Posted on 06/17/2002 1:04:54 PM PDT by wcdukenfield
Have you heard? Today is the 30th anniversary of the Watergate break-in. You'd have to be living in a cave in Afghanistan to have missed all the media hype and hyperbole of the last few days. And, of course, Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, and Ben Bradlee are reminding us that Richard Nixon was the most contemptible man to ever serve as president.
Let's look briefly at this self-serving contention. Nixon tried to cover-up the Watergate burglary, despite the fact he had no knowledge of it in advance. Among other things, he urged his staffers to lie, he might have endorsed the payment of hush money, and he delayed the FBI's investigation of the break-in for a short period of time by falsely claiming CIA involvement.
Now, I know Woodward, Bernstein, and Bradlee have a much longer litany of crimes and transgressions. However, as bad as Watergate was, it was not the most deplorable scandal in modern American history. Putting aside Bill Clinton's serial felonies; LBJ's self-dealing and personal enrichment; JFK's underworld connections and relations with a known East German spy (and his brother's illegal tapping of Martin Luther King Jr.'s telephone); the dishonor of having committed the most egregious violation of our Constitution belongs to that liberal icon whose profile appears on America's ten-cent piece Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
August 7 is the 60th anniversary of the Roosevelt administration's completion of its removal of about 120,000 Japanese-American citizens and legal residents from the Pacific Coast. I wonder how much coverage this will receive in the mainstream media? Not much, I'm sure. So here's a brief chronology of events leading to this most deplorable of all presidential actions, the source of which is the Harry Truman Presidential Library website:
December 30, 1941: FDR's attorney general, Francis Biddle, authorizes raids without a search warrant on the homes of people of Japanese descent as long as at least one resident is a Japanese alien.
February 19, 1942: FDR issues Executive Order 9066 authorizing the Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, or any military commander designated by Stimson, to designate "military areas" and exclude "any and all persons" from them.
March 2, 1942: The Western Defense Command proclaims the western parts of California, Oregon, and Washington state, and the southern third of Arizona as military areas and that all people of Japanese descent are to be removed.
March 18, 1942: FDR issues Executive Order 9102 establishing the War Relocation Authority (WRA), which is authorized "to provide for the removal from designated areas of persons whose removal is necessary in the interests of national security."
March 21, 1942: FDR signs Public Law 77-503, making it a federal crime for a person to refuse an order to leave a military area.
March 22, 1942: On this date, and for the next 18 months, people of Japanese descent are removed from the Pacific Coast area to ten relocation centers in California, Arizona, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Arkansas.
Despite FDR's record of wholesale human-rights and constitutional violations, he's consistently rated the greatest, or among the greatest, presidents in American history by historians and academics. Somehow, they conveniently overlook their hero's unprecedented abuse of power (I haven't even addressed FDR's brazen assault on the U.S. Supreme Court).
Say what they will about Richard Nixon. Even if most or all if it is accurate, he was no Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown
Watergate isn't about abuse of political office.
It's about the left-wing media tearing down a president they didn't care for.
The media has propped-up presidencies that were far more abusive.
Lying sacks of crap - I wonder if the young people, who they are hoping to inculcate with impressions of a hopelessly corrupt GOP, are even interested in their little annual presentation?
To them, it was. First, because the subject was a Republican. But MORE important - it was THEIR scandal. If Teddy Kenedy himself were to personally finance, smuggle in, and detonate fifty thermonuclear devices over the top fifty markets in the US, Watergate would still be a bigger story to Woodward/Bernstein/Bradlee - because THEY covered it. Seldom before have two reporters and a creative editor had such self-delusions of grandeur.
Michael
Hey Harp, my opinion is, that in some ways, LBJ was worse than Clinton. He got 58,000 some Americans killed in Nam, so he could beat Goldwater. What do you think?
It's about the left-wing media tearing down a president they despised due to his (Nixon's) anti-communist position and bringing to light communist spys in the US in the 50's. Spys that were "liked" by the left media.
Thats a side story that no one is going to take serious untio the Woodward's and his ilk are gone. The press went almost overnight from supporting LBJ's failed war policies to attacking the Nixon adminstration for the war. It was really quite amazing.
In regards to this article and FDR...I remember before the Y2K "Time" magazine was to select their "Person of the Century". Now to most historians the most important person was Winston Churchill, who along with the British people basically held off totalitarianism by themselves while teetering on the brink. They literally fanned the flames of freedom long enough for the USA to get into the war and thus save the Western, modernized world., since WWII was the hinge on the change of powers this century.
But no, "Time" wanted to unaminously vote for FDR. While important, Churchill actually had more accomplishments than FDR and was the clear favorite. But not in the minds of the liberal establishment, who could never nominate a conservative over their demigod FDR. "Time" then said Churchill was not good "on women's rights", which is a farce. By the same standard, FDR's nomination should have been rejected outright for his internment of the Japanese, his rejection of the Jewish refugee ship St. Louis, and his failure to racially integrate the armed services.
In order to get out of this hypocritical embarassment, "Time" named Albert Einstein as the "Person of the Century".
There is a great book, written in 1975 by Victor Lasky, called "It didn't start with Watergate" which details all the abuses of the democratic presidents, specifically FDR, JFK and LBJ - wiretaps, blackmail, financial transactions, and much much more. Lasky makes the great points that these transgressions were aided and abetted not just by the left wing press but also by democratically controlled congress. I think this is an often overlooked point, which is the key role the CONGRESS had in bringing down Nixon and the incredible double standards all these congressional committees used in deciding who or what they would go after and who or what got a free pass. Unfreaking believable.
And just to be accurate if you want to look at perhaps the worst of FDRs abuses, it was the attempt to pack the US Supremee court (1939?) when he was repudiated and stopped by his own party.
That's all it was about. Watergate was a coverup about a search for anarchists who conspired to tear down institutions. How is that so bad compared to the "accomplishments" of FDR and JFK?
Has anyone noticed how the liberal media's salivating over the "Watergate Anniversary" like it's a National holiday.
Two. Woodward, oh ,you pious, sanctimonious, holier than thou and no doubt "crusading journalist"- you are like an old has been athelete, riding on some trophy or other. You keep polishing it up and getting invites, yeah Woodward, you are caught on a never ending rubber chicken circuit.
Finally, Rest in Peace Mr President Nixon, may the earth lie lightly on you. Wow, feels better now. A lot better, after CNN. Oh, Deep Throat? ah, well nevermind, do not want to overstay my welcome.
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