Posted on 06/15/2005 2:04:14 AM PDT by Liberty Wins
In the Watergate myth, two intrepid young reporters -- guided by a conscientious whistle-blower sickened at the scent of fascism he has found at the center of power, and backed up by a courageous and crusty editor -- bring down the most dangerous tyrant in U.S. history.
It is the Great Myth of American journalism.
Now, thanks to Mark Felt's family wanting to get the old boy some publicity and themselves some of Woodward's stash, the Great Myth has been demolished.
Watergate involved two conspiracies. The first, now ancient history, was the botched cover-up of a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters, in which President Nixon was briefly complicit. But we now know there was a far larger and more successful conspiracy involving the FBI's No. 2, to rifle confidential files, to help The Washington Post bring down a president who had topped its enemies list since Joe McCarthy had gone to his grave.
Who was Mark Felt? A "hero," outraged by the crimes he saw in the White House, Ben Bradlee tells fawning interviewers.
It won't wash. Felt ran "black bag" jobs for J. Edgar and had to know of the taps and tapes of Dr. King that yielded the dirt the boys sent to Coretta that broke her heart. Is it credible this same Felt, discovering Segretti sent 200 pizzas to a Muskie fund-raiser, became so "shocked, shocked" he had no choice but leak to the Post to bring down the president of the United States?
The Post says Felt had no place else to go, as the White House and FBI chief Pat Grey were impeding the investigation. But if that is true, why wasn't the Post's big story headlined, "Justice Aides Say White House Impeding Watergate Investigation"? Why were the stories all about Segretti and the Haldeman slush fund?
The answer is obvious. After a week's botched attempt to get the CIA to tell the FBI to narrow its investigation, the Nixon White House had thrown in the towel. An honest and wide-ranging investigation was underway. It was only corrupted by Felt himself, a deceitful cop who carries the moniker of the porn star of the dirtiest movie of the day.
Why did Woodward, Bernstein and Felt cover up the identity of Deep Throat? By Occam's razor, the simple explanation is often the right one. Felt kept his mouth shut so as not to be prosecuted for his crimes and be disgraced before his FBI compatriots. Woodward and Bernstein covered up his identity so that no one knew that Mark Felt was their real managing editor and they were being run by the FBI.
The 1973 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting should be hanging in the J. Edgar Hoover Building.
Felt lied for 30 years to cover up his sins and crimes because he was ashamed of them. But because Ben Bradlee cannot admit what Felt's own behavior testifies to -- that he did a dishonorable thing -- the Post is putting a high moral gloss on a squalid act by an FBI agent who violated his oath out of bitterness at being passed over for Hoover's job. And Judas sure knew where to take his information.
In 1980, ex-President Richard Nixon went down to Foley Square to testify on Felt's behalf. One wonders what Felt thought, as he listened to that decent old man testifying for him and trying to save him.
For news, sports coverage, columns, editorials and features, the Post is justly a famous newspaper. But the Post is something else, as well -- the oppo-research, propaganda and attack arm of a Liberal Establishment that is as vicious in its tactics as the old NICPAC ever was. It kills its political enemies. And to learn that the Post, in all those years it was conducting its vendetta against Nixon, was as wired in to the FBI as Walter Winchell was to Hoover, is to begin to understand what Watergate was really all about.
Watergate was a coup d'etat by an obsessed press, acting in collusion with corrupt elements of the national police to bring down a president who had routed the Left in a 49-state landslide. By 1972, the liberals couldn't beat Nixon any other way.
Woodward and Bernstein were bit players, and all the yapping of the kennel-fed Post poodles like David Broder will not shut down the questions the Felt revelations have raised about the second conspiracy of Watergate -- the big one, the one that worked.
More spilled out Friday. Mrs. Ben Bradlee alleged she was the victim of a rape attempt, at 18, by conservative Sen. John Tower.
"(D)uring Tower's confirmation hearings," wrote Sally Quinn, "two FBI officials showed up at my front door and asked me to tell them about the incident. I refused to confirm it. 'But you don't understand,' one of them said to me, ‘this will be totally confidential.'
"'Are you kidding?' I said. 'Where do you think The Washington Post gets its stories? From guys like you who leak.'''
How many other Post Pulitzers belong in field offices of the FBI?
Mr. Buchanan is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of The Death of the West, The Great Betrayal, and A Republic, Not an Empire.
And the press is in-mode to try to destroy President Bush, too. Their glory days are over with "the new media" on their heels. The pressitutes just don't know it yet.
Was Nixon involved in the break-in or just the cover up? I have been discussing this with my boss. She says Nixon knew all about the break-in from the get go.
The evidence does not support the contention that Nixon was involved.
The "smoking gun" tape revealed that Nixon was told about it two weeks before he said he knew it. During that two week period he was technically guilty of obstruction of justice for not coming forward with the information.
I have never been an admirer of Nixon, but I am convinced the media had an all-consuming hatred of Nixon because he brought down Alger Hiss. During 1973 they kept up a steady drumbeat of criticism and condemnation until even the Republicans caved and asked him to resign.
By the way, when the KGB files were finally opened in the mid-'90s they showed Hiss to have been on their spy payroll, along with that other great liberal icon I.F. Stone. Haven't seen this covered in the MSM have you?
Historical BUMP!
Actually, Truman and his White House staff had no doubt as to the treason of Alger Hiss. A 1969 book, "The Ordeal of Otto Otepka," by William J. Gill, gives an amazing narrative that describes the reaction of Truman when he read the FBI reports on Hiss.
Truman was aghast. "Why that SOB betrayed his country!" he bellowed over and over again as he examined the evidence.
He then went before the assembled press and said the whole Hiss affair was nothing but a "red herring" trumped up by the Republican House.
I know of at least 4 Republican headquarters break ins during this last election cycle, and no one was punished.
Nixon displayed a lot of class by resigning rather than put the country through the turmoil of the investigation, etc.
Yeah, we can all thank god for Nixon's class. Such a classy guy. Kids are now taught that in school -- when the chips are against the wall and you need to save your team from unproven allegations against you, you do what great president Nixon did and resign.
What a great president he was, and we can't do enough to preserve his legacy. Nixon: Friend of China, and Guy Who Stepped Down After Using Government Resources To Cover Up Party Abuses.
Pretty soon he'll be on the dime, once that treasonous FDR is stricken from the history books and replaced by good ol' Hoover (the depression would have solved itself).
This one's going on my home page!
Regards,
TS
Watergate was a coup d'etat by an obsessed press, acting in collusion with corrupt elements of the national police to bring down a president who had routed the Left in a 49-state landslide. By 1972, the liberals couldn't beat Nixon any other way.
You might want to welcome the newest troll on Free Republic.
So you think it would have been better for Nixon to drag the country through a long, ugly battle like Clinton did?
Your MSN moniker neglects to include Duranty and the NY Times - and the 1932 Pulitzer for the NYT cover up of the Communist Holocaust of 10 million.
The MSM is 75 years strong.
Actually the NY Slimes had a longer love affair of the dark side.
They justified the deaths and mass murders when the communists took over Russia, decades before Durranty.
Interesting.
That would be the "nihilists" they were called before the revolution. I'll have to spring for a few bucks and do an archive check.
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