Deep Throat and Genocide

Re: The "news" that former FBI agent Mark Felt broke the law, broke his code of ethics, broke his oath and was the main source for Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward's articles that helped depose Richard Nixon, a few thoughts.

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

Oh, now I remember. He lied. He was a politician who lied. How remarkable. He lied to protect his subordinates who were covering up a ridiculous burglary that no one to this date has any clue about its purpose. He lied so he could stay in office and keep his agenda of peace going. That was his crime. He was a peacemaker and he wanted to make a world where there was a generation of peace. And he succeeded.

That is his legacy. He was a peacemaker. He was a lying, conniving, covering up peacemaker. He was not a lying, conniving drug addict like JFK, a lying, conniving war starter like LBJ, a lying conniving seducer like Clinton -- a lying conniving peacemaker. That is Nixon's kharma.

When his enemies brought him down, and they had been laying for him since he proved that Alger Hiss was a traitor, since Alger Hiss was their fair-haired boy, this is what they bought for themselves in the Kharma Supermarket that is life:

1.) The defeat of the South Vietnamese government with decades of death and hardship for the people of Vietnam.

2.) The assumption of power in Cambodia by the bloodiest government of all time, the Khmer Rouge, who killed a third of their own people, often by making children beat their own parents to death. No one doubts RN would never have let this happen.

So, this is the great boast of the enemies of Richard Nixon, including Mark Felt: they made the conditions necessary for the Cambodian genocide. If there is such a thing as kharma, if there is such a thing as justice in this life of the next, Mark Felt has bought himself the worst future of any man on this earth. And Bob Woodward is right behind him, with Ben Bradlee bringing up the rear. Out of their smug arrogance and contempt, they hatched the worst nightmare imaginable: genocide. I hope they are happy now -- because their future looks pretty bleak to me.

Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer in Beverly Hills and Malibu, and author of "Ben Stein's Diary" each month in The American Spectator.

Dear kabar,

I don't take the Washington Post as discredited a source as the Nixon White House commenting on its illegal activities. I could go and dig up other sources, but I've already spent more time on our conversation than I should. Ultimately, though, a large number of White House officials, even at the highest levels, were convicted of felonies, and many went to prison, including, but not limited to, HR Haldeman, John Mitchell, John Dean, G Gordon Liddy, Charles Colson, and a bunch of others.

To deny the illegalities that emanated from the Nixon White House, at the very highest levels (Remembering that Mr. Nixon was an unindicted co-conspirator - spared the ignominy of indictment because Mr. Cox didn't think you could indict a sitting president.) is tendentious.

Remember that Mr. Nixon likely needed Mr. Ford's pardon to escape indictment.

Thus, the White House denials, in retrospect, ring hollow.

"My point is that three election cycles is not sufficient to see a trend."

Perhaps not. However, I think that subsequent election cycles have demonstrated that the South has mostly trended Republican from 1964. The exceptions occur when Southern Democrats lead the ticket (Although, as I pointed out, even that didn't avail Mr. Carter in 1980, and as you pointed out, it didn't help Mr. Gore in 2000. Maybe the larger point is that the South is becoming so Republican that even Southern Democrats can't win there? I don't know, although I'm not sure I'm willing to call Washington-raised Mr. Gore a "true son of the South.").

But I agree that we're on shaky ground in trying to read the tea leaves of "what if?"

Which was my point. There are folks who ably defend the argument that without Mr. Wallace, Mr. Nixon would have won by even more. As I've said in nearly every post to you, I'm not sure I buy that, but I think the folks who think it have a good argument.

However, even you give evidence of the argument when you say, "In 1968 Richard Nixon pursued the famous 'Southern strategy,' and the region split its votes between him and segregationist Democrat George Wallace, running on the populist American Independent ticket."

Without Mr. Wallace, he would not have split those votes, he'd have gotten them all (or a lot closer to all than he actually got). If he was, indeed, "split[ting] votes" with Mr. Wallace, then without Mr. Wallace's presence, it isn't likely that Mr. Humphrey would have gotten the majority (and large majority in some states) of Mr. Wallace's erstwhile votes.

"My reference shows about 500,000."

Hmmm, yours does. But mine doesn't. That's interesting. If I have time later, I may see if I can come up with something more definitive.

"Should Ford have given him a pardon?"

I don't know. I thought so at the time.

"He was not a felon until a court proves it."

If you see someone commit a crime, even if a court never adjudicates it, you know their guilt. We could all see Mr. Nixon's crimes in public. He is as innocent of his crimes as Mr. Clinton is of those felonies of which he was never convicted (Remember, he was never even indicted, no less convicted for any felony whatsoever.). But I don't hold Mr. Clinton as being innocent of felonies, no matter how well he weaseled out of indictment, and neither do I hold Mr. Nixon innocent, either.

"'The dominance by the Republican Party in the South (except when Southerners lead the Democrat ticket) is in part a legacy of the reaction against the civil rights legislation of the 1960s.'

"Does that hold true for Al Gore, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter (the second time)? Virginia hasn't voted Democrat since 1964. It depends on what you call dominance and what constitutes the South. I find your exceptions meaningless."

Well, certainly since 1964, the only times the Dems have won is with Southerners. Thus, it appears at this time to be a necessary condition. However, I didn't assert it as a sufficient condition. If you interpreted it that way, my apologies for not being clearer, although I thought that by pointing out that Mr. Carter lost in 1980 in spite of still being a Georgian, you would understand that.

"I find it interesting that you can run down a litany of things you don't like about Nixon and say very little negatively about Clinton's performance."

Yes, certainly, since I was arguing against "how good a president Mr. Nixon was in comparison to Mr. Clinton." If you'd have come to Mr. Clinton's defense, I'd have told you more of why I believe such a defense to be incorrect.

As well, because I said that after 1994, he largely abdicated his office, and became passive, as you affirm in what you, yourself post:

"Clinton's few accomplishments: welfare reform (he vetoed it three times), and deficit reduction were really the product of a GOP controlled Congress."

Thank you for affirming what I said. To expand, I'd say that because Mr. Clinton was off being monicaed, and not really paying much attention to things, he did much less harm than if he'd have been a more activist liberal president.

There are fewer negative things to say about Mr. Clinton because he did less.

However, in some critical ways, he may have done more harm than Mr. Nixon, although it will be history to judge, and that determination still awaits. My own opinion is that Mr. Clinton's greatest harm as president came in that he persuaded the American people to buy off on a significant lowering of moral standards in the United States. Most teens now don't view oral sex as sex. But I guess it all depends on what the meaning of the word is is.

Although as a child and a teenager I was an avid Republican supporter, and was quite enthusiastic about Mr. Nixon's elections in both 1968 and 1972 (It was in 1968 that I really became a political junkie), as I got older, I came to slowly conclude that he wasn't as good a president as I'd thought. I think others have mentioned (or maybe I read it elsewhere) that Mr. Nixon was quite adept at tactics, but not always so good at strategy, at the big picture.

When I compare Mr. Nixon's approach to foreign policy with Mr. Reagan's, Mr. Nixon's faults become clear. Whereas Mr. Reagan could imagine a world where totalitarian communism might run its course, and could think of strategies to hasten the day, Mr. Nixon (and Mr. Kissinger) could only envision "peaceful coexistence" and perhaps a slow and perhaps imperceptible convergence between the two systems. In 1972, detente seemed pretty cool, peaceful coexistence the best we could do, and perhaps convergence might not be so bad (hey, I was 12, whaddaya want??).

But in hindsight, where Mr. Nixon was a masterful player of the scenario given him, Mr. Reagan was masterful at forcing a new scenario.

As for domestic policy, I view Mr. Nixon as perhaps a little better than a disaster. He certainly wasn't as bad as Mr. Carter, although much of what happened on Mr. Ford's watch traces to decisions made during Mr. Nixon's term.

"I find it interesting that you can run down a litany of things you don't like about Nixon and say very little negatively about Clinton's performance. I think I understand where you are coming from."

I'm not sure you do. I am only grateful that Mr. Clinton was such a self-pleasuring narcissistic hedonist, and such a cowardly, frightened little turd, that he never really seriously pursued a full-throated liberal agenda after 1994. Although I don't rate Mr. Nixon highly as president, Mr. Clinton was not half the man, half the patriot, or half as decent a human being as Mr. Nixon was.

sitetest

(from a link on Powerlineblog. this morning)

A must read.

Thank you. Epstein offers a very interesting take portraying Nixon as obsessed with an Olds Media, in turn obsessed with myth building. Epstein's most elucidating thoughts, IMHO:

What was the role of the press in all this? At best, during the unraveling of the cover-up, the press was able to leak the scheduled testimony a few days in advance of its appearance on television. ...
If instead of chastising the press, President Nixon and his staff had correctly identified the "signals" from the FBI, and had replaced Gray with an FBI executive, things might have turned out differently. ...
Perhaps the most perplexing mystery in Bernstein and Woodward's book is why they fail to understand the role of the institutions and investigators who were supplying them and other reporters with leaks. This blind spot, endemic to journalists, proceeds from an unwillingness to see the complexity of bureaucratic in-fighting and of politics within the government itself. If the government is considered monolithic, journalists can report its activities, in simply comprehended and coherent terms, as an adversary out of touch with popular sentiments. On the other hand, if governmental activity is viewed as the product of diverse and competing agencies, all with different bases of power and interests, journalism becomes a much more difficult affair.
In [any] event. the fact remains that it was not the press, which exposed Watergate; it was agencies of government itself. So long as journalists maintain their blind spot toward the inner conflicts and workings of the institution, of government, they will no doubt continue to peak of Watergate in terms of the David and Goliath myth, with Bernstein and Woodward as David and the government as Goliath.

He was Assistant to the Pres. under Ford so I can only imagine that he was in the Nixon Whitehouse as well.

But what would I know?

In 1969, Rumsfeld surprised colleagues by resigning from the House and joining the Nixon administration. His new job, running the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), seemed an odd fit. Robert Hartmann, then a Ford aide in Congress, recalled that conservatives thought Rumsfeld would work to abolish OEO, which had been established as part of Lyndon Johnson's "war on poverty." Nixon's domestic agenda, however, was only slightly less liberal than Johnson's. Rumsfeld not only kept OEO afloat, he seemed to thrive there, and made new friends across the political spectrum, a trait that marked his entire government and corporate career. But his most important new friendship was with a young Republican named Dick Cheney. ...
Rumsfeld left OEO in December 1970 to take another big-government job: director of the Cost of Living Council. His job was to oversee the board that imposed Nixon's ill-conceived program to set wages and prices to control runaway inflation. "It was madness every day," recalls Judge Silberman, who as undersecretary of labor frequently attended council meetings. Rumsfeld tells the story that when Labor Secretary George Shultz offered him the job, he answered, "But I don't agree with that stuff." Replied Shultz, "That's why we're appointing you." The job came with the seemingly added bonus of being a counselor to President Nixon. At age thrity-eight, he shared power with H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and John Dean.
Rumsfeld's War

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...Started the EPA? Yeah, I remember 'something'.

...but I will readily agree that, if compared to John Kerry or the Clintons, none of whom were EVER held accountable, Nixon would have to be judged as merely incompetent, rather than traitorous or evil.