WASHINGTON — As Sen. Sam Ervin completed his 20-year Senate career in 1974 and issued his final report as chairman of the Senate Watergate Committee, he posed the question: “What was Watergate?”
Countless answers have been offered in the 40 years since June 17, 1972, when a team of burglars wearing business suits and rubber gloves was arrested at 2:30 a.m. at the headquarters of the Democratic Party in the Watergate office building. Four days afterward, the Nixon White House offered its answer: “Certain elements may try to stretch this beyond what it was,” press secretary Ronald Ziegler scoffed, dismissing the incident as a “third-rate burglary.”
History proved that it was anything but. Two years later, Richard Nixon would become the first and only U.S. president to resign, his role in the criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice — the Watergate coverup — definitively established. Another answer has since persisted, often unchallenged: the notion that the coverup was worse than the crime. This idea minimizes the scale and reach of Nixon’s criminal actions.
Ervin’s answer to his own question hints at the magnitude of Watergate: “To destroy, insofar as the presidential election of 1972 was concerned, the integrity of the process by which the President of the United States is nominated and elected.” Yet Watergate was far more than that. At its most virulent, Watergate was a brazen and daring assault, led by Nixon himself, against the heart of American democracy: the Constitution, our system of free elections, the rule of law.
Today, much more than when we first covered this story, an abundant record provides unambiguous answers and evidence about Watergate and its meaning. This record has expanded continuously over the decades with the transcription of hundreds of hours of Nixon’s secret tapes, adding detail and context to the hearings in the Senate and House of Representatives; the trials and guilty pleas of about 40 Nixon aides and associates who went to jail; and the memoirs of Nixon and his deputies. Such documentation makes it possible to trace the president’s personal dominance over a massive campaign of political espionage, sabotage and other illegal activities against his real or perceived opponents.
In the course of his 51/2-year presidency, beginning in 1969, Nixon launched and managed five successive and overlapping wars — against the anti-Vietnam War movement, the news media, the Democrats, the justice system and, finally, against history itself. All reflected a mind-set and a pattern of behavior that were uniquely and pervasively Nixon’s: a willingness to disregard the law for political advantage, and a quest for dirt and secrets about his opponents as an organizing principle of his presidency.
Long before the Watergate break-in, gumshoeing, burglary, wiretapping and political sabotage had become a way of life in the Nixon White House.
What was Watergate? It was Nixon’s five wars.
1. The war against the anti-war movement
Nixon’s first war was against the anti-Vietnam War movement. The president considered it subversive and thought it constrained his ability to prosecute the war in Southeast Asia on his terms. In 1970, he approved the top-secret Huston Plan, authorizing the CIA, the FBI and military intelligence units to intensify electronic surveillance of individuals identified as “domestic security threats.” The plan called for, among other things, intercepting mail and lifting restrictions on “surreptitious entry” — that is, break-ins or “black bag jobs.”
Thomas Charles Huston, the White House aide who devised the plan, informed Nixon that it was illegal, but the president approved it regardless. It was not formally rescinded until FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover objected — not on principle, but because he considered those types of activities the FBI’s turf. Undeterred, Nixon remained fixated on such operations.
In a memorandum dated March 3, 1970, presidential aide Patrick Buchanan wrote to Nixon about what he called the “institutionalized power of the left concentrated in the foundations that succor the Democratic Party.” Of particular concern was the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank with liberal leanings.
On June 17, 1971 — exactly one year before the Watergate break-in — Nixon met in the Oval Office with his chief of staff, H.R. “Bob” Haldeman, and national security adviser Henry Kissinger. At issue was a file about former President Lyndon Johnson’s handling of the 1968 bombing halt in Vietnam.
“You can blackmail Johnson on this stuff, and it might be worth doing,” Haldeman said, according to the tape of the meeting.
“Yeah,” Kissinger said, “but Bob and I have been trying to put the damn thing together for three years.” They wanted the complete story of Johnson’s actions.
“Huston swears to God there’s a file on it at Brookings,” Haldeman said.
“Bob,” Nixon said, “now you remember Huston’s plan? Implement it. . . . I mean, I want it implemented on a thievery basis. God damn it, get in and get those files. Blow the safe and get it.”
Nixon would not let the matter drop. Thirteen days later, according to another taped discussion with Haldeman and Kissinger, the president said: “Break in and take it out. You understand?”
The next morning, Nixon said: “Bob, get on the Brookings thing right away. I’ve got to get that safe cracked over there.” And later that morning, he persisted, “Who’s gonna break in the Brookings Institution?”
For reasons that have never been made clear, the break-in apparently was not carried out.
2. The war on the news media
Nixon’s second war was waged ceaselessly against the press, which was reporting more insistently on the faltering Vietnam War and the effectiveness of the anti-war movement. Although Hoover thought he had shut down the Huston Plan, it was in fact implemented by high-level Nixon deputies. A “Plumbers” unit and burglary team were set up under the direction of White House counsel John Ehrlichman and an assistant, Egil Krogh, and led by the operational chiefs of the future Watergate burglary, ex-CIA operative Howard Hunt and former FBI agent G. Gordon Liddy. Hunt was hired as a consultant by Nixon political aide Charles Colson, whose take-no-prisoners sensibility matched the president’s.
An early assignment was to destroy the reputation of Daniel Ellsberg, who had provided the Pentagon Papers, a secret history of the Vietnam War, to the news media in 1971. Publication of the documents in The New York Times, The Washington Post and eventually other newspapers had sent Nixon into rants and rages, recorded on his tapes, about Ellsberg, the anti-war movement, the press, Jews, the American left and liberals in Congress — all of whom he conflated. Though Ellsberg was already under indictment and charged with espionage, the team headed by Hunt and Liddy broke into the office of his psychiatrist, seeking information that might smear Ellsberg and undermine his credibility in the anti-war movement.
“You can’t drop it, Bob,” Nixon told Haldeman on June 29, 1971. “You can’t let the Jew steal that stuff and get away with it. You understand?”
He went on: “People don’t trust these Eastern establishment people. He’s Harvard. He’s a Jew. You know, and he’s an arrogant intellectual.”
Nixon’s anti-Semitic rages were well-known to those who worked most closely with him, including some aides who were Jewish. As we reported in our 1976 book, “The Final Days,” he would tell his deputies, including Kissinger, that “the Jewish cabal is out to get me.” In a July 3, 1971, conversation with Haldeman, he said: “The government is full of Jews. Second, most Jews are disloyal. You know what I mean? You have a Garment [White House counsel Leonard Garment] and a Kissinger and, frankly, a Safire [presidential speechwriter William Safire], and, by God, they’re exceptions. But Bob, generally speaking, you can’t trust the bastards. They turn on you.”
Ellsberg’s leak seemed to feed his prejudice and paranoia.
In response to suspected leaks to the press about Vietnam, Kissinger had ordered FBI wiretaps in 1969 on the telephones of 17 journalists and White House aides, without court approval. Many news stories based on the purported leaks questioned progress in the American war effort, further fueling the anti-war movement. In a tape from the Oval Office on Feb. 22, 1971, Nixon said, “In the short run, it would be so much easier, wouldn’t it, to run this war in a dictatorial way, kill all the reporters and carry on the war.”
“The press is your enemy,” Nixon explained five days later in a meeting with Adm. Thomas H. Moorer, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to another tape. “Enemies. Understand that? . . . Now, never act that way . . . give them a drink, you know, treat them nice, you just love it, you’re trying to be helpful. But don’t help the bastards. Ever. Because they’re trying to stick the knife right in our groin.”
3. The war against the Democrats
In Nixon’s third war, he took the weapons in place — the Plumbers, wiretapping and burglary — and deployed them against the Democrats challenging his re-election.
John N. Mitchell, Nixon’s campaign manager and confidante, met with Liddy at the Justice Department in early 1972, when Mitchell was attorney general. Liddy presented a $1 million plan for spying and sabotage during the upcoming presidential campaign, code-named “Gemstone.”
According to the Senate Watergate report and Liddy’s 1980 autobiography, he used multicolored charts prepared by the CIA to describe elements of the plan. Operation Diamond would neutralize anti-war protesters with mugging squads and kidnapping teams; Operation Coal would funnel cash to Rep. Shirley Chisholm, a black congresswoman from Brooklyn seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, in an effort to sow racial and gender discord in the party; Operation Opal would use electronic surveillance against various targets, including the headquarters of Democratic presidential candidates Edmund Muskie and George McGovern; Operation Sapphire would station prostitutes on a yacht, wired for sound, off Miami Beach during the Democratic National Convention.
Mitchell rejected the plans and told Liddy to burn the charts. At a second meeting, less than three weeks later, Liddy presented a scaled-back, $500,000 version of the plan; Mitchell turned it down again. But soon after, Mitchell approved a $250,000 version, according to Jeb Magruder, the deputy campaign manager. It included intelligence-gathering on the Democrats through wiretaps and burglaries.
Under oath, Mitchell later denied approving the plan. He testified that he told Magruder: “We don’t need this. I’m tired of hearing it.” By his own account, he did not object on the grounds that the plan was illegal.
On Oct. 10, 1972, we wrote a story in The Post outlining the extensive sabotage and spying operations of the Nixon campaign and White House, particularly against Muskie, and stating that the Watergate burglary was not an isolated event. The story said that at least 50 operatives had been involved in the espionage and sabotage, many of them under the direction of a young California lawyer named Donald Segretti; several days later, we reported that Segretti had been hired by Dwight Chapin, Nixon’s appointments secretary. (The Senate Watergate Committee later found more than 50 saboteurs, including 22 who were paid by Segretti.) Herbert Kalmbach, Nixon’s personal attorney, paid Segretti more than $43,000 from leftover campaign funds for these activities. Throughout the operation, Segretti was contacted regularly by Howard Hunt.
The Senate investigation later provided more detail about the effectiveness of the covert efforts against Muskie, who in 1971 and early 1972 was considered by the White House to be the Democrat most capable of beating Nixon. The president’s campaign had paid Muskie’s chauffeur, a campaign volunteer named Elmer Wyatt, $1,000 a month to photograph internal memos, position papers, schedules and strategy documents, and deliver copies to Mitchell and Nixon’s campaign staff.
Other sabotage directed at Muskie included bogus news releases and allegations of sexual improprieties against other Democratic candidates — produced on counterfeit Muskie stationery. A favored dirty trick that caused havoc at campaign stops involved sweeping up the shoes that Muskie aides left in hotel hallways to be polished, and then depositing them in a dumpster.
Haldeman, the White House chief of staff, advised Nixon of the Chapin-Segretti sabotage plan in May 1971, according to one of the president’s tapes. In a memo to Haldeman and Mitchell dated April 12, 1972, Buchanan and another Nixon aide wrote: “Our primary objective, to prevent Senator Muskie from sweeping the early primaries, locking up the convention in April, and uniting the Democratic Party behind him for the fall, has been achieved.”
The tapes also reveal Nixon’s obsession with another Democrat: Sen. Edward Kennedy. One of Hunt’s earliest undertakings for the White House was to dig up dirt on Kennedy’s sex life, building on a 1969auto accident at Chappaquiddick, Mass., that resulted in the death of a young Kennedy aide, Mary Jo Kopechne. Though Kennedy had vowed not to seek the presidency in 1972, he was certain to play a big role in the campaign and had not ruled out a 1976 run.
“I’d really like to get Kennedy taped,” Nixon told Haldeman in April 1971. According to Haldeman’s 1994 book, “The Haldeman Diaries,” the president also wanted to have Kennedy photographed in compromising situations and leak the images to the press.
And when Kennedy received Secret Service protection as he campaigned for McGovern, the Democratic presidential nominee, Nixon and Haldeman discussed a novel plan to keep him under surveillance: They would insert a retired Secret Service agent, Robert Newbrand, who had been part of Nixon’s protection detail when he was vice president, into the team protecting Kennedy.
“I’ll talk to Newbrand and tell him how to approach it,” Haldeman said, “because Newbrand will do anything that I tell him.”
“We just might get lucky and catch this son of a bitch and ruin him for ’76,” replied the president, adding, “That’s going to be fun.”
On Sept. 8, 1971, Nixon ordered Ehrlichman to direct the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the tax returns of all the likely Democratic presidential candidates, as well as Kennedy. “Are we going after their tax returns?” Nixon asked. “You know what I mean? There’s a lot of gold in them thar hills.”
4. The war on justice
The arrest of the Watergate burglars set in motion Nixon’s fourth war, against the American system of justice. It was a war of lies and hush money, a conspiracy that became necessary to conceal the roles of top officials and to hide the president’s campaign of illegal espionage and political sabotage, including the covert operations that Mitchell described as “the White House horrors” during the Watergate hearings: the Huston Plan, the Plumbers, the Ellsberg break-in, Liddy’s Gemstone plan and the proposed break-in at Brookings.
In a June 23, 1972, tape recording, six days after the arrests at the Watergate, Haldeman warned Nixon that “on the investigation, you know, the Democratic break-in thing, we’re back in the problem area, because the FBI is not under control . . . their investigation is now leading into some productive areas, because they’ve been able to trace the money.”
Haldeman said Mitchell had come up with a plan for the CIA to claim that national security secrets would be compromised if the FBI did not halt its Watergate investigation.
Nixon approved the scheme and ordered Haldeman to call in CIA Director Richard Helms and his deputy Vernon Walters. “Play it tough,” the president directed. “That’s the way they play it, and that’s the way we are going to play it.”
The contents of the tape were made public on Aug. 5, 1974. Four days later, Nixon resigned.
Another tape captured discussions in the Oval Office on Aug. 1, 1972, six weeks after the burglars’ arrest, and the day on which The Post published our first story showing that Nixon campaign funds had gone into the bank account of one of the burglars.
Nixon and Haldeman discussed paying off the burglars and their leaders to keep them from talking to federal investigators. “They have to be paid,” Nixon said. “That’s all there is to that.”
On March 21, 1973, in one of the most memorable Watergate exchanges caught on tape, Nixon met with his counsel, John W. Dean, who since the break-in had been given the task of coordinating the coverup.
“We’re being blackmailed” by Hunt and the burglars, Dean reported, and more people “are going to start perjuring themselves.”
“How much money do you need?” Nixon asked.
“I would say these people are going to cost a million dollars over the next two years,” Dean replied.
“And you could get it in cash,” the president said. “I, I know where it could be gotten. I mean, it’s not easy, but it could be done.”
Hunt was demanding $120,000 immediately. They discussed executive clemency for him and the burglars.
“I am not sure that you will ever be able to deliver on the clemency,” Dean said. “It may just be too hot.”
“You can’t do it till after the ’74 election, that’s for sure,” Nixon declared.
Haldeman then entered the room, and Nixon led the search for ways “to take care of the jackasses who are in jail.”
They discussed a secret $350,000 stash of cash kept in the White House, the possibility of using priests to help hide payments to the burglars, “washing” the money though Las Vegas or New York bookmakers, and empaneling a new grand jury so everyone could plead the Fifth Amendment or claim memory failure. Finally, they decided to send Mitchell on an emergency fundraising mission.
The president praised Dean’s efforts. “You handled it just right. You contained it. Now after the election, we’ve got to have another plan.”
5. The war on history
Nixon’s final war, waged even to this day by some former aides and historical revisionists, aims to play down the significance of Watergate and present it as a blip on the president’s record. Nixon lived for 20 years after his resignation and worked tirelessly to minimize the scandal.
Though he had accepted a full pardon from President Gerald Ford, Nixon insisted that he had not participated in any crimes. In his 1977 television interviews with British journalist David Frost, he said that he had “let the American people down” but that he had not obstructed justice. “I didn’t think of it as a coverup. I didn’t intend a coverup. Let me say, if I intended the coverup, believe me, I would have done it.”
In his 1978 memoir “RN,” Nixon addressed his role in Watergate: “My actions and omissions, while regrettable and possibly indefensible, were not impeachable.” Twelve years later, in his book “In the Arena,” he decried a dozen “myths” about Watergate and claimed that he was innocent of many of the charges made against him. One myth, he said, was that he ordered the payment of hush money to Hunt and others. Yet, the March 21, 1973, tape shows that he ordered Dean to get the money 12 times.
Even now, there are old Nixon hands and defenders who dismiss the importance of Watergate or claim that key questions remain unanswered. This year, Thomas Mallon, director of the creative writing program at George Washington University, published a novel called “Watergate,” a sometimes witty and entirely fictional story featuring many of the real players. Frank Gannon, a former Nixon White House aide who now works for the Nixon Foundation, reviewed the book for The Wall Street Journal.
“What emerges from ‘Watergate’ is an acute sense of how much we still don’t know about the events of June 17, 1972,” Gannon wrote. “Who ordered the break-in? . . . What was its real purpose? Was it purposely botched? How much was the CIA involved? . . . And how did a politician as tough and canny as Richard Nixon allow himself to be brought down by a ‘third rate burglary?’”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
Of course, Gannon is correct in noting that there are some unanswered questions — but not the big ones. By focusing on the supposed paucity of details concerning the burglary of June 17, 1972, he would divert us from the larger story.
And about that story, there is no need to guess.
***
In the summer of 1974, it was neither the press nor the Democrats who rose up against Nixon, but the president’s own Republican Party.
On July 24, the Supreme Court ruled 8-0 that Nixon would have to turn over the secret tapes demanded by the Watergate special prosecutor. Three of the president’s appointees to the court — Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, Justice Harry Blackmun and Justice Lewis Powell — joined that opinion. The other Nixon appointee, Justice William Rehnquist, recused himself.
Three days later, six Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee joined the Democrats in voting to recommend Nixon’s impeachment by a vote of 27-11 for nine acts of obstruction of justice in the Watergate coverup.
By August, Nixon’s impending impeachment in the House was a certainty, and a group of Republicans led by Sen. Barry Goldwater banded together to declare his presidency over. “Too many lies, too many crimes,” Goldwater said.
On Aug. 7, the group visited Nixon at the White House.
How many votes would he have in a Senate trial? the president asked.
“I took kind of a nose count today,” Goldwater replied, “and I couldn’t find more than four very firm votes, and those would be from older Southerners. Some are very worried about what’s been going on, and are undecided, and I’m one of them.”
The next day, Nixon went on national television and announced that he would resign.
***
In his last remarks about Watergate as a senator, 77-year-oldSam Ervin, a revered constitutionalist respected by both parties, posed a final question: “Why was Watergate?”
The president and his aides, Ervin answered, had “a lust for political power.” That lust, he explained, “blinded them to ethical considerations and legal requirements; to Aristotle’s aphorism that the good of man must be the end of politics.”
Nixon had lost his moral authority as president. His secret tapes — and what they reveal — will probably be his most lasting legacy. On them, he is heard talking almost endlessly about what would be good for him, his place in history and, above all, his grudges, animosities and schemes for revenge. The dog that never seems to bark is any discussion of what is good and necessary for the well-being of the nation.
The Watergate that we wrote about in The Washington Post from 1972 to 1974 is not Watergate as we know it today. It was only a glimpse into something far worse. By the time he was forced to resign, Nixon had turned his White House, to a remarkable extent, into a criminal enterprise.
On the day he left, Aug. 9, 1974, Nixon gave an emotional farewell speech in the East Room to his staff, his friends and his Cabinet. His family stood with him. Near the end of his remarks, he waved his arm, as if to highlight the most important thing he had to say.
“Always remember,” he said, “others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.”
His hatred had brought about his downfall. Nixon apparently grasped this insight, but it was too late. He had already destroyed himself.
Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward are the co-authors of two Watergate books, “All the President’s Men,” published in 1974, and “The Final Days,” published in 1976.
The Koch Brothers are just the latest manifestation of the Republican politicians’ determination to do whatever they please to the American people. These days, it’s not just war (many Americans are resigned to a permanent state of war). It’s destroying Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, a decent shot at health insurance reform, public education, equal pay for women, unions, social services… all things that billionaire-funded politicians’ lies can persuade people that they themselves will never need, because they will surely never become ill, or sick, or disabled, or old. That only happens to OTHER people, needy people, undeserving people. Yep, more and more tax breaks for billionaires is the way to regain America’s prosperity… say the billionaires. And the Tea Party nods and smiles and votes for “austerity” (otherwise known as voting for Depression II).
You go Liz ! Absolutlely right on target and right on point.
Liz, this is a brilliant, spot-on comment. The only thing I would add is the GOP’s drumbeat of the fallacy of false equivalency, most infamously manifested in the impeachment of Bill Clinton. One might find it distasteful that a president fooled around with a young intern in the Oval Office, but it hardly rises to the level of the crimes committed by Nixon and his cronies (or the Valerie Plame outing by Bush and Cheney). Keep telling the truth here, even if it falls on deaf ears.
It wasn’t about the “foolin’ around”; it was about the perjury while under oath…. As with Dirty Dick, it was about the attempt to cover up vs the original cheatin’.
Had Susan Collins approached her job just as Teddy Kennedy approached his… Willy would have been voted out as well.
Moral Equivalency?
You bet!
Wrong. The Lewinsky investigation started out as the Whitewater investigation, over a land deal in Arkansas long before Clinton took office. When the GOP failed to uncover any wrongdoing, they moved on to “anything they could get.” Had special prosecutor Ken Starr not been allowed to run wild in what was essentially an investigation in search of a crime, Clinton never would have been forced to testify under oath on what was essentially a private matter, with zero bearing on issues of national policy. I’m sorry, but cheating on your wife is not the moral equivalent of either burglary or putting a CIA agent’s life in danger for political gain. Compelling Clinton to testify about his tryst with an intern was an abuse of the political system, and most Americans saw it that way.
So where on your hierarchy of “evils” would you place allowing guns to “walk” to Mexican cartels such that a US Border Agent is murdered with one?
I’d sure place it above “leaking” Valerie Flame’s name to the media…
Then again, Scooter Libby went to jail for information Richard Armitage gave to the press. All VERY fair.
BTW, if my wife found me “cheating”, since we enjoy both a legal and religious contract, I’d be better off in Gitmo.
You do know that allowing guns to walk was Bush’s policy right? It started in 2006. Now I know, we need to make this an issue now because, you know, the current President has a year round tan, but maybe we should go after the president who started it. Not the one who put an end to it.
It was Oblamer and Holder who came up with the idea of letting guns walk and then exploiting the violence committed with said weapons to take away our 2nd amendment rights. Its all in writing. Black and white proof. The lame “Bush did it” excuse wont fly anymore either so give it a rest. I refuse to even read that term from you leftist losers, I just ignore it. So do most rational Americans. “Bush did it” is now as dead as Brian Terry is, both thanks to Oblamer and his Choom gang of criminals.
Sure, do you want to point out where Obama said, “Let’s give the Mexicans guns, encourage them to shoot Americans, and then take away Americans’ rights”? I would be very interested in reading your little bit of fiction.
You CAN read all about it in the National Rifle Magazine and the National Hunters magazine.
Fiction?
The NRA wouldn’t lie about it!
( Never)
LOL
Flag
Show us the Indictment!
The first “record” of the Idea of letting guns walk was in 2006 under the Bush Administration. The actual concept is thought to go back even further than Bush.The differance between the Bush Plan and the and the Obama plan was that under Bush it was collaberated with the Mexicans and the Obama others did not. The end result of the conscerted efforts was that the “Bad Guys” got away with the guns in a Mexican Police game of “now you see them now you don”t”. Huh! Who could have known, that the enemy, of the enemy was their friend? The plan continued although this time without the Mexicans involement. The end results where in fact disasterous, I wont deny that! While speculation and conspiracy theories flourish ( Mostly done by the NRA for Political reasons) that the reason for the letting of guns walk to Mexico was done in order undermine our 2nd amendment rights, abscent any real proof of that intent, and working in a purely speculative manor afforded the other, a reasonable person could conclude that the abscences of the Mexican involvement was done for reasons of trust.That Foundation for that abscence of of Trust, is built in” fact” in that the first attempt was botched by the other side.The Foundation of the opposite sides theory that this was all done for Political Reasons to steal your second amendment rights is based in another “FACT” !That fact is that the NRA has consistantly used purely speculative Scare Tactics to undermine the elections and has use for such fodder!That ” Fact” can never be denied as I get them every month in my American Rifleman magazine from the NRA.Thats right, lefties can believe in gun rights two!We just don’t believe in the right to lie.
Flag
Was that intended to be a “two” (somewhat Freudian in this context), or “too” (as in also), or “to” as leaving the rest of the sentence out?
Sorry, since we all fail to check our own spelling from time to time, I couldn’t resist. At the same time, it’s patently apparent that the “longer the rant… the greater the opportunity for spelling errors”.
At the end of the day, it’s your A.G. Holder who’s stiffing Congress and covering up.
Unless you wish to remain with the ol’ tried and true… “It was Bush’s Fault”!
You are correct on one point, as two of the Leftist states in the Union, curiously, Maine and VT do enjoy the highest levels of gun ownership in America. At the same time, I couldn’t pay a membership fee to any organization with whom I disagreed as strongly as you claim to do. We both know there exist a great many “gun” magazines available to us. Curious that you’d subscribe to that one…
Its true — As a Child
years ago I became a member to the NRA !
I did and still do believe in the 2nd amendment right to bare arms, However I do Not agree with the conservative agenda.
{ When I was a Child I Played with Childrens toys– when I grew up I put away those toys!}
I was naive , and discontinued the dues when it became clear that the NRA became a wholly owned subsidary to the Republican Party!
The FREE magazines Continue!
{ All propaganda is afforded to all that may listen.}
(LOL)
If ever an analogy could be made it would be with the Conservative theme song for the Right to Work laws that they so one sidedly endorse.
The whole Idea being that being able to work without having dues taken out and given to a political Party that does not represent your best interest in other matters can also be applied to the NRA membership.
In regard to it was Bush’s Fault , I never said or implied that, other than it WAS a common practice from a predessesor. The whole idea had many flaws in it and “Both” deserve accountability.
What I object to is the irrational conspiracy theory that it was all done as a Democrat ruse to undermine the 2nd Amendment rights.
If you believe that you would also have to entertain the idea that on 9/11 Dick Cheney – ran Two Planes into the Towers sitting in a Bomb Shelter, with a bag of popcorn in his lap, a smile on his face and the remote control stick in his hand!
All the while Bush read Sacificial “goat stories ” from He!!
to School children.
LOL
While you “bare” your arms, I hope you are using sunscreen. Sorry, Dlbrt, I couldn’t resist. It was there.
Tommy if your wife caught you cheating you wouldn’t make it to Gitmo
You’re probably “dead on”!
Gotta’ watch out for those retired Army nurses… who’re qualified with .45’s during Basic Training.
Cheating on his wife wasn’t the issue, lying under oath was. Your long winded posts don’t change the fact that Clinton and Obama have completely removed any reverence or class from the highest office in the land
I’m sure that anyone could be found guilty of a crime if the person “investigating” them had a virtually unlimited amount of money and the authority of the US Government to find something, anything.
Lets spend $40 Million dollars investigating Romney or the Koch Brothers or any other leading RW individual and see if they don’t lie under oath about it.
Why do you think Bush/Chaney refused to swear under oath about 9/11 and the reasons we went to war in Iraq? Heck, Bush couldn’t even be interviewed about it without Chaney going with him.
Sure!
LOL
I am “NOT” a Crook!
It Is, Was, and Forever will be the Republican Theme Song!
Moral Equivalency?
Teddy Kennedy drove HIS car off the cliff,
Susan Collins drove the OUR Postal Van off the cliff!
…
Wasn’t it the American people who spoke in Wisconsin? Just recall you entry next November Liz. We the people, will speak again and get your types out of office.
Be aware that if your side wins in November, you and your family will have to get along without Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, a decent shot at health insurance reform, public education, equal pay for women, unions, and social services.
You will need to be careful, so neither you nor anyone in your family will ever become ill, lose their job, become disabled (or give birth to a disabled child), get treated unfairly at work, go bankrupt, grow old, etc. The services you take for granted now will evaporate if your side wins.
So basically this was a long-winded version of ‘vote Democrat for THE CHILDREN”? We’ve all heard enough about spending trillions upon trillions of taxpayer dollars for your programs for THE CHILDREN that we arent going to fall for it anymore. “Investment in education” = payoffs to the teachers unions. “Investments in green energy FOR THE PLANET” = more Solyndras. We’re wise to the game Liz. No more manipulative use of our kids as some bargaining chip in your spend-a-thon. No more false promises of high-speed trains and shovel-ready jobs. ITS OVER. Do you get it? We’re not going to buy this line of horse manure anymore. Obama and Pelosi and Reid put us so far into debt with this B.S. we’ll probably never get out, but you can rest assured its not happening anymore. So I guess now the left will have to find a new tool to use to fool and manipulate the country. The “for the children” ruse is dead and buried.
It was GW Bush who put this country up to its eyebrows in debt. That was done on purpose, incidentally, to force voters to agree to scuttle social programs.
Now the Republican party has convinced you to shut your mind down whenever anyone mentions the effect their programs will have on children. Just stick your fingers in your ears and say “La-la-la” to drown out rational thought.
First of all, lets put to bed this idea that Bush, Obama or any President is in control of spending. Thats false. Congress controls the money. That said, from 2006 until 2010, Democrats had controlled Congress and the money. So if we’re going to be factual it was Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid that spent us down the river. Not Bush.
GW Bush did one thing that I despised and that was TARP. Shouldnt have agreed to it. But other than that the spending spree responsibility lays directly at the feet of the Food-Stamp party. Now I know you’ll try and break out the Rex Nutting spending sheet that trys to claim the first year of Obamas spending belongs to Bush, but thats not going to fly either. If you remember back to the omnibus and the stimulus package bills in 2009 Obama didnt have any hand in writing either bill and wasnt even consulted. He just signed off on it. I distinctly remember GOP members complaining that Obama may not have even read them before he signed them, so I wont try to blame Barry for that. But that just means Nancy and Harry are on the hook for it.
Goin out on a limb here, but I am guessing that NOBODY you know and love has EVER used any of the aforementioned federal programs? You’ll NOT be partaking of any benefits in you later years? Being a highly principled person, and knowing it would be HYPOCRITICAL to do so, you will be eschewing any claims to these programs which have saved so many Americans in times of need? Bravo!
No the people in my family work. We dont believe in taking handouts. Something that was instilled in my parents by my grandfather and passed down to us. I can honestly and proudly say no member of my family has ever taken free money, or food-stamps, or free cell phones, or any of these multiple handouts from the government.
Do you buy food in the grocery store? If so, you have taken a federal handout. Food grown in this country and purchased in the store has been heavily subsidized by the government.
Yep and that is why Americans are all so fat. The government wants people fat so they can control them. If possible grow your own food, raise your own hens for eggs, buy your raw milk from a local dairy. We need to stop eating the crap at the supermarket.
Calm down Liz your hyperbole is bordering on being delusional. You function on scaring people so they’ll never even try to better themselves. Liz almost every example you gave I have experienced. When I lost a job I moved, when a disabled child was born I was fortunate to live in a city that had a Shriners hospital ( never got a bill). Yes, I’ve been treated unfairly at work and was even fired unfairly. I moved on and got a better job.
Frankly Liz our modern health care sucks, it would be in everyones’ best interest to avoid going to the doctor. Take some responsibility for your own health and seek care from a alternative practitioner .
I have no problem with people bettering themselves. That has become a lot harder, thanks to Republican policies. Bush and his cronies fought against (and continue to oppose) regulations for Wall Street, resulting in a financial meltdown that brought America to the edge of Depression II.
Republicans chide Americans for not accepting lower and lower wages, claiming that it’s our supposedly excessive demands and regulations that reduce jobs–and if only we’ll concede a LOT more, and get rid of all those pesky regulations, prosperity will return. Meanwhile, corporations and the ultra-rich hide money overseas to avoid taxes and move manufacturing to 3rd world countries where they can pay workers pennies a day–that’s who we’re supposed to compete with. You could get rid of every regulation, and they’d keep moving jobs overseas.
Good luck finding a new job these days if you’re treated unfairly in one workplace. The major players have American workers just where they want them–desperate enough to take whatever is dished out. Has unemployment insurance been easing the pain, helping avert bankruptcy, keeping families together, preventing foreclosure and homelessness, and giving people a few more months to seek a decent job rather than a minimum wage one? Slash it!
You might be surprised to learn that most people who have a disabled child don’t live near a Shriner’s hospital or receive enough free or inexpensive care to avoid a major financial whallop. If Republicans succeed in killing the ACA, people with pre-existing conditions will be left to the not-so-tender mercies of the for-profit insurers… many of their CEOs have salaries in the tends of thousands of dollars PER DAY. Much of this money comes from cherry-picking the people they’ll insure and denying services they contracted to pay for.
You’re free to use “alternative” medicine if you like (incidentally, it’s often quite expensive, not to mention lacking scientific basis). I disagree that this should be what all Americans must resort to. It’s certainly true that “don’t go to the doctor!” is the Republican mantra for people who want insurance reform, right after “don’t get sick!”
And before you accuse me, as happens now and then, of being unemployed (God forbid unemployed people should speak out), I work 45-50-hour weeks for a good salary.
Liz your local doctor is in a practice. Going to an alternative practitioner is a lot cheaper in the end than your local medical practice (remember Liz it’s called a medical practice because they are practicing on you).
Rah, Rah, Rah…. You’ll be believing the Republikan tripe as long as the Koch brothers and their 1% cronies dish it out. Almost all of the $37,000,000 raised by Walker came from out of state magnates, while Barretts money came from in state individuals in small donations. See a pattern here? Remember…Corporations are people too!
I believe that the Watergate scandal left an indelible mark on my generation — the one that was passing through junior high and high school at the time, and had its youthful idealism and naïveté about government exploded earlier than I think the previous generation’s had. As a middle school history teacher, I’ve endeavored to explain to my students just how disillusioning that entire period was. I put together a video summarizing the events. You can watch it at https://vimeo.com/43366697.
Good job. All this did was remind me why I hate Republicans, what a bunch of sleazy…. CRP was better known as CREEP and I think the latter is a better description of Republicans. As usual some on here are still trying to re-write history, as in Viet Nam was a Democrat war. As a history teacher I would like to hear whether you teach that involvement in Viet Nam was started during Eisenhower or later on under Kennedy. All the history I have read says it was Dwight David, correct me if I am wrong. I will include a link to some of the newly released tapes from the Creepy crook in chief Nixon, you might find some interesting things there I have listened to some and find it unbelievable.
http://www.nixonlibrary.gov/forresearchers/find/tapes/watergate/trial/transcripts.php
The enduring legacy of Watergate is that criminal behavior by the powerful in this country is pardoned or not investigated at all. See Iran/Contra, CIA torture, and the 2008 financial meltdown.
Just goes to show you that the more things change the more they stay the same. Today’s Teapublicans are just a continuation of the kind of warped thinking that allowed Mr. Nixon’s boys to conspire to “Third-rate burglary” and asssorted other nasty deeds against this country and it’s people.
Its must be tiring to have to actively ignore things like Fast N’ Furious while bringing up a break-in that happened decades ago and trying to make it relevant. I find it funny how you are so concerned about a hotel robbery in D.C in 1972, but the death of a US Border Patrol Agent at the hands of our current President and his cronies doesnt raise your eyebrow one bit. Bias must be your middle name. Just too bad its not Brian Terry, then maybe you’d care about this criminal regime and its lawlessness.
Your vigilance is comforting to me on so many levels. Knowing that you can point to one thing in the last 40 years is troublesome though. Iran/Contra illegal arms dealing? Weapons of mass destruction? Jack Abramoff? Tom Delay? Bob Perry? Swiftboating? Newt Gingrich? Koch brothers? Methinks you may need some new glasses to get past your myopic issues!
Anthony Weiner, ACORN, Tony Rezko..oh and lets not forget all the leftists who cant manage to even pay their own income taxes like Turbo-tax Timmy Geitner and Charlie Rangle. Do I need to say more? I can write you a laundry list of crooks on the left but why waste the time? I dont think you have the ability to understand that the left is full of crooks. The thought of it would probably make your head explode. Better to keep on smoking that stuff and believing the leftists are some sort of heros while they actively destroy our country. And while Im at it..where is the budget? You have the stones to call me myopic while its been 3 years and counting since the leftists even passed a simple budget.
Weiner sent pics on a cell phone…. oooh!
ACORN was found to have not done anything wrong and was the target of a Republican witch hunt…. look it up.
I can come up with a laundry list of RW tax dodgers if I want. Evading taxes is not a LW or RW thing but a rich person thing.
It is good to know that the RW is devoid of criminals (but only if you use the Fox News method of changing their party affiliation when they are caught).
As for passing a budget, the House is responsible for that and who has had control of the House sinvce 2010? You would know that if you actually had knowledge of the Constitution.
Just because the Supreme Court doesn’t hear a case doesn’t mean that ACORN wasn’t the victim of a witch hunt. It just means that they decided not to hear the case, nothing more.
Pffff……weak.
Wow..what a witty response. I bet you your nose ring that didnt even understand what I wrote. Hooked on phonics might help.
Pfff…Weaker.
And the structure of your second sentence is funny for someone mentioning Hooked on Phonics to someone other than themselves.
OBSTRUCTIONISM= REPUBLIKAN= BDNEXPLODINGHEAD… Don’t be such a name caller and labeler…It demeans your point being made.
So it was WRONG to save the auto (and associated industries), and the financial firms? Wrong to spend money to keep the anemic economy above water? Where would this country have ended up were all these failures allowed to occur? The alternative you espouse would have had negative effects beyond comprehension. By the way…comprehension means to understand…comprende’?
Save? Did the shareholders in GM get “saved”? What about the folks that worked for Delphi, did they get SAVED? I think not. It is not the place of our government to be picking winners and losers in the economy. GM should have gone bankrupt, restructured and carried on like multiple industries in this country have. The bailout was wrong end of story. We have bankruptcy laws for a reason.
Absolutely, 100% correct!! Bingo!! It’s what the republicans stand for, war on the people.
…and Obama’s drones have killed and maimed thousands making him worse than any Republican when it comes to ‘war’.
Bush was responsible for over 600,000 deaths in Iraq. Any numbers on the thousands Obama has maimed that come close to that?
Today, Charlie Webster would be (is) a plumber. I will continue to fight him and the non-Christian right to our graves. Is there no shame? No sense of decency? No thought of right or wrong?
Plumber?
Charlie couldn’t unplug a toilet!
I recall listenting to then Senate leader Bob Dole eulogizing Nixon at the funeral while at the old Oronoka. Dole predicted that the late 20th century would be known as “The Age of Nixon.” And Dole was nowhere as fanatical as his right-wing successors today, as George Mitchell commented just the other day on Maine Public Radio. Amazing.
Nothing has changed with the Republican Party, they are still crooks who despise the middle class and will do anything to try to win. Too bad Reagan was such a dope who was led around on a leash.
73% of Federal inmates consider themselves Democrats, seems about right although the number keeps rising.
Thanks BDN.
Just when we had begun to focus on job losses, Fast And Furious, and “leaked” secrets… we’re reminded just how nefarious and evil all those Republicans were.
Gosh, where are Carl and Bob when we need them for a Round Two of truly “investigative” journalism?
Oh, is there any word limit on such OpEd pieces? Just wondering…
Nixon is indirectly featured in the dramatic film now being made in Cambodia, ‘FREEDOM DEAL’, taking place during the ‘Cambodian Incursion’ of 1970 which so many Kent State students were protesting (and shot over): http://www.indiegogo.com/freedomdeal-shortversion … but unlike many other films regarding this period, this is the first to present things from a local, Cambodian perspective, through the eyes of a youth named Samnang (‘Lucky’)
You “progs” are either brain-dead, brain-washed or brain absent if you think spending beyond your means leads to anything other than disaster, from the personal level to the national level. How about you forget about Nixon since he’s history and re-direct your rage against presidential abuse of power to the administration in power right NOW. OOPs, I forgot there for a moment that you rabidly support the current administration, so I guess that isn’t going to happen, is it? It is for a good reason you are known as hypocrites isn’t it?
And, surprise, surprise; some of Nixon’s people ended up working for George W. Bush. Cheney, of course, was the most powerful. I can’t wait to find out what went on in Bush’s white house.
{I can’t wait to find out what went on in Bush’s white house }
Google the Bohemian Grove!
That summer camp for the sick and twisted would give you an idea of the charactor of these guys.These quys dress up in robes and burn effigies in front of a Stone Owl Statue!
Nixon ended the Vietnam war started and waged by Democrats on terms that left a lasting peace. If only Obie could learn how his was able to negotiate it and stop creating more hatred of the U.S. throughout the Mideast.
Carl was a pothead. I gave him rides to the airport a few times.He hated NIXON, regardless of whatever he accomplished and fully supported the media’s line that Watergate was a major break-in, even though it was a political breakin searching to incriminating evidence.
To compare it with the recent ‘give-away’ of State secrets by the Obama White House is moronic.
I don’t care what you think about Woodward and Bernstein, Watergate, Nixon, claims of the “liberal media” and Left vs. Right: I admire this story enormously and the two fine men who wrote it. It represents the zenith of everything I was taught and admire as a Journalist (and this is one of those very rare instances where I capitalize that word). These guys have followed an epic international story almost from the day it began right into the history books, 40 years later, and whether you like them or not, their efforts have lost none of their relevance. That’s totally unparalleled in my experience. Their work is everything a newspaper reporter of ANY political stripe would want to do. Bravo, gentlemen.
Another case of “moral” side of conscience, what about Reagans deals drugs for guns? Not much is being said about how he cashed in buying drugs and then buying guns?? Ollie North was a diehard fan of Reagan but where does it stop? Or does it….who knows what else we will find out….of course we can’t forget the 4 murdered students at Ohio State???
Funny you bring up Kent State (not Ohio State) since Ive been there for many a May 4th. Of course you dont want to hear that Kent Mayor Leroy Satrom (democrat) asked then Ohio Governor James Rhodes (also democrat) to sent the National Guard to Kent. This had nothing to do with Nixon nor the GOP. You can now proudly go forth and tell everyone that you ran into someone who went to Kent State and knows that it was your fellow liberals who called out the NG on those students. Just something to think about before you bring up Kent as some sort of anti-nixon, anti-conservative event. It was all the fault of you liberals.
I remember that from the time. My personal rage was aimed at Nixon. It wasn’t til long after that i realized it was the Dems at that heart of it.
Yeah them darn Dem’s!
They left the door unlocked!
(psst… Cheese. Recheck the history on that one, the governor who was in charge of the troops was a Republican. If you keep up this false history, you will begin to lose any credibility you may think you have.)
Funny you should bring Kent State up, at the time I was in Viet Nam fighting the war that the republicans leaders, their draft aged children and conservatives decided not to fight. Yes, that would be Mitt Robme and his merry band of draft dodging chicken hawks, Cheney, Shrub, fill in your favorite conservative coward here _ _ _ _ . This was while Tricky Dickie was telling the people back home that he was withdrawing troops. What he was doing was rotating troops from ship to shore so it looked like they were being withdrawn. Ahhhhhhh…. Republicans couldn’t trust them in 1970 can trust them even less now.
PS
Am I to guess since you were attending Kent State in 1970 that you also did not serve Mr.Hypocritical, or are you one of the very few conservatives that did serve in Viet Nam. I won’t hold my breath waiting for confirmation.
Nice attempt to revise history BDN, but your facts are wrong.
James Allen Rhodes (September 13, 1909 – March 4, 2001) was an American Republican politician from Ohio, and as of 2006 one of only five US state governors to serve four four-year terms in office. As governor in 1970, he decided to sendNational Guard troops onto the Kent State University campus, resulting in the shooting of students on May 4. Four students were killed and nine others were wounded, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis
Look, you have to let the Conservatives revise history. You really can’t expect them to take blame for all of the horrible things they have done in history. It isn’t fair to them. So, let them change one monster from an R to a D. They still have the bulk of them on their side. That is a tough cross to carry.
First thing Im wondering is when did Nixon send guns to Mexican drug cartels resulting in the deaths of at least one US Border Patrol Agent and multiple American citizens? Oh right, thats Oblamer. When did Nixon ever claim to be a foreign student born in Kenya so as to take advantage of his name and race in order to bilk a free education out of the US taxpayers? When did Nixon join the New Party and become a socialist? Oh thats right, these are just some of the accomplishments of the worst President in the history of our nation, but his name isnt Nixon. Its Obama. This is just more distraction away from Obamas horrible term in office and his utter failure to lead. He is going down like the Hindenburg on November 6th and there isnt a dog gone thing anyone on the left can do about it. Except write more of these posts. So have at lefties, cry us a river in your posts. Your loser-in-chief is headed back to Chicago come November.
http://kaystreet.wordpress.com/2012/03/09/march-2012-obamas-50-great-accomplishments-updated-this-month/
He’s a Baaaaad man!
Nobody cares about Nixon. This piece is only put out there to make Obama’s crimes seem a little less felonious. These clowns are crooks. They belong in jail for a very long time.
40 years hence we find Woodward and Bernstein patting themselves on the back. Get over it. You took down a crook. Well done. Move on. Maybe you could work on the current crook.
They are!
It wont be long before ” Stand with Walker ” will mean You are his Cell Mate!
Cheesey I am ashamed of you. I admit that Mr. LePage may be crass, a boor and a liar, but I don’t think calling him a crook is fair, at least not yet.
Watergate was where the Republicans started honing their skills of deception, crooked politics, and outright lies. Fast forward and now we have the new generation of even worse crooks and liars.
Obuma was far worse than we thought.
Johnson didn’t fool me, I saw the cat who ate the canary look on his face when he was sworn in after Kennedy’s murder. Neither did Nixon, just looking at him evoke an evil image, the most disgusting part is everyone since has been lower.
There has not been an honest President in my lifetime nor will there ever be anyone elses. Yet the vast majority of people (voters) get all carried away with presidential BS and believe them to be telling the truth. Do I think that voters will ever smarten up? Answer: Hell, No.