Comments on: From the Department of Refined Business Models

By: sglover

sglover — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 07:14:14 +0000

I dunno about the fine points of Nixon-Bush compare-and-contrast, but you’re sure reminding me why I don’t waste time on either Drum’s or Yglesias’ sites any more.

By: sarik

sarik — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 00:37:19 +0000

Revealing Valerie Plame’s identity was a personal vendetta.

And denying immunity to the telecoms would be revealing during the inevitable law suits’ discovery phases as to which citizens who had nothing to do with terrorism were spied on by the Bush administration.

By: someotherdude

someotherdude — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 22:55:27 +0000

9-FREAKIN’-11

9-11 b!tch slapped many Americans into scared crack whores.

By: Jerry Loggins

Jerry Loggins — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 21:08:09 +0000

I have often thought about how Bush has been getting away with a lot of things that other Presidents would NOT have been able to get away with. I personally think he should have been impeached a long time ago.

By: RepubAnon

RepubAnon — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:23:30 +0000

Oh, I expect Nixon’s Justice Department would have pulled a Gonzales and quashed the prosecutions if the WaPo hadn’t kept the publicity turned up high. McCord’s roll-over was probably one of the big motivations for pardoning Scooter Libby, though.

As for the Ervin Committee – well, that was something called Congressional oversight by a Democratic Congress over a Republican President. Imagine if the Irvin Committee had been created by a partisan Republican Congress with whitewash on their minds, like the 9/11 Committee.

By: CMike

CMike — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 04:47:53 +0000

Left out one… it was the District Court Judge, the Special Prosecutors, and the Ervin Committee which brought down Nixon — not the Fourth Estate.

By: CMike

CMike — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 04:43:17 +0000

Repub Anon writes:

Nixon would have gotten away with it, if it hadnâ€™t been for those darned kids Woodward and Bernstein.

Nixon would have gotten away with it, if it hadn’t been for the harsh sentences handed down by Judge Sirica to the Watergate burglars. One of the burglars, James McCord, cracked and rolled over on higher ups who were tied to the Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP).

Woodward and Bernstein played a similar role to that played by the blogs in the Plame affair. They helped fan interest in the story among members of the public. However, just as Prosecutor Fitzpatrick was the crucial player in pursuing Libby et al., it was the District Court Judge who presided over the burglary case and later the Special Prosecutors who broke the case.

The movie All the President’s Men romanticized the importance of the role of Woodward and Bernstein in breaking the case open. The notion the case was ever off the radar screen of Congress and party officials is wrong. CBS filed a several minute story the day of the arrest and arraignment, the clip of which used to be available on YouTube but I can’t find it now.

Journalists were slow to follow up on the story but there was an inexorable court schedule. From the Nixon tapes and papers we know that the administration feared a Democratic National Committee law suit which never materialized more than the Washington Post investigation.

By: RepubAnon

RepubAnon — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 01:31:17 +0000

There are several big differences between Nixon-then and Bush-now:
1) Nixon didn’t have a Republican-controlled Congress;
2) During Nixon’s presidency, there were still Republicans who placed loyalty to country before loyalty to party. Newt Gingrich weeded these “RINOs” out, and Bush hasn’t had any problem keeping a solid filibuster-sized group of “loyal bushies” in line.
3) Remember, please, that the main-stream media ignored Watergate. Nixon would have gotten away with it, if it hadn’t been for those darned kids Woodward and Bernstein. (McGovern LOST, remember?)
4) In Nixon’s time, there were still reporters doing real reporting – like Jack Anderson. The newspapers also had enough money to be able to afford to let reporters actually research stories.
5) Go read Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 again, and note the similarities between Stewart Alsop then and David Broder now.
6) We’ve had many, many years of Republicans moaning about the great national trauma of Watergate, and working to make sure the press never got so far out of the control of the rich and powerful again.
7) The Clinton impeachment served several purposes: “payback” for Watergate + making it seem a partisan persecution worthy of an Alberto Gonzales “Justice” Department than a last-ditch defense against criminal misconduct.

In short, we got lucky with Nixon – and not with George Bush and Dick Cheney.

By: CMike

CMike — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:59:09 +0000

Richard Nixon was one of a kind…well Nixon and Henry Kissinger are two of one kind…well Nixon, Kissinger, and Karl Rove are three of one kind…but George W., though ruthless enough, is just too clueless to be of that kind.

[With my browser set up, you have to scroll to the right for the article at the link.]

(Doncha just love that playing to posterity? Those psychos thought they hadn’t missed a trick:

Kissinger told the AP that Nixon never seriously considered abandoning Saigon.

“There are in my memoirs letters he wrote me while I was conducting the negotiations, which say the exact opposite of what’s on this conversation, in which he says, ‘Go ahead and do what you need to do, but don’t be affected by the election, and we want an agreement that lasts.”)