Posted on 06/01/2005 4:57:54 PM PDT by Former Military Chick
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. Click here to subscribe.
A fine example of an exquisite strawman. Where in the essay did Stein say this?
The Khmer Rouge did not gain power in Cambodia by its' own accord. The weakness of the Cambodian royalty to deal with this small extremist party was caused largely by American involvement in Cambodia.
Sidney Schoenberg, is that you? Still rattle with guilt about Dith Pran, I see.
Breathlessly, I wait for you to do better.
A consensus is building that the Internet is choking the life out of the print media, including the Washington Post. I hope Woodward and Bernstein live long enough to see the WP die its well-deserved hideous death.
"Personally, I like the Mo Dean's a whore theory"
Any links re: these nocturnal activities? Preferably w/photos
"We were losing in Vietnam? How do you figure that? "
You got that right! JFK and LBJ pussyfooted with the war and wasted lives cowtowing to the liberal commie lovers.
Nixon hads the conviction to mine Haiphong harbor and choke off vital supplies that brought the enemy to their knees.
Too bad they signed a truce they had no intention of keeping - committing genocide of 2 million under the great Jimmy "I never lied to you " Carter.
Seriously, searching the Internet and finding the history of China's help for Hanoi against the U.S. is easy. Searching my memory is easier. Here's one of hundreds of thousands of Internet hits:
wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=library.document&id=244
It's true that after 1975 the Chinese and the Communist North Vietnamese got into a shooting squabble, I believe. Both are worthless, criminal communists. That's what worthless, criminals do. Who cares?
As far as us being economic "friends" friends don't steal intellectual property and friends don't demand something of value as a condition of friendship. To wit, to do business in China Westerners have had to turn over their technology to Chi-com business "partners."
The Chi-coms are crooks and are of little use to us beyond exploiting their poor citizens for cheap labor. I believe that most Americans would prefer returning those jobs to the U.S., however
"I wait for you to do better."
Utterly beside the point.
Breathlessly, I wait for a "better" response from you.
Not at all. You're going to say he's not credible? Fine. You become more credible than he is.
Right.
I believe that Christopher Hitchens is fixated on getting Kissinger nailed for Cambodia. What did Hitchens expect our guys to do?
I love Ben. He is terrific. Great perspective on this whole thing.
An utterly illogical response.
Ted Kennedy is a "success," too. Should I respect him because of it? Am I unable to judge other people as fools just because 1) I'm not famous; 2) I'm not rich; 3) I don't have a cult following on FReep for some strange reason?
Do you worship money? Celebrity?
read later
Stein is a true Renaissance man: actor, game show host, scholar, author, etc.
You're jealous so you bust on him. Or do you just not understand humor?
I'm not rich or famous or a cult hero on FR either (WTF does that mean, anyway?), but I respect those more successful than me, for making the very most of their talents. If your bitterness clouds your appreciation of that, well, I can understand.
Do you respect EVERYONE who is more successful than you?
You are entitled to think Stein is a "true Renaissance man." And I am entitled to think he is one of the most self-absorbed, trivial, overrated writers on the right. I'm not the least bit jealous of him. I just have a low opinion of him.
And I thought opinion was what FReep was all about.
Of course you are. Hold dear and post whatever opinion you wish. Don't cry censorship to me, I have no such powers.
But your jealousy is showing.
LBJ not only refused them, but humiliated them, cursing them "obscenely" per the narrative written by the Marine aide to the chiefs.
"The Day It Became The Longest War" appeared in the May, 1996 Proceedings of the Naval Institute.
Six years later John Kerry would lie before the Senate and negotiate with the head of the Viet Cong team in Paris (Binh there, done that).
While Felt--boohooing over not getting Hoover's legacy after the May, 1972 death--broke the law, violated his oath, blabbing to WaPo Woodstein.
And Felt is a heeero?
I side with the eloquent Ben Stein.
For an excellent statement that Clinton is the Nixon the Left warned us about, see Ann Coulter, High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton, Regnery, 1998.
And how about Admiral Moorer as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs conducting espionage on Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig?
Precisely what was the reason for that? Treason?
Agnew had his faults, but he absolutely nailed the MSM when he called them "An effete corps of impudent snobs".
Felt's a Hooverboy. See how he leaked on Agnew too?
Them Hooverboys did that kinda sh!t all the time.
BUMP!!!
Hoover taped Martin Luther King, a heeero of the Left.
This should blacken not only Hoover for the Left, but the Hooverians, among whom Felt was a high-ranking Hooverian.
Yet, because Felt betrayed Nixon, there is no mention of the King thing.
King was killed in Memphis where the Police and Fire Commissioner was Frank Holloman a twenty-five-year FBI special agent, who for seven years (1952-1959) had headed Hoover's Washington office.
King could not have been killed had his security not been stripped by Holloman.
When Sullivan the number three man left the FBI May 1973 he advised Felt he'd left the agency's wiretap logs in Mardian's office. [William Sullivan, The Bureau: My Thirty Years in Hoover's FBI, Pinnacle, 1979, p 226.]
One can't help but wonder what W(easel) Mark Felt did with that information.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.