Weird that no one posted this -FBI nº2 was Deepthroat

[Ronin]

Link to CNN.COM


discuss away....what do you guys think about the man?

i was kinda dissapointed myself.......hasn´t this guy ever watched the X-FILES?.....where is the spooky trenchcoat?...were are the cigarettes?...bahh

[Beirut]

Long Live G.Gordon Liddy!

[Fragony]

oh that deep throat!

[bmolsson]

Doesn't that make him a traitor ??

[Productivity]

There was a thread in the monastery...

[Al Khalifah]

Kind of old news now.

[Byzantine Prince]

This news got old 5 minutes after it was revealed actually.

[Hurin_Rules]

I think the most surreal moment in the last few days was when Liddy accused Deepthroat of a 'breach of professional ethics' for leaking the information to the reporters. Liddy was the guy who engineered the breakthrough and spent several years in jail for it!

[Redleg]

I think the most surreal moment in the last few days was when Liddy accused Deepthroat of a 'breach of professional ethics' for leaking the information to the reporters. Liddy was the guy who engineered the breakthrough and spent several years in jail for it!

Thats Liddy for you now. Point the finger at the finger pointer.

[PanzerJaeger]

Doesn't that make him a traitor ??

Yes. Theres nothing brave about working inside an organization while secretly undermining and subverting it.(Unless youre james bond ) If he didnt like Nixon or was witness to a criminal act he should have come out with it and gone to federal prosecutors.

This guy had an axe to grind over Nixon bringing an outsider into the FBI instead of making him head after Hoover, and no matter if what he did was good for the country that doesnt mean he did it for the right reasons.

American hero he is not..

[Papewaio]

The path Nixon choose was very similar to that of a dictator of a secret police state. Bugging political opponents is a horrendous thing to do.

It was a good day for freedom of speech, power of the press and democracy when his actions where revealed and not hidden in the halls of power.

[Kaiser of Arabia]

The path Nixon choose was very similar to that of a dictator of a secret police state. Bugging political opponents is a horrendous thing to do.

It was a good day for freedom of speech, power of the press and democracy when his actions where revealed and not hidden in the halls of power.

Every president did was nixon did, the only dif is nixon got caught.

[Ronin]

Every president did was nixon did, the only dif is nixon got caught.

ditto for clinton......they broke the number 1....holiest of holiest rule...

DON´T GET CAUGHT!

[Don Corleone]

It's funny, this was all over the BBC & CNN World News report. And I was like "Who really cares"? Honestly, I was 3 when all this happened, and I am not a young man. I see why he did what he did. Nixon was so crazed with paranoia, if he had come out and made public accusations, there's no telling what Tricky Dick would have done, not only to him, but his family and friends as well. Read up on the private war going on between Howard Hughes & Nixon sometime. Nixon was a scary, scary individual.

[Byzantine Prince]

Nixon was a scary, scary individual.

But he looks so cudly...

[PanzerJaeger]

Nixon wasn't so bad. In fact, if Watergate hadn't have gone down he would have most likely been remembered rather fondly.

He could have exempted himself from WW2 but opted to join up and fight for his country, and was regarded as an excellent leader and a generally good guy.

He was the first president to come up with a decent(not amazing) strategy for vietnam and forced them to the bargaining table which got us "Peace with Honor" and ensured that Vietnam was not a lost war in a technical sense. In any event he got America out of the war.

And what about his domestic policies? He was very moderate, much more so than Reagan or Bush (not to say he was anywhere near their level.) In 1972 Nixon was re-elected in one of the biggest landslide election victories in history. He carried 49 of the 50 states and 60% of the vote. He must have been doing something right.

Oh and dont forget his China excursion that opened the way for America's more friendly relationship with that power.

As others have said, Nixon's only problem was that he got caught. All presidents are political animals, you have to be to ascend to that position. You're only fooling yourself if you dont believe they dont play their little political games.. all of them.

I find it very ironic that Nixon is set opposite to Kennedy as some kind of dichotomy of good and evil. If Kennedy's boys hadn't beaten Nixon's boys at stuffing the ballot boxes we would have seen a 1960 Nixon administration. (Not too mention all the other games Kennedy played, especially regarding Cuba.)

Even my hero Reagan played games. Although I admire him because he was honest domestically and really created a nice atmosphere with congress and shot straight with the American people most of the time, you would be blind to ignore the geopolitical chess match he played with the soviets.

They all are less than forthright most of the time, and often simply lie. The real measure is whether they play game with the best interests of the American people in mind, or the best interests of themselves. I think Nixon truly did have the best interests of America in his heart, even if his execution was clumsy at best.

We all like to gawk at the speeder getting the ticket on the interstate, but deep down we know it could very well have been any of us in his position.

[mercian billman]

He was the first president to come up with a decent(not amazing) strategy for vietnam and forced them to the bargaining table which got us "Peace with Honor" and ensured that Vietnam was not a lost war in a technical sense. In any event he got America out of the war.

'Peace with Honor' was a sham to get us out of Vietnam. Sure we didn't lose in a technical sense, but thats not of much comfort to the 1 million Vietnamese who died fleeing SV and the Montangards (SP?) who we betrayed.

Oh and dont forget his China excursion that opened the way for America's more friendly relationship with that power.

Being as deeply anti-communist as I am I really don't view this as a positive thing.

As others have said, Nixon's only problem was that he got caught. All presidents are political animals, you have to be to ascend to that position. You're only fooling yourself if you dont believe they dont play their little political games.. all of them.

So we should be willing to excuse dishonesty and wrongdoing in politics?

They all are less than forthright most of the time, and often simply lie. The real measure is whether they play game with the best interests of the American people in mind, or the best interests of themselves.

I believe differently, I don't judge people based on their beliefs, but rather on their integrity.

No President should be judged by whether he had the best intentions of the American people in mind. It should be a given that he had the best intentions of the American people in mind; that should not even be an issue.

Nobody should be judged by their intentions, they should be judged by their deeds. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

[Hurin_Rules]

I'll grant that Nixon was not the archetype of evil that some now portray him as. Many of his policies were indeed innovative, and he has not gotten enough credit for them.

But I simply don't buy the 'every other president did it, Nixon just got caught' fallacy. Do you mean to tell me that every other president had his cronies break into the headquarters of the opposition? I don't think so.

[PanzerJaeger]

'Peace with Honor' was a sham to get us out of Vietnam. Sure we didn't lose in a technical sense, but thats not of much comfort to the 1 million Vietnamese who died fleeing SV and the Montangards (SP?) who we betrayed.

I dont like the outcome of Vietnam either, but realistically speaking what would have been a better outcome? Should America have continued what the it was doing and loose thousands more? Should it have taken out NV and taken on the Chinese or Soviets?

The US gave South Vietnam plenty of time to get its act together. Under Nixon the country spent all kinds of money and time training them up. There simply wasnt enough support for the SV state.

Whether you think its a sham or not, Nixon should get credit for putting the best remedy to a bad situation.

Being as deeply anti-communist as I am I really don't view this as a positive thing.

You should read up on the disputes going on between China and Russia during that time. Its called "Divide and Conquer". Nixon fueled the fire that led to China going soft on America, which really put Russia in a tough situation down the road. America's trade and special relationship with red China cost Russia a huge ally.

So we should be willing to excuse dishonesty and wrongdoing in politics?

You miss the point. He shouldnt be judged any harsher simply because his dishonesty was exposed.

I believe differently, I don't judge people based on their beliefs, but rather on their integrity.

No President should be judged by whether he had the best intentions of the American people in mind. It should be a given that he had the best intentions of the American people in mind; that should not even be an issue.

Nobody should be judged by their intentions, they should be judged by their deeds. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Sadly, many politicians dont put America above their own ambitions. I dont understand the hatred and animosity shown to a president who wasnt all that bad.


----------

But I simply don't buy the 'every other president did it, Nixon just got caught' fallacy. Do you mean to tell me that every other president had his cronies break into the headquarters of the opposition? I don't think so.

There have been worse things than that. The political machines that existed earlier in the 20th century made a mockery of democracy.


All im saying is judge the guy on his record. In his first term he got America out of Vietnam with some semblance of honor. He ran the country, which was in an extreme state of upheaval, well enough to garner a huge re-election victory. Quite frankly Watergate was just a petty incident in the wild world of 1960s politics..

[Gawain of Orkeny]

Wallowing In Watergate

June 1, 2005



Deep Throat's Timing


(Photo: CBS/AP)



One reason that Watergate memories so galvanize the press is that liberal journalists can now understand that Watergate represented the very zenith of their cultural influence.


(National Review Online) This column was written by David Frum. There should be no evasion here: Richard Nixon committed serious crimes as president, including violation of the campaign-finance laws and obstruction of justice. Under his bad example and following his perverse incentives, a whole generation of senior Republican officials marched into lawlessness.

That said, as it must be said, some additional perspective is in order as the big media descends into yet another spasm of Watergate delight:

1) There were very few if any crimes committed under Richard Nixon that FDR, Truman, JFK, and LBJ did not also commit, from snooping on political opponents' IRS records (something that Nixon was prevented from doing but that FDR regularly did), to violating campaign laws (an LBJ specialty). Standards seem to have been a little higher under Eisenhower, but that may be a gap in the historical record. I argued in my history of the 1970s, How We Got Here that Nixon's misconduct has to be seen as an exaggerated form of the misconduct of his predecessors, and not as some unique deviation of his own.

2) One reason that Watergate memories so galvanize the press is that liberal journalists can now understand that Watergate represented the very zenith of their cultural influence. For one shining, shimmering moment, they decided who were cultural heroes and who were villains.

They could transmute a bitter old segregationist like Sam Ervin into a defender of the Constitution for standing against Nixon -- and utterly destroy an innocent like former Commerce Secretary Maurice Stans for standing too close to him. There was no Fox News, no Rush Limbaugh, and barely even a Wall Street Journal editorial page as Robert Bartley would build it and we now know it.

Deep Throat is a perfect example of this. There is something disturbing, is there not, about a law-enforcement official becoming convinced of the guilt of his target, and leaking information against him to the media?

Didn't Clinton defenders rave against Ken Starr and his team for allegedly doing so? Isn't that the justification, to the extent that there is any justification, for Senate Democrats' unreasoning rancor against Bush judicial pick Brett Kavanaugh, a former Starr counsel?

And yet when the #2 of the FBI admits that he does so against Richard Nixon, it becomes time to pull out the block of marble and the chisels.

American liberals have lost this cultural power for good, but the memory of it remains sweet.

3) Finally, today might be a good day to recall that the techniques of cover-up used by Nixon were borrowed later by Bill Clinton. True, Nixon was covering up a grave political offense, and Clinton was covering up a tawdry affair. The Nixon administration was a somber and sometimes sinister tragedy; the Clinton administration an absurd farce. And yet in a purely formal sense, the parallels between the two scandal-tainted governments are striking, a point I made back in 1998 with this little jape, printed in The Weekly Standard and being posted today in the archive at www.davidfrum.com.


By David Frum
Reprinted with permission from National Review Online.

But I simply don't buy the 'every other president did it, Nixon just got caught' fallacy. Do you mean to tell me that every other president had his cronies break into the headquarters of the opposition? I don't think so.

My memory maybe failing but I dont think Nixon ordered them to do that. His crime was covering up for them after the fact. He could have thrown them to the dogs like Clinton would have done and did in his case.

[mercian billman]

I dont like the outcome of Vietnam either, but realistically speaking what would have been a better outcome?

I can't really blame Nixon for Vietnam, A lot of people have the perception SVN folded up after US troops began to withdraw, which is false. The fact is SVN was able to hold out on it's own for quite sometime with US air support.

I still believe it was possible that SVN could hold out longer than it did with continued US, and I don't buy into this theory that NVN was a soldier producing factory and they would never quit. They were on the verge during the Tet Offensive, and they failed in 1972 against mostly SVN troops another failure in 1975 would've been costly especially since they dedicated far more resources to the '75 offensive than any previous offensive. Had Ford kept up support it might have been possible for SVN to weather the '75 offensive, without giving up the Central Highlands, and the North probably wouldn't have been able to mount another major offensive until at least 1978.

You should read up on the disputes going on between China and Russia during that time. Its called "Divide and Conquer". Nixon fueled the fire that led to China going soft on America, which really put Russia in a tough situation down the road. America's trade and special relationship with red China cost Russia a huge ally.

What do you mean by 'China going soft on America' the PRC was not in a position of power over America to be going 'soft'.

Also The USSR and PRC were never truly allies. In 1969 the two countries engaged in border disputes that were more than a century old. The USSR really didn't lose an ally because of Nixon, by 1971 the PRCs leadership was convinced they had more to fear from the Soviet Union than the US. They didn't need Henry Kissinger to tell them this.

You miss the point. He shouldnt be judged any harsher simply because his dishonesty was exposed.

So should we start judging people harshly for dishonesty that hasn't been exposed? I'm not buying into this attitude that one has to lie, cheat, and steal to succeed in politics. I'll continue to maintain high standards for the people I vote for and condemn them when their dishonesty is exposed.

Sadly, many politicians dont put America above their own ambitions. I dont understand the hatred and animosity shown to a president who wasnt all that bad.

It really doesn't matter whether Nixon placed America above his own ambitions. What matters is the actions that he took. I could claim that Hitler and Stalin placed the welfare of their countrymen above their own, but that wouldn't excuse their crimes. There is no way of measuring whether Nixon placed America over his ambitions, and all we can judge him by is his actions.

There have been worse things than that. The political machines that existed earlier in the 20th century made a mockery of democracy.

And they are rightfully condemned as corrupt institutions.

All im saying is judge the guy on his record. In his first term he got America out of Vietnam with some semblance of honor. He ran the country, which was in an extreme state of upheaval, well enough to garner a huge re-election victory. Quite frankly Watergate was just a petty incident in the wild world of 1960s politics..

I'm not claiming that Nixon is all bad, but I don't believe breaking the law to be a "petty incident" either. Nixon at least should've accepted responsibility for breaking the law. Whether other people have done worse is of no importance he should be judged by his actions.

Nixon wasn't an evil man, your not going to see me carrying a sign with a swastika in place of the x. He did do some good things as President and his political comeback is inspirational. Unfortunately history won't remember that, he'll be remembered for Watergate. Theres a Japanese which goes something like, "One lie can undue a thousand truths", which unfortunately is the case for Richard Nixon.

[KafirChobee]

Hero, or betrayer of confidence. Person with an axe to grind (because he wasn't chosen for Hoover's spot?), or man of honor that knew what going to his superiors meant - that his knowledge would expose him to their ire and suspitions. The motivation behind Mr. Felt's decission to go to the Post is mute. The facts that came out about the President and his cronies betrayal of the nations' trust is not.

Wategate, wasn't about a cover-up of a break-in as much as it was about the betrayal to our system of government by a President. Look at the number of high ranking officials that went to prison, for conspiracy, lying to Congress, fraud, laundering money, on and on and on. My lord, an Attorney General went to prison, and all the president's men followed him there.

To find anything that equates to the abuse of power Nixon achieved, we would have to look at Bush43 - and we all know that ain't about to happen because the rules have been broken that would allow such a thing to occur.

Mr. Felt was "deepthroat" for his country, his nation and its people. We were betrayed, and he simply pointed a couple investigative reports in the right direction ... "Follow the money".

For someone to say that Nixon just had tough luck - he got caught where others did the same thing? That's beyond cynical - it appeases what Bush43 is doing in his secretive little cronie world, it allows for what Nixon did to happen again. Or, maybe some will never fully understand what "Watergate" was really about. [same peeps that ignore Iran-Contra, the Panama invassion by Bush41 for what it really was, and applaude the 7 year Starr investigation - what a surprise - think Nixon got a bumb deal. Go figure.]

The "press" is the one bringing up the issue of heroism for Mr. Felt. In reality, he was doing his duty to his nation the only method allowed him. Was he suppose to go to a Nixon appointee? Or, Nixon? LOL! Had, Mr. North done as Mr. Felt had - he would truly have been a hero. Oh, well can't expect a silk purse from a mouses ear.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

same peeps that ignore Iran-Contra, the Panama invassion by Bush41 for what it really was, and applaude the 7 year Starr investigation - what a surprise - think Nixon got a bumb deal. Go figure.]

Can you name anyone who thinks Nixon got a bumb deal?
Its funny you only see evil in republican presidents.

Mr. Felt was "deepthroat" for his country, his nation and its people.

You now that for a fact. I could say the same of Ken Starr. In fact at least it was Starrs job.

Or, maybe some will never fully understand what "Watergate" was really about.

Ok what was it really about oh swami? Liddy says they were looking to bust a prostitution ring. Again theres no evidence Nixon had any kowledge they were doing this as far as I can remember. His problem was trying to protect those who were under him. What a rotten bastard he was. Now Clinton let others take the rap for him. How many of those under him and others went to jail?

[Kanamori]

Nixon was one of the best politicians America has ever had. Prior to watergate, and his barely won election, in which a landslide was expected, he was straight as an arrow.

[KafirChobee]

Can you name anyone who thinks Nixon got a bumb deal?
Its funny you only see evil in republican presidents.



You now that for a fact. I could say the same of Ken Starr. In fact at least it was Starrs job.



Ok what was it really about oh swami? Liddy says they were looking to bust a prostitution ring. Again theres no evidence Nixon had any kowledge they were doing this as far as I can remember. His problem was trying to protect those who were under him. What a rotten bastard he was. Now Clinton let others take the rap for him. How many of those under him and others went to jail?

1. No one referenced that evil only in Republican presidents. But, since you bring it up - the truth hurts, eh?

2. Starr's job was to investigate "Whitewater". Finding nothing illegal (on the part of Bill or Hillary) he continued his witch hunt for 5 more years. It became an illegal investigation by the standards his office was originally extended (given).

3. The only people jailed in the Starr investigation were those that refused to change their testimony to suit Starr's conjectures. Some were held illegally, but since Starr was running his own judicial system under the guise of "fair and impartial" he got away with it. Is a black mark on the U.S. that Starr was not investigated for his mishandling of the entire affair.

As for Nixon. Truman, when asked to comment on Nixon once said - "The man wouldn't know the truth if it was standing infront of him, nor could he tell the difference between it and a lie he believed to be true."

Remember, Nixon served on the McCarthy hearings. Is how he became so well known.

[Spetulhu]

'Peace with Honor' was a sham to get us out of Vietnam. Sure we didn't lose in a technical sense, but thats not of much comfort to the 1 million Vietnamese who died fleeing SV and the Montangards (SP?) who we betrayed.

Being as deeply anti-communist as I am I really don't view this as a positive thing.

Hey, at least the Vietnamese had the balls and the means to put down the Khmer Rouge a few years later. I don't see the super powers supporting North and South caring one way or the other about what happened in the surrounding countries, so it may still have been for the best that the war ended when it did.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

.

The only people jailed in the Starr investigation were those that refused to change their testimony to suit Starr's conjectures..

How many others were jailed in other scandals on the Clintons and how many died mysteriously? Also do you have proof of your accusations here or is that your conjecture? Again OJ was found innocent and he didnt have near the power of the Clintons.