Nixon 'Far Worse' Than Thought Say Watergate Reporters

[Hissyspit]

Source: Agence France-Presse

Nixon ‘far worse’ than thought say Watergate reporters

By Agence France-Presse
Sunday, June 10, 2012 2:29 EDT

Almost four decades after the infamous Watergate break-in, the reporters who broke the story have concluded that then-president Richard Nixon was “far worse” than they thought.

Nixon resigned in August 1974 for his administration’s role in a June 17, 1972, burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in the US capital and the subsequent cover-up. He became the only American president ever to resign the office.

Many inaccurate ideas and myths related to Nixon’s role in the burglary and its cover-up have found long life over the years, reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward wrote in an op-ed piece for The Washington Post Saturday.

“Another … has since persisted, often unchallenged: the notion that the cover-up was worse than the crime. This idea minimizes the scale and reach of Nixon’s criminal actions,” the reporters stressed.

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/10/nixon-far-worse-than-thought-say-watergate-reporters/

---

Hey, Woodward. George W. Bush was far worse than you thought, too.

[Joe Bacon]

1. And what did Woodward do while Bush was in the White House?

I still remember Media Whores Online crowning him Whore of the Year.

Oh, I miss The Horse!

[pacalo]

2. I no longer see Woodward as credible or trustworthy, after he turned a blind eye to Bush.

Bush was far worse than Nixon.

If Woodward could treat Bush as an untouchable, then I question Woodward's motive in exposing Nixon. There's got to be a story behind that, unless Woodward is actually incapable as an investigative reporter if he isn't being spoon-fed information about illegal activities.

There were many whistleblowers who worked in Bush's cabinet who exposed crime after crime in their own books -- enough eyebrow-raising illegalities to have motivated the co-writer of "All the President's Men" to write an expose that would have topped those written about Nixon.

My guess is that Woodward is a tool. He's missed a lot of major opportunities since Watergate.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

5. I think the simplest explanation is this

When Watergate was in full fledge, Woodward was a young, probably relatively idealistic reporter seeking to cut his teeth and make a name for himself -and perhaps also genuinely committed to exposing the corruption and unethical conduct in government. Hence, he did good quality investigative journalism and uncovered the hidden skeletons rather effectively

By the time Dumbya came around, Woodward was a mainstay of the Washington political elite establishment. Whatever he said or wrote was almost universally acclaimed and he had sucked himself into the beltway establishment. He was no longer interested in the truth or integrity, just in protecting and preserving the status quo and swallowing the lies they churned out. Hence his truly abysmal conduct during the Dumbya era

[pacalo]

6. I like your perspective & you've probably nailed it.

Whatever the case is, Woodward was a big disappointment in regard to Bush.

[sendero]

10. That's what I was thinking.

.... but you said it better than I would have. Yes.

[Major Hogwash]

11. That's totally off of the mark,

Woodward was a CIA operative while he was in the Navy and worked with them for awhile even after he got out.
He certainly wasn't idealistic, as you say.

Woodward knew that Bush was a crook, so the only way to gain the confidence of a crook is to be friendly with him.
Woodward was friendly with Bush, but he was never his friend.

Woodward agreed to tell Bush's story from Bush's point of view.
We know that Bush lied, so what are the apologists going to do in 20 years, write a book trying to say that Bush was a good guy?
When we already have the official version, approved by Bush himself?
That won't work, not this time.

[Jackpine Radical]

12. The CIA wanted to take Nixon down.

Woodward was their tool.

They wanted to build Bush.

Woodward was their tool.

Any questions? (Not you, Major. You get it.)

[JHB]

16. Woodward was nearing 30 at the time, and had spent 5 years as a Naval officer

IIRC, his time in the navy was spend at least in part in Naval Intelligence. By the time he had joined the Post and was working on Watergate he was old enough to have developed a number of contacts in interesting places and was not the stereotypical crusading young reporter.

This is borne out by his later books, most of which rely on unattributed sources mixed together to form a narrative that can be difficult to cross-check. Also witness his access to the Bush administration, who would hardly be receptive to an icon of "the liberal media" if he lived up to that billing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Woodward#Criticisms_of_style

Woodward often uses unnamed sources in his reporting for the Post and in his books. Using extensive interviews with firsthand witnesses, documents, meeting notes, diaries, calendars and other documentation, Woodward attempts to construct a seamless narrative of events, most often told through the eyes of the key participants.

Nicholas von Hoffman has made the criticism that "arrestingly irrelevant detail is [often] used,"[15] while Michael Massing believes Woodward's books are "filled with long, at times tedious passages with no evident direction."[16] Christopher Hitchens of Salon.com has dismissed him as a "stenographer to the stars."[17]

Joan Didion has leveled the most comprehensive criticism of Woodward, in a lengthy September 1996 essay in The New York Review of Books.[18] Though "Woodward is a widely trusted reporter, even an American icon," she says that he assembles reams of often irrelevant detail, fails to draw conclusions, and make judgments. "Measurable cerebral activity is virtually absent" from his books after Watergate from 1979 to 1996, she said. She said the books are notable for "a scrupulous passivity, an agreement to cover the story not as it is occurring but as it is presented, which is to say as it is manufactured." She ridicules "fairness" as "a familiar newsroom piety, the excuse in practice for a good deal of autopilot reporting and lazy thinking." All this focus on what people said and thought – their "decent intentions" – circumscribes "possible discussion or speculation," resulting in what she called "political pornography."

[gopiscrap]

19. IMHO Simple Explanation:

When Watergate went down, the Washington POst wasn't nearly the corporate whore that they are now. Also we had a lot more independant papers that might pick the story up and the biggest reason: at that time, corporations were kept in check somewhat...there was still a bit of a social conscience with in the corporate structure...all that went out the window with fucking Raygun!

[coalition_unwilling]

28. Even simpler: the WaPo and NYTimes battled one another for

supremacy of domestic political coverage. There was a time when 'scooping' was seen as a feather in one's hat.

[yurbud]

26. this is a little like criticize someone for eating salad with the wrong fork while Jeffrey Dahmer

is chowing down on the guts of one of his victims with his bare hands.

[HiPointDem]

3. woodward is worse than we think too.

[oldhippydude]

7. some of this argument is apples & oranges

Watergate was Pre Reagan, in the last 30 years the nature of news reporting has become one of choreographed entertainment...

when was the last time you saw a sunday news show ask any politician a tough question, or press when given a talking point answer..the 4th estate is now a major propaganda tool..and I'm talking mainstream, not fokkks, or the myriad right wing talk shows

[AnotherMcIntosh]

24. "the 4th estate is NOW a major propaganda tool" - More info: Google Operation Mockingbird

They say it was discontinued.

[boppers]

38. They aren't paid with money anymore. eom

[DFW]

4. Woodward stated from the beginning that he was a Republican

"You, sir, are no Robert Redford."

Actually, I sat behind Carl Bernstein a couple of weeks ago on a train from Washington to New York when I was in the States in May. No one else seemed to recognize him. My wife, who is German, had no idea why I was as excited as if I had met one of the Beatles. I went up to say hi, and he was one hell of a nice guy.

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. I never could understand how anyone could vote for Nixon.

Just looking at the guy you could see fear and phoniness in his face.
Mittens reminds me a LOT of Nixon ( except for the brains ...Nixon was smart)

The linked article has a big pic of Nixon...my stomach turned just looking at it.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

22. Short answer for '68: democracy was undermined by the continuation of the Viet Nam war; the

assignation of public leaders opposed to the war (MLK on April 4, 1968; RFK on June 5, 1968); the events at the 1968 Democratic Convention involving the assault of protestors, anti-war Convention delegates, and news reporters; and Happy Hubert Humphy's refusal to disassociate himself from LBJ and clearly indicate that he would pursue a policy of ending the war.

A great many people believed that Happy Hubert Humphry would not end the war. Nixon said that he would. He was lying, but at least he said that he would end the war.

When Humphry refused to make a committment to end the war, or even to acknowledge in a serious way the legitimate concerns of those who were opposed to the war, he was undermining democracy. For some, Nixon seemed to be the lesser of two evils.

[dixiegrrrrl]

23. Having Humphrey as an opponent was a gift to Nixon, indeed.

HHH could bore paper off a wall.

[graham4anything]

9. I'm a Bernstein fan, not a Woodward fan

I always thought it odd back then that "Deep throat" only spoke to Woodward.

Throw breadcrumbs out there for a trail to follow, and you follow the breadcrumbs to the natural conclusion that the one putting the breadcrumbs out there wants you to get to.
Woodward would give them that IMHO, Bernstein would question it.

The powers that be wanting Nixon out, and Nixon's ideas out (IMHO)

Woodward gave them that.In return he got the keys to the empire handed to him.
(Sadly much like Tom Brokaw got that Dan Rather didn't).

Note that while Bernstein has done some great work in the years since, he does not have the access that Woodward has, and more important- he does not have the links to get it done.

Again, why was "Deep Throat" Just for Woodward when everything else was done in their
name together?

[sofa king]

37. I think there was much more to Mark Felt than we know right now.

Felt was a man with considerable counterespionage and background-checking experience that would have put him in close touch with MI5, MI6, OSS, then later the AEC, and... others. He had wide experience in plenty of other places after that, but his cozy relationship with the larger intelligence community would have long since been cemented by the time he returned to DC as the FBI's internal investigator. (To whom would he turn when conducting internal counterespionage investigations, eh? Who tips him off in the first place?)

Felt "just happened" to meet short-timer Naval Intelligence officer Bob Woodward in a White House waiting room in 1970. Woodward was wondering what to do when he got out, and they had a chat about it.

According to Woodward, he decided to keep in touch with Felt as a mentor and career adviser before he left the Navy.

Almost as if Woodward was being developed by someone. Then... someone... got pissed when Richard Nixon tried to pin the blame for Watergate on... someone other than his own people. And Woodward got the story from a guy who knew more than he should have.

Then Poppy Bush got called in to sanitize the CIA's files.

If Felt was the CIA's "man inside" the FBI, and Woodward was their pet journalist, that would explain why Felt passed on more information than L. Patrick Gray says Felt could have acquired inside the FBI. It would also explain why Woodward rolled over for the Incurious One.

Because if the Bushes own the CIA, and the CIA owns Woodward, then....

[TalkingDog]

13. I recommend this mostly because of your last comment.

Amen.

[L. Coyote]

14. Republicans are ‘far worse’ than thought by Watergate reporters

One of the problems with focusing on the man Nixon is that it overlooks the fact that a criminal mafia, a cosa nostra of politicos, were in fact behind the crimes of that day. Nixon was just the temporary leader of the cabal of crooks. Nixon's demise was just a small setback and easy to overcome with a full pardon and a big broom. But, they are still under the rug.

[harun]

40. GOP has a long list of Patsy's

[lynne]

15. Looks like Bernstein and Woodward peaked too early -

- and have been trying to again achieve that same level of success ever since. Coming up short, their only option is to retell and rehash their one moment in the limelight over and over and over again.

Guy's, there's plenty of stuff out there for investigative reporters to work on. Find a new topic. This story is 40 years old, has been told to death, and ceased being news about 39.5 years ago.

[Strelnikov_]

25. Truly the Robinson brothers of Journalism n/t

[UTUSN]

17. R#19 & K for the O.P.'s excellent comment:

[FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"][font size=5]"Hey, Woodward. George W. Bush was far worse than you thought, too."[/font][/FONT]

[90-percent]

18. Lamar Waldron wrote a book about Nixon/Watergate recently

Thom's great mind interviewing Lamar's great mind:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101733040


One of the biggest big lies in all of recorded history:

"I am not a crook" - Richard M. Nixon


Now, what's really interesting and is one of the key elements of THE ROOT CAUSES OF THE CORPORATE TAKE OVER OF AMERICAN GOVERNMENT:

Nixon WH alumnus include

DICK CHENEY (chee-nee, as C. Mathews would pronouce it)
Don Rumsfeld
Roger Ailes

I strongly reccomend a DU listen to both parts of Thom's interview. It's EXCELLENT political archeology as to why our modern politics is pure unadulterated corporate propaganda to serve the interests of the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us!

This Nixon/watergate subject is a ROSETTA STONE for untangling modern American fascism.

And it substantiates my contention that modern America is a

CORPORATE FASCIST TOTALITARIAN POLICE STATE

All the laws are in place and enough of our Constitutional Rights have been repealed that CAMP REAGAN* will become a reality in my life time.


-90% Jimmy

http://wiki.killuglyradio.com/wiki/Ronald_Reagan
"Zappa was very critical about the Reagan administration. As early as the 1960s Zappa criticized Reagan, while he was still Governor of California. The liner notes of We're Only In It For The Money (1968) mention that the concentration camp in The Chrome Plated Megaphone Of Destiny is called "Camp Reagan".

[coalition_unwilling]

29. Don't forget that Karl Rove was allegedly one of Donald Segretti's

Dirty Tricksters and was investigated by the Watergate Special Prosecutor's office.

[90-percent]

30. Good point

Thank you.

So you could say that the early part of Rove's career was apprenticing for Nixon's "dirty tricks" division"?

Didn't he also serve at the slimy feet of Lee Atwater? Pretty sure that's the mentor for Donald Segretti.

ADDITIONALLY, another horrifyingly evil figure that was part of the Watergate era is Richard Helms! E. Howard Hunt was his protege and Helms was pitching a TV show, based on Hunts dime story CIA novels, to NBC mere weeks before the Watergate break in.

Helms did some stuff behind Nixon's back and it seems like that's been the "mission statement" of the CIA ever since.

-90% jimmy

[coalition_unwilling]

31. It's been awhile since I fully immersed myself in the history of

the time. I remmeber being a boy of about 10-11 and seeing Charles Colson on one of the Sunday morning news hours and being totally creeped out by his persona. This was a year or so before Colson was investigated, tried and convicted. Out of the mouths of babes, eh?

There were a lot of creeps running around back then, that's for sure.

On a positive note, I went to see G. Gordon Liddy on a publicity tour at my college campus and called him a 'psychopath' during the Q&A afterwards The crowd booed and jeered me down, but it was worth it.

[90-percent]

33. "There were a lot of creeps running around back then, that's for sure"

It seems in our modern times, it is either the spiritual ancestors of those Watergate Creeps or the actual Watergate era creeps themselves that are running the entire Republican Show.

Just look at the repugnance of all that is Karl's current PAC. If Nixon were alive today, he would be delighted at how sleazy and totalitarian and servile to corporations his Republican Party has become!

I subscribe to Thom Hartmann's theory that Ahmadinejad himself is funneling millions of Iranian Rials into Karl's PAC! How are we to know otherwise, donors aren't disclosed anymore in this Citizens United money=speech era. (correct me if wrong - that's my understanding)

-90% Jimmy

PS - courageous to make your stand with Liddy. I counter protested back in 2009 at the Hartford Sept 10 Tea Party Rally and boy was that the opposite of fun!

[Overseas]

35. I agree. Excellent interview about Waldron's new book Watergate: The Hidden History

The Republican dirty tricks team's history goes way back.

[agent46]

20. Nixon was a piker

Compared to the craven systemic crimes of the politicos everywhere in Amrika now.

[yurbud]

27. people inside the Beltway have lost all sense of shame and think the rest of us are retarded or at

least that we are impotent to stop them.

[Maeve]

21. This is a report on the article in WP from Friday

Read the whole piece here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/woodward-and-bernstein-40-years-after-watergate-nixon-was-far-worse-than-we-thought/2012/06/08/gJQAlsi0NV_story.html?tid=pm_pop

[Octafish]

32. WhoWhatWhy has Russ Baker's excellent analysis on the Fall of Dick and the Rise of Bush...

Watergate Revelations - The Coup Against Nixon

FWIFW: Baker is one brave fellow.

[90-percent]

34. Thanks Octafish

you always share concise high quality pertinent gets-right-to-the-root-cause beeline to the facts of the matter material.

I'll vote for you for the DU ombudsman!

-90% jimmy

[Overseas]

36. I didn't realize the extent of the relationship. Wow.

[graham4anything]

39. Yup!!!

he has it correct.

Nixon was taken out.

People's hatred of Nixon allows/allowed the Bush's the cover to coverup what they did.