Nixon's Henchmen Lecture Us On Ethics

[Mark E. Smith]

June 6, 2005

History's latest con happened right before our eyes Tuesday night. We thought we'd settled in to watch the nonstop cable news when suddenly our television screen was transformed into Alice's looking glass.

All reality was backward. But perhaps only the old-timers in our midst knew it. For millions of viewers were not even born when those faces that just popped up in the looking-glass/screen were all the president's men, once in power and then in disgrace, more than three decades ago.

Richard Nixon's ex-convicts - who did jail time for their crimes against democracy and then profited from their crimes by writing books and becoming celebrities - had returned to work one more con. Nixon's former senior White House assistant, Charles Colson, and the Nixon team's burglar-in-chief, G. Gordon Liddy, worked the cable news circuit, expressing moral indignation that the FBI's former deputy director, W. Mark Felt, was Deep Throat.

He was the source who had blown their cover by feeding facts to the Washington Post's Bob Woodward - truths that helped land many in jail and drove Nixon from office.

"I was shocked because I worked with him closely," Colson said on MSNBC. "And you would think the deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, you could talk to with the same confidence you could talk to a priest." Then on CNN: "I was shocked because ... I talked to him often and trusted him with very sensitive materials. So did the president. To think that he was going out around in back alleys at night looking for flowerpots, passing information to someone, it's ... not the image of the professional FBI that you would expect."

Ah image. Conjure Colson, with Nixon and others in the oval Office, as Nixon orders a burglary at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-opsch064292832jun06,0,4436852.story?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlines

[emanymton]

1. Are We Surprised? W.C. Fields Said, "I Kicked Her In The Stomach"

[CTyankee]

2. Can you help? I'm making a list

of all these Watergate ex-cons who cashed in on a book deal after Watergate (and their prison time). Liddy and Colson, of course, but I am sure there were others (Dean doesn't count because at least he has the decency to reveal these slimeballs for what they are). I think Jeb Magruder was one. Did Haldeman or Ehrlichman write books? How about Patrick Gray?

[babylonsister]

4. Not an ex-con, but have you added Pat Buchanan?

He worked for Nixon and was just outraged over the actions of Felt! Outraged, I tell ya! :eyes:

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. Nice to see this so called 'born again' fristian

still has no morals, ethics or conscience.

I guess he didn't spend enough time in jail, because he certainly doesn't have any remorse for the crimes he committed.

[NoPasaran]

5. This kind of horseshit

Is why Henry the Eighth used to have peoples' heads cut off.

[karynnj]

6. Very telling quote

<"I was shocked because I worked with him closely," Colson said on MSNBC. "And you would think the deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, you could talk to with the same confidence you could talk to a priest." Then on CNN: "I was shocked because ... I talked to him often and trusted him with very sensitive materials.>

Colson talked about ILLEGAL activities to the second highest man in a LAW enforcement organization and expected that he would have the confidenciality given to comments to a priest. (Doesn't a priest only have this confidence in the confessional anyway.) The arrogance is he thought he could talk to the FBI and they would ignore it.

[DeepModem Mom]

7. kick

[noonwitch]

8. I find Liddy's discussion of ethics particularly troubling

Yeah, I know he served hard time compared to most of the other Watergate crooks, but he's scum. He was a part of the entire operation, from the original break-in and bugging to the coverup. He's a convicted felon and his morals (or total lack thereof) will never trump those of a genuine american hero like Mark Felt. Liddy probably would have killed Felt himself if he had known he was the leak.

I always think of Liddy as the character he played on "Miami Vice", throwing the necklace made of human ears down on the table when discussing the Iran/Contra situation with investors.