that if Hillary Clinton gets elected — even by a slim margin — that she'll be swamped by scandal the way Nixon was. The press won't be straining to take her out, and for all the wars we are fighting, there's nothing like Vietnam.

148 comments:

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

At lunch the other day, I sat next to a designer and an architect. The election came up, and we did the "they both suck" dance. I was brave enough to interject that "Clinton is full-on corrupt". I sighed relief after they agreed whole-heatedly. "yes - she is 100% corrupt."
They then explained how they wanted to wear their "Nixon 2016" buttons.
We had a good laugh.

Known Unknown said...

The 24 hour news cycle wasn't invented yet, so it's an apples to oranges comparison, frankly.

traditionalguy said...

And please tell us, Mr Butterfield , were their 650,000 e-mails recorded in the oval Officethat Tricky Dick failed to destroy?

tim in vermont said...

If you look at how Elijah Cummings used the IRS's almost unlimited powers to investigate "True the Vote" and demand that the stuff the IRS found be sent to his office, and then the honorable Mr Cummings sat on the committee investigating IRS abuses and used his time to be disruptive of the proceedings.

That's just one little facet of this gawdawful mess that is the current Democratic Party.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Money quote "The press won't be straining to take her out..."

The corrupt press are her ace in the hole. We shall see if it works.

tim in vermont said...

I am just amazed that Hillary didn't choose the slogan "Hillary's the One!"

Rae said...

I don't see Clinton ever resigning. The Clintons are so used to being mired in controversy, it's the water they swim in. And as long as there are enough Dems in congress, she's immune to impeachment.

Sydney said...

Nixon didn't carelessly expose national security information to enemy states, despite being told not to by advisors. That's why it's worse than Watergate. The parts of government that are supposed to enforce the laws didn't turn a blind eye on Nixon's misdeeds. That's why it's worse than Watergate. You don't have to know every little detail about break-ins and tape-recordings to understand why it's worse than Watergate.

mccullough said...

Harding had the decency to die and Nixon had the decency to resign. Hillary has no decency

Michael K said...

John Dean was probably the instigator of the break in because he was concerned about information on his new wife the DNC might have.

He then sank Nixon by ratting him out and lying about "A cancer on the Presidency."

Nixon was too concerned about underlings and that led to the coverup.

Mark Felt got sweet revenge for Nixon bypassing him for Director.

Felt had the job that McCabe has now. The McCabes are $500k richer now.

Nonapod said...

If there's one thing Hillary learned from Watergate, it's that you should always maintain control your information. That was the whole point of the private email server. The Clinton's knew that if the were gonna use the State Dept. as a platform to continue to enrich themselves, they would have to have full control of their communications. The fact that Nixon didn't destroy those tapes, but Hillary erased those emails may be why this could be worse.

JPS said...

I'd been thinking of Nixon for a different reason. Apologies if I've quoted it here already.

In her book "With Charity Toward None: A Fond Look at Misanthropy," the late Florence King advanced the theory that Nixon was fundamentally a misanthrope forced by ambition to pretend to be a people-person, and that this in the end was too much for him:

"Nothing is more stressful than a misanthrope trying to be nice with no end in sight. It's hard enough on the people who must witness it, but just about kills the misanthrope."

MayBee said...

When I went to bed on Friday night, Democrats like Alan Dershowitz were gamely trying to gin up outrage that Trump had compared this to Watergate. *That* was what they were trying to make the scandal on the Friday the news broke.

They have gotten lazy, Democrats have, because for too long they've just been able to point the finger at some stupid Republican and watch everyone's attention turn that way.

rhhardin said...

Guys found Watergate and following events amusing. Women were traumautized.

traditionalguy said...

Interestingly, the Atlanta Journal and Constitution has not yet mentioned the FBI and Hillary's corruption. Instead the have doubled down on wild over the top Trump slander and ridicule.

The AJC it is all liberal all black ruling class interests all of the time, except for the sports section which is what the rest of us read it for.

PB said...

A President Hillary Clinton with full control of weaponized government and no Democrats willing to take her on along with a compliant media would never resign and would never be impeached. Republicans are never in lock-step like Democrats.

Wilbur said...

And no mention of HIllary's ignoble role in the Watergate investigation? Young voters might be interested in that.

tim in vermont said...

Eric Holder, Obama's loyal scandal goalie, says Comey is doing it wrong. Well, I am satisfied now!

JPS said...

tim in vermont,

I'd forgotten the phrase "scandal goalie." Thanks!

tim in vermont said...

The IRS scandal is worse than Watergate. Nixon just mused about the possibility of using the IRS against his political enemies. The IRS full out did it, destroyed evidence under Congressional Subpoena, including specific hard drives that would have contained very specific information, several employees took the Fifth.

But the press simply do not care. This is how it ends. The left has eaten away at our institutions like so many termites, all believing it was for a good cause, and like happened under communism, once the system of unelected power has been created, the evil guys, who only care about power, step in to take control of the levers. That would be the Clintons, in our case.

"First they came for the Republicans, and since I was not a Republican, I cheered them loudly and jeered their Republican victims!"

Henry said...

The Clintons are so used to being mired in controversy, it's the water they swim in.

Rae, I hope you don't take this the wrong way. That metaphor is so bad, it's good.

Brando said...

That's a good way to compare it--at this point in the '72 election, any talk of Watergate could be boiled down to partisanship. Indeed it remained a partisan issue through much of 1973.

Right now the question to ask yourself is "would any of this change my vote at this point"? If you think Trump is the worst thing out there, the fact that the FBI is going to look at some more e-mails isn't going to make a difference to you because they've already looked at e-mails and that didn't make a difference to you before. And if you think Hillary is too crooked to support, well, you probably thought that last week as well. It'd be like finding out that another woman claims Trump groped her, or another group of contractors claim Trump cheated them. You either already think that about him, or you think he's swell anyway.

The one area this might hurt Clinton is that it's a final-week distraction that takes her off message and keeps her team from focusing on Trump (the same way the "groping" scandals hurt Trump). However, with so many early votes cast and so many people already decided, how much effect will that have?

Achilles said...

Watergate is a joke compared to every president we have had since 92.

rhhardin said...

It's time for Hillary to use some of those FBI files she gathered in the 90s.

Kathryn51 said...

Althouse said: Like everyone I knew, I voted for McGovern.)


Professor, you and I are the same age and I easily believe that you didn't know anyone that voted for Nixon, but it wasn't hard if you got out of your bubble. Returning veterans voted for Nixon. Students working 20 hours a week and holding down a full course load voted for Nixon. I voted for Nixon.

And I also remember ethical Republican Senators such as Howard Baker (he asked "what did the President know and when did he know it?") who understood their role to be uncovering the truth instead of demagoguing the opposition. Today's Democrats don't have one single person that could fill Baker's shoes.

MadisonMan said...

But John Dean has already written that Emailgate is no Watergate.

(I honestly thought John Dean was dead!)

MadisonMan said...

Well, he said it was 'not worse than' Watergate.

Not worse than something that caused a President to resign in disgrace. Ho-kay John.

todd galle said...

I have a copy of "In The Arena" by Nixon, with his autograph and a nice salutation, wishing me a 'merry christmas'. Nixon constantly wrote books to pay off his debts (much like Grant), the Clintons just flap their gums at some Wall Street bankers, with no debt to pay, although I did hear they were dead broke at some point.

Freeman Hunt said...

Watching the press this week. If they act like press, a third party vote is an option. If they (continue to) cover for Clinton, Trump is the best option. Having a terrible, corrupt president the press loves and won't watch is dangerous. Having a terrible, corrupt president the press hates and will watch closely is better. (Might even be able to get rid of the latter. Never the former.)

bagoh20 said...

Does anyone think Watergate was anywhere near as bad as this? I don't think it's even close. I'm not clear on the attitudes back then, but I know that if watergate happened today, it would never sink a Democrat President. Obamacare lies, The IRS scandal, the Iran deal, the lying about Benghazi, and a few others are all at least as bad as Watergate was with virtually no damage done to to Obama. I don't know if Americans have ever been as weak citizens as we currently are. With all the extra information at our fingertips, we are less informed and more easily lied to than ever.

Gusty Winds said...

Sydney said...

Nixon didn't carelessly expose national security information to enemy states...

Hillary and Obama got in bed with enemy states and got played. That's why the Democrats are willing to restart the cold war, and perhaps a real one with Russia. The Democrat October surprise has been telegraphed by Harry Reid claiming the FBI is investigating Trump/Russian ties. Bullshit. Mike Barnicle on Morning Joe couldn't repeat the innuendo enough to divert from the email and Clinton foundation investigation.

The corruption on all of this is so deep and if investigated properly will show Qatar/Saudi Arabia pay to play with Clinton foundation/State Dept for to try and topple Assad. The 'rebels' didn't rise up organically.

Trump is the only sane person in the field. Obama and Hillary punched a tar baby in Syria. They corrupted the State Department and DOJ. Makes Nixon look like a school boy.

Etienne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bagoh20 said...

I think a lot of undecided gave Hillary the benefit of the doubt after Comey's initial washing. Now they have to think it over again since they still smell something. It's a pretty big development.

rhhardin said...

Nixon was one of two reply letters in the first Lazlo Letters book that didn't treat Lazlo as an inferior.

The other was from Nguyen Cao Ky.

Robert Cook said...

"John Dean was probably the instigator of the break in because he was concerned about information on his new wife the DNC might have.

"He then sank Nixon by ratting him out and lying about "A cancer on the Presidency."

"Nixon was too concerned about underlings and that led to the coverup."


All of the above is true...in Kookoo Fantasyland.

Michael K said...

Nixon was fundamentally a misanthrope forced by ambition to pretend to be a people-person, and that this in the end was too much for him:

He certainly was an introvert in an extrovert role. I'm nit sure about "Misanthrope." He liked "his boys" and they took him down.

I think Dean was the only one who did it on purpose.

The Clintons and Obama would have them under the bus in a heartbeat,

MayBee said...

Quick Reminder: Republicans didn't want Loretta Lynch, but were bullied into letting her be confirmed because they were being accused of racism.

Michael K said...

"All of the above is true...in Kookoo Fantasyland."

I'm sure Cookie is an expert on Nixon as he is in so many other subjects, like economics.

Etienne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Clayton Hennesey said...

If Clinton wins, the Districts will begin to disengage themselves from Capitol City. Unless the Democrats take the Senate, judicial appointments up and down the line will stagnate. Responses to administrative state commands will be slow walked, and more people will determine that they can get by with fewer federal dollars. Meanwhile, Congressional investigations will gnaw on Hillary like rats on a corpse.

Rather than pessimistically view this as our long national nightmare, I'd prefer to see it as our long national coma.

LYNNDH said...

Yes, Tea Pot Dome scandal about the sale of leases in oil fields in Wyo owned by the Navy. It did at least involve a financial side, where as Watergate didn't. If Nixon had not tried the cover-up and had thrown his aides under the bus, he would not had to resign. Hillary sells everything she can, throws people under the bus, lies about everything and the press loves it. Shakespeare (or was it really someone else?) said something about TIRGGER WARNING shooting all the lawyers. I have a sneaky feeling now it would be TRIGGER WARNING shooting the Press if a revolution breaks out.

Anonymous said...

The difference between Nixon and Clinton is that Clinton never says "But it would be wrong."

mockturtle said...

Though very young, I well remember the Watergate hearings and was fascinated by them. John Dean's testimony was both pivotal and dramatic. Chairman Sam Ervin was articulate, eloquent and often amusing. But, in retrospect, I can see the political angle and the zeal of the Washington Post in smearing the Nixon administration.

This would not have happened to a Democratic administration. No one in the news media questioned JFK appointing his brother Attorney General and using him to go after his personal enemies. And, as far as I recall, LBJ's corruption was never the target of Ben Bradlee's sleuth-reporters. The Dems have always had a pass with the press.

David Begley said...

Watergate was about stealing documents from the Dems. Hillary's undisclosed emails are only about taking millions from foreign corporations, foreign governments and big business in exchange for favors and official acts; all contrary to the interests of the American people. No big deal. Move on.

Unknown said...

Watch Peter Thiel press conference NOW. He gets it. Any hesitant Republicans should watch it.

tcrosse said...

We forget about Spiro Agnew. He was also on the landslide 1972 ticket. And he was gone under a hail of dead cats even before Nixon.
My favorite line from that election was by Mort Sahl. Thomas Eagleton was replaced as the Democratic vice presidential nominee when they found out he was depressed before he met McGovern.

Unknown said...

Peter Thiel news conference link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob-LJqPQEJ4&feature=youtu.be

Sebastian said...

Nixon faced the MSM, the FBI, and honest Republicans. Hill doesn't and won't.

Ann Althouse said...

"Professor, you and I are the same age and I easily believe that you didn't know anyone that voted for Nixon, but it wasn't hard if you got out of your bubble. Returning veterans voted for Nixon. Students working 20 hours a week and holding down a full course load voted for Nixon. I voted for Nixon."

I was a college student at the time. I was in the art school.

To be fair, my father voted for Nixon. I knew him.

Ann Althouse said...

I loved Nixon in 1960, by the way. Wore a giant-sized Nixon button to school. I remember saying, passionate, when I was 9 years old: "If kids could vote, it would be a landslide for Nixon."

All the kids I knew were for Nixon. We hated Kennedy.

buwaya said...

All previous scandals are like charming little miniature antique glass figures in a vitrine, kept for sentiment.
Even in their day they were tiny things in comparison to the actual matters of substance that the press ignored.

Teapot Dome was truly small change in comparison to the enormity of bid rigging that went on with military contracts of WWI, just as an example. The only non-publicity significance of it is that the payoffs could be documented.

Ann Althouse said...

With Watergate, they always say: It wasn't the crime, it was the cover-up.

But the Clintons seem so involved in covering up. Why doesn't the cover-up hurt them more?

Are we just used to covering up... more sophisticated or something... more jaded?

Unknown said...

too young to remember watergate, but i have read about it. cointelpro was way worde, tbh.

Unknown said...

*worse

Ron Winkleheimer said...

John Dean was probably the instigator of the break in because he was concerned about information on his new wife the DNC might have.

He then sank Nixon by ratting him out and lying about "A cancer on the Presidency."


I never understood the reason for the break-in. It doesn't make sense. What intelligence were they after and how did they think it was going to benefit them?

There was simply no point to it that I can see and plenty of risk. I'm not saying that Nixon wasn't in on the cover-up. I'm just saying that it was the most pointless, counter-productive intelligence operation in the history of politics. Nixon had 301 electoral votes in 68 and 520 in 72.

I remember some comedian speculating that there must be a stupid ray in the attic of the Whitehouse that is activated when a new president enters the Oval Office.

buwaya said...

You were right to hate Kennedy.
That was a corrupt administration, with a notably skewed press.

sean said...

That must be very strange, to live in an environment so insular that you don't know anyone with opposing political viewpoints. The two presidential election years when I was in college (1976 and 1980; I was on the five-year plan) I knew plenty of people who supported each major candidate, plus some John Anderson supporters in the 1980 election. I don't think there's ever been an election where I didn't have friends on each side.

buwaya said...

The press is one reason.
It is far, far more corrupt than in the past.

The second is the corruption of the people.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Anyway, Nixon just tried to cover-up an idiotic break-in by some underlings who would have been portrayed in the press as hapless idiots akin to the 3 Stooges if the administration had been Democrat. But, they were Republican, so a sinister cabal of evil doers it is.

William said...

Historical note: When the United States entered WWI, the Wilson Aministration seized control of the Patents that were owned by German companies. These patents were then auctioned off in a rigged scheme that allowed those with Dem Party connections to gain control of the patents. The patents were extremely valuable, and the amounts involved were several magnitudes greater than those of the Teapot Dome. This scandal is now largely forgotten. It's good to be a Democrat.......Another interesting historical note: propaganda was originally a Vatican word. It referred to the propagation of the faith. Our news and entertainment services exist mostly to propagate the Democratic faith.

bcboren said...

1972 was my first presidential vote. I was 18. Even with the Watergate news swirling around, it wasn't hard for me to vote for Nixon. Both candidates had pledged to end the Vietnam war, and George McGovern simply was not up to the task of guiding the country through the next few years -- or so it seemed. The Eagleton debacle was powerful evidence of that. The Watergate crime itself -- and crime it was -- did not affect national security, and Nixon had enough enemies in the press and in Congress to give me some assurance that if he had indeed participated in the break-in or the coverup, he would be called to account. As it turned out, that is precisely what happened.

Nothing of the sort will happen to Clinton, though her misdeeds are much worse (albeit arguably not criminal). The press that claims to hold its nose as it supports her now will continue to cover for her even after the hateful and dangerous Donald Trump is no longer an imminent threat to the republic. There is no Elliot Richardson or William Ruckelshaus in Hillary's inner circle. There is no Democratic Howard Baker in the Senate.

After Ford pardoned Nixon, I voted for Jimmy Carter specifically because I believed that the Republicans had betrayed my trust. Those were better days.

Wilbur said...

The first grade vote in 1960 was strong for Kennedy.

Kathryn51 certainly spoke for me as well. Everybody in (junior) college I knew who was working voted for Nixon.

In 1972, or thereabouts, they lowered the voting age, lowered the drinking age and ended the draft. I reached the age of majority at an opportune time.

grimson said...

Clinton's email scandal is worse than Watergate because no Saturday Night Massacre was necessary--the DOJ was already complicit.

A better poll question would be who is/was the most corrupt--Nixon, Obama, Hillary Clinton, or Bill Clinton. A follow-up question could be who is/was the most corrupting of others.

Rae said...

There are a lot of Watergate-ish things that have happened around the Clintons. Off the top of my head, the Rose Law Firm billing records, and Sandy Berger walking out of the national archives with docs stuffed into his socks. Why people continue to incriminate themselves by associating with the Clintons is the biggest mystery.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

That must be very strange, to live in an environment so insular that you don't know anyone with opposing political viewpoints.

Yeah, I have friends that think Hillary is the bomb and buy into the right-wing conspiracy stuff. One actually referred to Trump as "that madman" yesterday and worried about him having access to the "nuclear codes."

I bit my tongue and refrained from mentioning that Hillary is the bellicose one that appears to want war with Russia while Trump just wants to renegotiate some old treaties in light of the changing circumstances of the world.

He brought word to his fellow lefty that Comey is now a thought criminal and a bad man. Also, this is not a "reopening" of the email investigation. That is a pernicious lie of the right. Instead, it is a "new investigation."

I again bit my tongue and refrained from mentioning that that sounded like a distinction without a difference to me.

But when they talk about sports or cooking or travel or books or there jobs they sound like perfectly normal people. I'm sure they think the same about me.

viator said...

Some rats may be thinking about abandoning the soon to be indicted ship.

dreams said...

I thought Watergate was all about the cover-up being worse than the crime, yeah, but that was before blowjob Clinton and crooked Hillary.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The press are in bed with the Clintons. Not just in bed, but snuggling and caressing each other. (yuck)

Chuck Todd(D) a few weeks ago: "Hillary needs to get out of her own way."
That's the extent of the "news" coverage over Hillary and her corruption. It's just her bad luck that she got caught and -oh nothing to see here. Besides, Rubio took a sip of water once - career ending!

viator said...

Ron Winkleheimer funny how you had to bite your tongue but they had no hesitation but voicing any loony thought or nugget of propaganda that came into their minds.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

@viator

Yep, that thought has occurred to me.

Quaestor said...

Like everyone I knew, I voted for McGovern.

Didn't know many folks, did you?

MayBee said...

I was in an office the other day and overheard coworkers talking positively about Republicans and negatively about Hillary. And I realized it's the first time in over 15 years that I've lived somewhere where people dare to admit in public that they have Republican-positive thoughts.

Gahrie said...

So that's what people had to think about when we reelected Nixon in the biggest landslide ever.

...at the time. Reagan had a bigger landslide.

William said...

On CSpan this weekend they televised one of the 1960 Nixon/Kennedy debates. I watched a good chunk of it. Both men were poised and knowledgeable about the issues. Nixon was clean shaven and didn't appear uncomfortable on camera. Kennedy was better looking and self possessed but not in a way that blew Nixon out of the water.......In the fullness of time, we have come to learn the backstory of these men and of their character defects. But, at that moment, both seemed worthy of the office, and neither candidate attacked the other's personality or character......Nowadays we can't even seem to find candidates who can bluff character or wisdom.

JSD said...

Bill Clinton is the genesis of everything. The foundation, the money, the speeches, Hillary’s 2008 run, the 2016 run, the Secretary of State gig, the email server, everything is Bill Clinton. He commands an army of toadies do all his bidding and has ever-loyal Hillary to run the gauntlet. Hillary may yet win the crown, but it will be his ass on the throne. It was a watershed moment when he hopped on Loretta Lynch’s plane and told her kill the investigation. Just like a mafia boss. No record of the conversation, no email, no nothing. I bet the son of a bitch doesn’t even own a cell phone.

Quaestor said...

And as long as there are enough Dems in congress, she's immune to impeachment.

It was the Republican minority that convinced Nixon to resign, and it was the Senate Democrats who acquitted Willie. The corrupt Democratic Party gave the Clintons a license to steal, which the corrupt press ratified.

Brando said...

"I never understood the reason for the break-in. It doesn't make sense. What intelligence were they after and how did they think it was going to benefit them? "

It's one of the remaining mysteries of Watergate. DNC clearly didn't have anything damaging--otherwise, they would have released it in '72 when it would have made a difference. But what could they have imagined that the DNC had? Most of the real operation was within the campaigns, not the party committees. My best guess is Liddy's group was trying to tap everything in sight, in a massive fishing expedition, rather than pinpointing anything in particular.

CStanley said...

All the kids I knew were for Nixon. We hated Kennedy.

I'm always fascinated hearing how kids see the candidates and issues.

A child I know just "voted" for Trump in the Nickelodeon online poll. When I asked why, she expressed it as a vote against Hillary and when I pressed a bit further about why she disliked Hillary her response was something like, "She looks like she wants to tell everyone what to do."

Quaestor said...

Clinton's email scandal is worse than Watergate because no Saturday Night Massacre was necessary--the DOJ was already complicit.

Spot on! But it didn't stop there. The Clinton cover-up effort went all the way to the Oval Office.

Virgil Hilts said...

Freeman Hunt is spot on -- Having a terrible, corrupt president the press hates and will watch closely is better.
One thing the Nixon presidency did was to make the press look harder at government corruption and misuse of power - the same misuse that had gone on in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations (and before) but which the press could not bother to ferret out until they had a president they really hated.
Then, once Watergate started the press decided to start actually looking at the intelligence abuses that had been going on in the U.S. for decades - COINTELPRO, HTLINGUAL, etc. The Church Committee reports came out in 1975-76. Why didn't they come out in 1970-71? Why the kids glove treatment of Camelot and the Great Society?
Chappaquiddick happened only 6 months into the Nixon administration, before the press in this country had a chance to grow some balls. Had Chappaquiddick happened 5-6 years later, Ted K might have gone to prison, because the rules changed a lot in those 5 years.

Quaestor said...

"She looks like she wants to tell everyone what to do."

That little girl should have a big career someday. I just hope there's a country left for her serve when her time comes.

Owen said...

How do we compare scandals? Is Weinergate > Watergate > Teapot Dome?

What even IS a scandal, unless the forest reverberates long enough to the crash of the falling tree?

Prof. Althouse is asking the Big Questions to get us all going. Hey, I'll play.

I think a huge factor is "recency." Stuff that is near, that is looming, that actually cut us, is HUGE. History, even for the most assiduous students, is something else.

There is also our unavoidable narcissism. Who doesn't enjoy the frisson of being present at the Apocalypse? It means we are important! And so we come to see the asteroid's fatal strike through an imagination that somehow continues to believe that after the third reel the lights will come up and the ushers will show us the way to the exits.

All that said, I vote for this being way worse than W'gate. The "area under curve" of corruption --the integral of evil crap-- is much, much bigger. The tactical issue is whether that wave front is high and hard --a tsunami that breaks the election wide open-- or is instead a long pulse like Watergate that, over the next several years, forces the body politic to disgorge this poison.

Sorry to mix metaphors. I denounce myself.

Brando said...

"It was the Republican minority that convinced Nixon to resign, and it was the Senate Democrats who acquitted Willie. The corrupt Democratic Party gave the Clintons a license to steal, which the corrupt press ratified."

There's only one metric to determine if an impeachment and removal will be successful--popular opinion. Those congressmen and Senators only care about one thing.

Comanche Voter said...

Aaargh--a pox on both their houses. An outright unapolagetic crook who holds the world's record for long distance swimming in an ethical cesspool--and the Bronzed Bronx Buffoon.

As for our hostess's dilemna and not knowing anyone who voted for Nixon in 72.

I'm a lifelong registered Democrat (although I don't vote that way) who was raised by my father to believe that Richard Milhous Nixon was a limb of the Devil incarnate. In his yellow dog Texas Democrat eyes, I would surely go to Hell if I ever voted for ol Tricky Dick.

OTOH, standing in the voting booth in 1972, the Democrat party had served up George McGovern. McGovern was an honorable enough man, but his political philosophy suggested that his Momma had raised at least one idiot. I could not vote for McGovern; I could not vote for Nixon. I live in California, and the California vote was a mortal lock for Nixon--he would carry the state. In the end I reasoned that there was no way that my vote for McGovern would give him a California win. But if there had been any risk that McGovern would carry the state, I would have had to vote for Nixon. No such risk existed, so I went ahead, and like our hostess, voted for McGovern.

There is of course anothe dilemna in 2016. Next week I'll be faced with a choice between Hillary and The Donald. I'd rather be told I had brain cancer and six weeks to live than vote for Hillary. Voting for Trump is not much worse. But at least I can vote for Trump, realizing that it doesn't make any difference. Out here in La La Land, Ms. Hillary can pocket the state's electoral votes. I can go to my grave knowing that I didn't vote for Nixon, or for Hillary Clinton--so that's a comfort.

Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...

Mishandling classified information, circumventing FOIA laws, selling access for $.

It makes Watergate seem quaint by comparison.

gadfly said...

I agree with Althouse on her assessment of the validity of the POLITICO poll question, so the poll results are invalid. Still, I lived through and took for granted the Watergate scandal with its (gasp) erased (some 18 and-a-half minutes) audiotape possessed by Rose Mary Woods. It seems to me that the crime was less severe than today's rampant disregard for the rule of law. Breaking into the DNC Watergate offices to obtain intelligence data was a really bad idea and the taking down of a president for such a small but illegal deed was an overreaction. When the House subpoenaed 42 tapes, Nixon amazingly released them. Both he and Woods claimed to have been mystified by the missing audio but recording equipment was crude back when this happened.

Clinton's lawbreaking and lack of moral character was real and subsequent impeachment hearings were a sham, but the difference was the protective shield erected by the political party and the press. Watergate featured a parade of Republican politicians denouncing Tricky Dick, while only one Democrat senator, Joe Lieberman, rose to the floor to criticize Slick Willy but even he wouldn't vote to impeach.

But the public attitude is turning again so don't be surprised if the winning presidential candidate, Clinton or Trump, is greeted by impeachment hearings.

@Ann Althouse said...
With Watergate, they always say: It wasn't the crime, it was the cover-up.

"They always say" begets the question, "Who Dey?" To be more precise, "It's not the crime, it's the cover-up" was original to Watergate but by whom? Well, one suspect is Mark Felt, the #2 FBI guy back then, who was also known as "Deep Throat" to Woodward and Bernstein. It could be him but that has led to Watergate referred to as "a silent coup." Then again, W & B were young whippersnappers back then, when a little pizzazz never hurt a story.

buwaya said...

Watergate did not disgorge the poison. It institutionalized it. It gave every Democrat cover for any outrage and fixed, culturally, the default partisan position of the press, which was already very skewed.

It made an institution of double standards.

Meade said...

"To be fair, my father voted for Nixon. I knew him."

My father was in the Nixon administration from 1971 – 73. In late 1971,John Ehrlichman came to his office at USDA and ordered him to rig oilseed price supports so that consumer prices would drop ahead of the election. Dad was a conservative and refused on principle to implement Ehrlichman's order. A couple of years before he died in 2003, he confessed that, for several months after his meeting with Ehrlichman, he feared for his life.

CStanley said...


Looking back at Watergate actually makes me nostalgic for a time when there was still some accountability, and people who put country before partisan and self interest.

Hagar said...

Teapot Dome, Watergate, and Whitewater are all shorthand for a wide range of more or less interrelated scandals.

It should be noted that Teapot Dome and Whitewater was largely about financial corruption, while Watergate was all about politics.
In fact, the Nixon administration was remarkably clean as far as personal enrichment schemes were concerned. Nixon's "I am not a crook" referred to that, since for Republicans a crook is someone who steals money and other valuables, while for Democrats it is someone who opposes them and thwarts their schemes.

That said, like Althouse, I too voted for McGovern - not because I thought Nixon was crook, but I had a feeling that he had personality quirks that would eventally cause large-scale problems, and it seems my instinctive feelings turned out to be right about that.
However, the only ill will I have for Nixon is that he caused me to vote for a doofus like George McGovern. Otherwise the story of "Ironbutt" Nixon is more like a Greek tragedy.

Robert Cook said...

"I never understood the reason for the break-in. It doesn't make sense. What intelligence were they after and how did they think it was going to benefit them?

"There was simply no point to it that I can see and plenty of risk. I'm not saying that Nixon wasn't in on the cover-up. I'm just saying that it was the most pointless, counter-productive intelligence operation in the history of politics. Nixon had 301 electoral votes in 68 and 520 in 72."


Nixon was afraid his treason against the US might be discovered and he wanted the files.

LBJ apparently was made aware of Nixon's treason.

damikesc said...

So let's look back in 2 years and see how Hillary's big trouble looks compared to Watergate. But if you want to compare it to Watergate now, try comparing it to how Watergate looked on the eve of the 1972 election.

This has been percolating for a longer time than Watergate was at this point. And what we ALREADY know is markedly worse. Burning documents Hillary is not legally allowed to burn up? The email system that violates document retention laws?

The AJC it is all liberal all black ruling class interests all of the time, except for the sports section which is what the rest of us read it for.

I'd suggest stop reading the sports and don't buy the paper at all.

Well, he said it was 'not worse than' Watergate.

The Iraq War worse than Watergate. I would wonder what a Democrat would do that he'd find to be "worse than Watergate.

That was a corrupt administration, with a notably skewed press.

Our first drug-addict President.

It's one of the remaining mysteries of Watergate. DNC clearly didn't have anything damaging--otherwise, they would have released it in '72 when it would have made a difference. But what could they have imagined that the DNC had?

The theory I read a while ago that makes SOME sense to me was that Nixon was outright paranoid that they'd, somehow, run Ted Kennedy against him. It was a huge concern of his --- I seem to remember his diaries discussed that concern a lot. I can see him trying to see any info on a Kennedy run that might not be released until the DNC.

Nixon was hurt, a lot, by having scummy friends. Liddy is a clown --- possibly a great agent, but a clown. Deam is/was a shit weasel. Hunt was also a clown. Hillary's associates are worse, in almost every way. Sidney Blumenthal isn't even a human.

dbp said...

I was only 10 when Nixon was re-elected in a landslide, but even I knew that at the time of the election "Watergate" was about misbehaviour by the Nixon campain. There was zero evedence that Nixon knew or directed these things.

What became clear by the time he resigned is that he attempted to protect his "men". His loyalty was misguided: It should have been to the rule of law and not to people who did misdeeds for his sake.

Clinton is much different: She directed that a secret server be setup and did so for nefarious purposes. Her plan was to milk her position as Sec. of State and potential future president to gain wealth and power.

Hagar said...

Not to mention a scuzzball like Hubert Humphrey.

Quaestor said...

It gave every Democrat cover for any outrage and fixed, culturally, the default partisan position of the press, which was already very skewed.

The press and the soi disant cognoscenti loathed Nixon long before Watergate. He became a pariah back in 1948, when was instrumental in the downfall of Alger Hiss, the left's favorite martyr for half a century. That hostility probably made the difference in 1960, given that the American public trusted the media back then — back then the Op-Ed section was known partisan territory, but the public confidently read Page One as objective and fair.

We've wised up a bit in the ensuing 56 years, perhaps.

Brando said...

"The theory I read a while ago that makes SOME sense to me was that Nixon was outright paranoid that they'd, somehow, run Ted Kennedy against him. It was a huge concern of his --- I seem to remember his diaries discussed that concern a lot. I can see him trying to see any info on a Kennedy run that might not be released until the DNC."

Yes, but why did he think the DNC would have that info? From what I read, the DNC as an organization was sort of a ghost town by that point. They must have assumed they had some information on something.

Gotta have layers of insulation.

MD Greene said...

It's interesting that Republicans helped drive Nixon out of office over the coverup of a stupid burglary while HIllary Clinton's "extremely careless" handling of confidential information and her destruction of relevant emails and hardware are "a great big nothing burger."

When Nixon fired the Watergate special prosecutor, his AG and assistant AG resigned. When Nixon tried to sic the IRS on his enemies, the head of the agency told him to screw off.

Obama joked about using the IRS to go after his enemies, and the IRS swung into action and did so, just on its own. Nobody was prosecuted, and apparently there wasn't even a letter of reprimand put into Lois Lerner's file before she retired with a full pension.

We have had the measure of the Clintons for 30 years now -- cattle futures, bimbo takedowns, Rose law firm files, travel office purge, Whitewater, the Marc Rich pardon, failed but lucrative Haitian aid contracts for FOBs, American uranium takeover by Russian interests, perjury dismissed because it was "just about sex," "dead broke," "sniper fire," among so many others -- and the Democrats are still "with her," the poor saps.


It's pretty clear that our ruling class been defining political deviancy down since the 1990s.

Howard said...

Nixon's defeat of LBJ's lover, wife of actor Melvin Douglas, Helen Gahagan Douglas in 1952 for the senate sealed the press' hatred for Tricky Dick.

mockturtle said...

What I wonder is this: Was the outcome of the Lynch/Clinton tarmac tĂŞte-Ă -tĂŞte the result of loyalty or of fear?

hombre said...

"All that youth vote — which represented a lot of opposition to the war (and, especially, the draft) — wasn't enough to stop Nixon. Like everyone I knew, I voted for McGovern.)"

Yeah, because it was "Nixon's war," not that of McGovern's fellow Dems, Johnson and JFK. Consistently dumb youth vote!

Karen said...

The press was so clear and forthright in those days. Or maybe it's just that they were clear and forthright against Nixon. Like nowadays they are clear and forthright against Trump, but Hillary, not so much .

Howard said...

Good point, hombre. Just like Iraq, Afghanistan and ISIS are all on Gee Dub, Dick and Rummie

Karen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Karen said...

"Nixon's defeat of LBJ's lover, wife of actor Melvin Douglas, Helen Gahagan Douglas in 1952 for the senate sealed the press' hatred for Tricky Dick."

Nah, it was Nixon's defeat of Alger hiss and his vindication of Whittaker Chambers that sealed the press's hatred for Nixon .

buwaya said...

"All that youth vote — which represented a lot of opposition to the war (and, especially, the draft)"

Nixon kept his promises re Vietnam. Nearly all US troops were out of Vietnam by Nov 1972. This doesn't seem to have made a difference with the "youth vote".

The bulk of this I think was leftover propaganda messaging organized via Soviet agents of influence.

A lot thats wrong with the US today seems to be the continuing leftover effect of all those Soviet agents of influence continuing to operate even after their masters disappeared. A weapon was put in action, and would not stop. You can see the results particularly in education, from K to grad school.

buwaya said...

"Nah, it was Nixon's defeat of Alger hiss and his vindication of Whittaker Chambers that sealed the press's hatred for Nixon ."

The "press" was much less of a monolith in those days, but its true. The Alger Hiss case is one of those semi-forgotten things that set a lot of people on the wrong track. And that was also a matter of Soviet influence.

hombre said...

"But the Clintons seem so involved in covering up. Why doesn't the cover-up hurt them more?"

It is either a saturation factor or an immorality factor. In the former case Clinton criminality and cover-ups are so prevalent and so enduring that the impact on Hillary supporters has been blunted, even among decent people. In the latter case, the supposed return from a Clinton Presidency, even if it is just "our first woman president, ooo, ooo, ooo," outweighs her obvious corruption among her supporters, who are not decent people.

Matt Sablan said...

I don't see how this isn't obvious.

One was a personal sin, one which just risked Nixon/his operations. The other risked literally the lives of people completely unrelated to Clinton.

The Bathroom Server is the greatest intelligence failure I think I've ever heard of.

Martin said...

The Clintons have accomplished what Nixon aspired to but never achieved.

Mike said...

I, for one, would be happy with President Kaine. At least, as compared to either of these two dumpster fires.

Anonymous said...

It's not the crime, it's being the sort of person whose coverups the press is interested in uncovering.

cubanbob said...

CStanley said...
All the kids I knew were for Nixon. We hated Kennedy.

I'm always fascinated hearing how kids see the candidates and issues.

A child I know just "voted" for Trump in the Nickelodeon online poll. When I asked why, she expressed it as a vote against Hillary and when I pressed a bit further about why she disliked Hillary her response was something like, "She looks like she wants to tell everyone what to do."

That kid is sharp. Summed it up pithily. Even if Hillary wasn't a grifter her mania for control is reason enough to be against her.

buwaya said...

"I, for one, would be happy with President Kaine."

There is no functional difference Clinton-Kaine.
Personal factors are a delusion. Its systems that count, not persons.
The President is at best a figurehead good only as a PR man, or not.
The personal political campaign is a mere rhetorical exercise masking an objective reality.

Brando said...

"There is no functional difference Clinton-Kaine.
Personal factors are a delusion. Its systems that count, not persons."

I disagree. Clinton is a particularly corrupt and incompetent person; her political leanings (to the extent she has any) are nothing compared to her major disqualifications.

I could probably find things to dislike about Kaine if I bothered to read up more on him (which I should, there's a decent chance he finishes out Hillary's term) but compared to her he would have to be an improvement.

cubanbob said...

When comparing Watergate to what we have now it helps to keep in mind the following: what we have now is a at the time Secretary of State who was (and still is) married to a former President of the United States with both of them selling government access and favors for their personal enrichment with the tacit approval of the then current President of The United States along with the tacit approval of the Department of Justice among the various agencies. If this thing ever gets fully exposed it isn't going to end with Hillary (and Bill) but with Holder, Lynch, Mills and a cast of who knows how many more but all ending at the feet of Barack Obama. What did the President know, when did he know it? And what was his cut?

Kirk Parker said...

Althouse,

"Nixon was a contemptible, horrible man"

Have you no shame? Hating remorselessly on the introverts again, I see...


buwaya said...

" her political leanings"

Are also irrelevant. It doesn't really matter what she, or Kaine, think.
They haven't got much power and it is very difficult to exert it, even from the Oval Office.
They are both going to be dependent on their staff, on the department executives, and even more so on the organizational culture of the executive agencies.

Big Mike said...

Nixon was a contemptible, horrible man — as we knew him, not personally, but from press reports.

Given the open animosity of the press towards Nixon (which, to be perfectly fair, he openly returned), why would you believe anything they wrote about the man? Has it taken you all of the intervening forty-four years to reach an understanding of how the press manipulates you?

As a former draftee going to grad school on the GI Bill I voted for Nixon even though I did not for a second believe that there was no contact between the Watergate burglars and the Nixon White House. Growing up near Richard Daley's Chicago convinced me that the Democrats were as bad if not worse. Meanwhile Nixon certainly had effectively ended the Vietnam War, by bombing the m*th*rf**k out of Hanoi and mining Haiphong harbor. Which LBJ could have done in 1967 if he'd had the gonads he thought he had.

At any rate, the adjectives "contemptible" and "horrible" seen to apply best to Hillary Clinton. Not to mention "paranoid,""obsessive," and "challenged by technology."

Michael K said...

Cookie is amusing in his steady leftward tilt. How do you drive around town, Cookie, without ever turning right ?

I assume you were as incensed by Kerry's real treason.

Liddy is not a clown. Read his book sometime. He is a bit of a single minded type.

Kaine is probably a communist. He certainly was a Sandanista.

Alger Hiss is still a hero to the left. Hugh Hewitt, when he interviews someone new he asks a few questions to sort of put them in focus. One question is "Do you agree that Alger Hiss was a communist spy?" He did that with a WaPo reporter last year and she hung up on him.

mockturtle said...

In my dark days as a Democrat [late 60's, early 70's] I worked with a left-wing faction of the Democratic Party. There were probable Communists among us. They were not idealistic youths like ourselves but older, seasoned politicos and organizers.

geoffb said...

To this day "Watergate," like so much shorthanded conventional wisdom, is simply a lie which was not pushed back on from the beginning, the pushback then being other self-serving political lies, and so we see a history which didn't exist as we think it did as a nation.

This is just one of hundreds, maybe thousands, of conventional wisdom lies on which we stand to view all of the nation and the world at large.

Known Unknown said...

"I disagree. Clinton is a particularly corrupt and incompetent person; her political leanings (to the extent she has any) are nothing compared to her major disqualifications."

Kaine will have zero power to implement his own agenda (if he believes anything markedly different than government as purveyor of corruption and cronyism.)

Big Mike said...

Keep in mind that smarmy Tim Kaine is good only by comparison to the head of his ticket. In 2018 he is not going to be reelected. Take it from a Virginian; the guy only won because of Obama on the top of the ticket and a phony baloney charge of racism levied against him by the Washington Post.

buwaya said...

To be expected, but amusing illustration of "the system" at work -

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-31/doj-tells-congress-it-will-work-expeditiously-review-abedin-emails-there-just-one-pr

"In the letter to Congress, the DOJ writes that it “will continue to work closely with the FBI and together, dedicate all necessary resources and take appropriate steps as expeditiously as possible,” assistant attorney General Peter J. Kadzik writes in letters to House and Senate lawmakers."

However,

"And yet, something felt odd about this.

Kadzik... Kadzik... where have we heard that name?

Oh yes. Recall our post from last week, "Clinton Campaign Chair Had Dinner With Top DOJ Official One Day After Hillary's Benghazi Hearing" in which we reported that John Podesta had dinner with one of the highest ranked DOJ officials the very day after Hillary Clinton's Benghazi testimony?

It was Peter Kadzik."
...
"Podesta and Kadzik met several months later for dinner at Podesta’s home, another email shows. Another email sent on May 5, 2015, Kadzik’s son asked Podesta for a job on the Clinton campaign."
...
Kadzik's role at the DOJ, where he started in 2013, is particularly notable Kadzik, as helped spearhead the effort to nominate Lynch, who was heavily criticized for her secret meeting with the former president.

It gets better because, as we further revealed, if there is one person in the DOJ who is John Podesta's, and thus the Clinton Foundation's inside man, it is Peter Kadjik.
...

Kadzik represented Podesta during the Monica Lewinsky investigation. And in the waning days of the Bill Clinton administration, Kadzik lobbied Podesta on behalf of Marc Rich, the fugitive who Bill Clinton controversially pardoned on his last day in office. That history is cited by Podesta in another email hacked from his Gmail account. In a Sept. 2008 email, which the Washington Free Beacon flagged last week, Podesta emailed an Obama campaign official to recommend Kadzik for a supportive role in the campaign. Podesta, who would later head up the Obama White House transition effort, wrote that Kadzik was a “fantastic lawyer” who “kept me out of jail.”

Gretchen said...

So the difference here is that Nixon actually loved America, back when most of the country (except a few hippies) loved the country. Those hippies are running the left in the country now, and they hated America then, and hate it now, they don't see America as a force for good. Hillary was one of them.

Nixon, as many people forget, had real accomplishments, especially in foreign policy, and as my dyed in the wool Democrat father said, would have gone down as a great president without Watergate. I don't think he died a rich man, or used the White House as an ATM. The same cannot be said of the Clintons.

Watergate was a political crime, it is very possible Hillary's crimes are bigger than that. I think Nixon wasn't a nice guy, but he had the grace not to contest the 1960 election which was likely stolen from him because he didn't want to tear the country apart. he resigned rather than dragging impeachment out. Hillary will do just that. She will attack the FBI and anyone who opposes her, and all will be lost. The press will snap back in line if she prevails.

donald said...

Fuck you Cook.

Watergate was another in a tit for tat political dirty tricks that both parties played on each other constantly.

The plumbers were there at the direction of Dean to steal files from Larry Obrien that established Dean's wife's prostitution. There was a fantastic book written on this a long while ago, I'm trying to remember the name.

Kirk Parker said...


Meade sez:

"To be fair, my father voted for Nixon. I knew him."

My father was in the Nixon administration from 1971 - 73. In late 1971,John Ehrlichman came to his office at USDA and ordered him to rig oilseed price supports so that consumer prices would drop ahead of the election. Dad was a conservative and refused on principle to implement Ehrlichman's order. A couple of years before he died in 2003, he confessed that, for several months after his meeting with Ehrlichman, he feared for his life.

By complete random chance of posting order, the very next comment is this, by CStanley:

"Looking back at Watergate actually makes me nostalgic for a time when there was still some accountability, and people who put country before partisan and self interest."


My take on the juxtaposition? FOAD, Meade. You are a pathetic supporter of the outgoing, corrupt faux-opposition guard.

Cookie @ 11:20am,

OMG. I despair for the prospect of the country breaking up... but I console myself with the hope that people like you won't long survive it.


Hagar,

"Not to mention a scuzzball like Hubert Humphrey"

What what WHAT???

---
Crazy Jane,

"and apparently there wasn't even a letter of reprimand put into Lois Lerner's file before she retired with a full pension"

Relax, the Fat Lady hasn't even got her costume-change done for the final act. If Lerner has quit looking over her shoulder every time she goes out for coffee or to shop for groceries, she's even stupider than I imagined.


Brando,

Get a clue, bro: Kaine will do just about everything that Hillary would do.

Kirk Parker said...

MayBee @ 10:48am,

" it's the first time in over 15 years that I've lived somewhere where people dare to admit in public that they have Republican-positive thoughts."

Fascinating, but please clarify -- Did you move, or is this a change in popular opinion where you've been all along?



mockturtle,

"n my dark days as a Democrat [late 60's, early 70's] I worked with a left-wing faction of the Democratic Party. There were probable Communists among us. They were not idealistic youths like ourselves but older, seasoned politicos and organizers."

OMG are you my long-lost hippie older sister?

I have (had, actually, some of them had passed already) classmates who had older siblings who took them up to the SDS meetings in Seattle in the late 60's/early 70's.

(For myself, I was a wanna-be student radical at that time, whose big claim to fame was know the above-mentioned (not very well supervised by their parents folks) along with a classmate of mine who was the (much) younger brother of the Peace and Freedom Party VP candidate for WA in 1968.

mockturtle said...

I was a leftist activist, as was my younger brother, a Vietnam vet. I grew up eventually. He still hasn't.

Michael K said...

"Kadzik... Kadzik... where have we heard that name?"

I was wondering who else had seen that.

rcocean said...

Hillary has been "dirty" for so long its amazing that this is finally getting people's attention.

Nixon was brought down by Watergate because he refused to surround himself with die-hard loyalists. His inner circle contained people who couldn't wait to stab him in the back or gave him up when some pressure was applied. Alexander Butterfield, John Dean, Macgruder, Mark Felt, Lee Garment, etc.

OTOH, very few have "Squealed" or betrayed The Clintons. Most of them keep silent or even fall on their swords for them. The Godfather would be proud of them.

richardsson said...

There are reasons why that map is almost all red in 1972. The huge pool of potential draftees caused by the deferments had been drained by the 1970 lottery. Much of the energy went out of the anti-war movement; it became narrower and nastier. With McGovern, the left had taken over the Democratic Party, and there was more than a residue of hard feelings over the antics of the "elite" boomer culture on the part of older generation Democrats. The Democrats had become the hippie party. Almost nobody I knew thought McGovern had a cold chance in hell of winning that election. When the break-in at the Watergate Hotel occurred, most people dismissed it. It never made any sense to most people. Because of personal experience a year prior to Watergate, I knew otherwise and I'll leave it at that. But remember, all but the most hard bitten anti Nixon people doubted that Nixon was involved. It wasn't until July 1973, when Alexander Butterfield testified that about the White House taping system, that Nixon's involvement in Watergate was on the table. That was long after the 1972 election. Had those revelations come out in October, 1972, it might have made a difference in that election. But, I think Nixon still would have won in 1972.

Robert Cook said...

"Fuck you Cook."

What was Jack Nicholson's memorable line?

"You can't handle the truth!"

mockturtle said...

Cookie, we should call you Timex. You take a licking and keep on ticking. Hang in there! Keep marching to that different drummer. We've got to have someone to kick around. Most of the Unknowns are cowering under their beds.

Rusty said...

And Robert, You don't know any.

Robert Cook said...

Mockturtle...I see you're old enough to remember John Cameron Swayze.

mockturtle said...

Mockturtle...I see you're old enough to remember John Cameron Swayze.

'Fraid so, Cookie! ;-)

Fen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fen said...

geoffb: To this day "Watergate," like so much shorthanded conventional wisdom, is simply a lie which was not pushed back on from the beginning, the pushback then being other self-serving political lies, and so we see a history which didn't exist as we think it did as a nation.

This is just one of hundreds, maybe thousands, of conventional wisdom lies on which we stand to view all of the nation and the world at large.


Yup. Just imagine what the Conventional Wisdom would be today if some guy named Buckhead over on Free Republic's forums hadn't broken the fake CBS story.

I now suspect everything the media told me about Watergate was a lie.

Odds are good that everything else the media has told me is a lie.

Fen said...

Quick Reminder: Republicans didn't want Loretta Lynch, but were bullied into letting her be confirmed because they were being accused of racism.

And this is why the GOP should burn to the ground - they will not fight for us

hombre said...

Peter Kadzik, a DOJ Assistant AG, outside the regular chain of command, law school classmate, friend of and former legal counsel to Podesta and Obama political appointee will apparently be in charge of the Abedin email investigation. This guy was hired by Marc Rich to lobby Podesta for Rich's pardon because he and Podesta were good friends.

These people have no shame. This is far worse than Watergate. It is corrupting the law enforcement agencies of the US Government.

hombre said...

Oh. I see I'm late to the Kadzik party. Sorry.

Kirk Parker said...

Fen:

Buckhead? Are you talking about GWB and the fake TANG memo?

Pretty sure that was Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs that broke that--or at least, he's the one who typed it up in Word and found a near-exact pixel-by-pixel match.

Qwinn said...

Kirk,
Buckhead at FR discovered the memo was a fraud. CJ made the gif, but I think Buckhead deserved the lion's share of the credit.

Gk1 said...

I remember how tortuously the left/media clung on to those obvious TANG forgeries from "Lucy Ramirez" even after it was obvious to even a small child they were fakes. Then after it all crashed and burned to the ground they never had the balls to say they fucked up and talk about the enormity of what Rather and CBS were trying to do. Nope. No soul searching to be had. Other than they would make better forgeries next time. They just moved on to the next torpedo. Nothing much has changed in 12 years.

narciso said...

actually max holland found out much of the dialogue of all the presidents men, was tweaked or the source coming from democratic officials was obscured,

Gospace said...

I was 17 for the Nixon vs McGovern election. I volunteered at the local Republican Party HQ to work for Nixon. Pretty much only the Washington establishment and the media cared about Watergate. It might not have been quite so overwhelming, but if a do over vote had been held the day after Nixon resigned, he still would have defeated McGovern. Even at the time, with no internet, T.C. Mits understood that the whole "scandal" was simply an excuse to drive Nixon from office, and that other presidents had done far worse things. By then, I was 18; I would have voted for him. None of my friends or family would have changed their minds. They'd all have gone for who they were with the first time around.

As far as Nixon being a misanthrope, I see liberal projection at work. As a junior officer, Nixon was known to be quite adept at poker. Misanthropes and introverts aren't generally involved in routine poker gatherings as they tend to put a damper on festivities. There are some activities where you can't continue to hide your true self. Poker is one of them.

Bay Area Guy said...

Challenging the narrative of Watergate:

http://www.nytimes.com/1984/11/11/books/a-new-explanation-of-watergate.html?pagewanted=all