Posted on 06/16/2002 2:12:31 PM PDT by Paul Atreides
Watergate Anniversary Doesn't Measure Up
The media's celebration of the Watergate scandal's 30th anniversary got a rousing kickoff on Sunday from the Washington Post's Bob Woodward, who told NBC's "Meet the Press":
"(Nixon) was a criminal president - but not only was he a criminal president, the investigations and the records showed that he had criminal intent in the White House. He would say to his aides.... (you should) lie to the grand jury, pay hush money to the burglars, abuse the FBI and the IRS....."
Nixon-hating moldy-oldy Carl Bernstein, Woodward's partner in their glory days, contended that the 37th president's behavior was not only unprecedented - it had yet to be duplicated.
"His presidency really was unique in terms of his criminality and in terms of a president willing to undermine the Constitution of the United States in a basic fundamental way that we've never seen before or since," he told MTP host Tim Russert.
It's no accident that these two journalists sound like they spent the 1990's sleeping in one of Osama bin Laden's caves, missing the myriad of Clinton scandals that made Watergate look like child's play.
But they're entirely typical of a mainstream press that still views Bill Clinton as a lovable rougue. The facts, however, suggest otherwise.
IRS abuse? Nixon's IRS commissioner told him to take a hike when he demanded that his enemies be audited.
Not so Clinton IRS chief Margaret Milner Richardson, who proceeded to audit so many witnesses against her boss that White House press secretary Mike McCurry was actually reduced to arguing that the Clintons would be "crazy" if the audits were anything but a coincidence.
What about abusing the FBI?
To hear Woodward and Bernstein tell it, you'd think it was Nixon who ordered up 1,100 confidential FBI files on his political opponents. Unfortunately for the still-Watergate-obsessed media, credit for that stunt goes to Bill and Hillary Clinton.
What about Woodward and Bernstein's charge that Nixon's efforts to get others to lie to a grand jury were also unique. Well, they may have a point there, since it was never proved that Clinton suborned perjury. (Unless you count Gennifer Flowers' smoking gun tapes, where he can be heard expressly urging her to lie under oath.)
More recently, however, the "rouge" president wasted no time with subordinates, and instead decided to do the grand jury lying himself.
Over the next 48 hours, Americans are sure to be bombarded with scores of similar examples of media amnesia from those intent on using Watergate's 30th anniversary to further obscure eight years of wall-to-wall Clinton corruption.
As the media's Watergate wallowing continues, it may be worth remembering a few scandal anniversaries reporters have managed to overlook in recent years.
The Clinton Scandal Anniversary Calendar
* April 19, 1993 - Waco: Bill Clinton presides over the worst law enforcement debacle in U.S. history, when 80 men, women and children are massacred at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas.
* May 19, 1993 - Travelgate: The White House orders the FBI to investigate Travel Office chief Billy Dale, who had just been fired on Hillary Clinton's orders. Dale is indicted but later acquitted by a Washington jury in less than 90 minutes.
* July 20, 1993 - The Fostergate Break-in: Three top Clinton aides break into the office of deputy White House counsel Vince Foster, who had just been found shot to death in a Virginia park. Phone records indicate that Hillary Clinton ordered the break-in.
* Dec. 19, 1993 - Whitewater: The White House admits that Fostergate burglars removed possible Whitewater documents from the dead lawyer's office.
* Dec. 23, 1993 - Troopergate: Four Arkansas state troopers come forward to the Los Angeles Times and the American Spectator with claims that Bill Clinton used them to facilitate hundreds of sexual liaisons. Trooper Danny Ferguson's identifies one woman as "Paula."
* May 8, 1994 - The Paula Jones Case: After reading her name in the American Spectator, 24-year-old Arkansas state clerical worker Paula Jones files a sexual harassment suit against Bill Clinton, claiming that he exposed himself in an attempt to coax her to perform oral sex. The lawsuit leads to his impeachment four years later.
* Nov. 15, 1995 - Sexgate: 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinksy delivers a pizza to the Oval Office and ends up performing oral sex on Bill Clinton.
* Jan. 26, 1996 - Whitewater: Hillary Clinton becomes the first, first lady in U.S. history to testify before a criminal grand jury. She is grilled about her missing billing records and her activities on the night of Foster's death.
* Feb. 6, 1996 - Chinagate: Clinton meets with Chinese gun runner Wang Jun in the White House after friend Charlie Trie pays $50,000 for the favor.
* April 29, 1996 - Chinagate: Clinton-Gore donors Charlie Trie and Maria Hsia fete Vice President Al Gore at an illegal Hacienda Heights Buddhist Temple fund-raiser.
* May 28, 1996 - Whitewater: The Clintons' business partners James and Susan McDougal are convicted of bank fraud related to the Whitewater scandal by an Arkansas jury.
* June 11, 1996 - Filegate: The House Government Reform and Oversight Committee discovers that the Clinton administration illegally requisitioned Billy Dale's FBI file. Within weeks, investigators learn that Dale's file was just one of 900 confidential FBI files obtained by the White House. (The eventual total rises to 1,100.)
* May 11, 1997 - Chinagate: Clinton contributor Johnny Chung tells the New York Times that Chinese military intelligence contributed $300,000 to help re-elect the Clinton-Gore administration.
* Jan. 17, 1998 - Sexgate: Bill Clinton falsely denies having sex with Monica Lewinksy while being deposed by Paula Jones' lawyers. That night, the Drudge Report reveals that tape recordings exist of a White House intern claiming a sexual relationship with Clinton.
* March 15, 1998 - Sexgate: The Kathleen Willey case: Clinton becomes the first U.S. president to be accused of sexual assault, when White House volunteer Kathleen Willey tells CBS News that he attacked her in his private Oval Office study.
* Dec. 19, 1998 - Bill Clinton's Impeachment: For the first time in U.S. history an elected U.S. president is impeached by the House of Representatives.
* Feb. 19, 1999 - Rapegate: Clinton becomes the first U.S. president to be accused of rape when Arkansas businesswoman Juanita Broaddrick details a brutal 1978 attack to the Wall Street Journal.
* April 22, 2000 - Elian Gonzalez: Bill Clinton signs off on the machine gunpoint abduction of six-year-old Cuban boat boy Elian Gonzalez from his relatives' home in Miami. The Clinton administration returns him to Castro's Cuba.
* Jan. 20, 2001 - Pardongate: Bill Clinton pardons dozens of felons who contributed to his and his wife's campaigns, including fugitive billionaire Marc Rich. Rich's ex-wife Denise contributed over a half million dollars to various Clinton causes.
He he...ha ha...snort...hahahaha....snort/cough....BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
FMCDH
Some because they think all elected officials are slimy crooks.
Some because they do truly believe that all Clinton's 'illegalities' were related to his personal life.
Some because the Gennifer Flowers/Paula Jones/Whitewater stuff happened beore he was President. (The logic is 'if the people in Arkansas didn't mind, why should I?).
Some because they buy into the Democratic spin that 'most people would lie under oath about an infidelity to protect a child' (even one in college).
Some because they think there is something basically unfair about 'overturning an election' based on personal foibles.
Many people who know all the details about Vince Foster are waiting for the 'smoking gun' as evidence of wrongdoing. Furthermore, the Foster family has not made an issue of the Clinton involvement, leading to the 'if THEY don't care why should I?' rationale?
Filegate? Louis Freeh was head of the FBI. If he thought (or could prove) the Clinton's did anything wrong, he should have said so. This also comes under the 'all politicians would do this if they had a chance'.
Selling the WH bedroom? The Democrats are the party of the working man (and woman), and they need all the money they can get to keep up with contributions from 'rich corporate Republicans'.
Travelgate? That was Hillary. It was also at the very beginning of his term, and thus they were still in 'learning' mode.
The balance of Clinton's support is a result of the cross-party-lines female vote based on abortion rights, the desire to support Hillary because she's a feminist and being picked on because she's 'strong', and the overwhelming support of minorities.
Last, the economy. Individual self-interest allowed many who would otherwise despise Clinton to literally 'take the money and run'. This allowed people to put aside their queasy feelings while watching the market soar and the 401k grow and grow.
Conservatives cannot be lulled into saying 'if only they knew'. They DO know. Maybe not in all the detail that dedicated Freepers and others know, but they know, all the same.
Julie Nixon, in her biography of her mother, said that her mother would only comment to her about Watergate that it all went back to Alger Hiss.
The press ignored all of JFK's and LBJ's real crimes. They hung Nixon for something JFK or LBJ would have laughed at. It was a determined lynching and Woodward is still a "hero".
Nixon had three speech writers, Price, William Safire, and Pat Buchanan. Price was the liberal, Safire was considered the moderate at that time, and Buchanan was the conservative. Price, the liberal, was a very honest writer about it all. It was a lynching.
Visit Martin Fierro's website and read about Hillary's involvement in the Watergate hearings.
I hate to say this, but she DID pick up where she left off. Not only did she get elected, but she is building a formidable fundraising machine (exclusive of her hubby), and she is winning friends in some strange places.
I have relatives in Rochester, NY, and their Condo building is full of (sigh) moderates who usually vote Republican. Only one person in the building would admit to voting for Hillary then, but quite a few support her now. Why? She's 'working hard', she's not 'causing trouble', and she's 'cooperating' with the WH in the War on Terror.
Of course, their idea of 'cooperation' is not the same as mine. I remember the 'what did he know and when did he know it' ruckus a month ago.
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