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**A quick poll.. do we have a poll mechanism ? ** We should.
**Were you aware **that Woodward of Watergate fame was, before his journalistic career an officer in the Navy, one trusted enough to handle nuclear codes?
Were you aware 'Deep Throat' of Watergate was deputy director of FBI, someone who had many reasons to hate Nixon ?
I was aware of the latter, but not of the former. I thought he was just a young journalist, not a young journalist fresh off from fed-land with a top secret clearance.
There's this incredible segment by Tucker Carlson that basically lays out a theory Nixon was not as big a crook as we think, and that he was set up because he tried to keep the government subordinate to its notional head.
To sum it up, the claim is that Watergate was a palace coup, where the secret services overthrew the US government, and have kept it under control ever since through influence operations.
It does look persuasive to me. Too persuasive, if you were pulling a coup of this sort, would you make one of the protagonists a retired naval officer with that kind of background ? Ok, I'm done expressing my confusion and astonishment with what I've learned today. If this isn't content fit for themotte, please let me know!
Supplementary viewing: Interview with 'Kay Griggs' , talking about deep state influence ops and what the military gets up to in secret. Was allegedly filmed during her divorce as a 'dead man' measure. Her husband was involved with it and drank / talked too much to her.
It's eight hours, I mean, anyone wants a rabbit hole to fall down through. I feel like I should watch it at some point, though there's probably an analysis somewhere.
It seems to be fairly tame conspiracy stuff: some classic secret societies, homosexuals, political murder, drug running, saudis, etc. However, the nice lady talking about is, if she says who she is, in a position where she may have actually learned something. If she made it up, it's a great performance, if she hasn't, it's not very surprising.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=4fdS5cdtPOA
And how does the segment deal with the tapes, especially the "smoking gun" tape, in which Nixon is heard endorsing the coverup. Here is what Wikipedia says about it:
And, to be clear, the theory is that a bunch of Nixon's closest aides -- H.R. Haldeman (WH Chief of Staff), John Ehrlichman (Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs), John Dean (White House counsel), Jeb Magruder (chair of the Committee to Reelect the President), John Mitchell (Attorney General) --conspired against him, and exposed themselves to criminal liability (all served time, and the lawyers among them were disbarred), for the purpose of what, exactly?
And, by the way, I haven't seen the segment, but "he tried to keep the government subordinate to its notional head" strikes me as very possibly spin on pushback to a guy who claimed, "If the President does it, it isn't illegal."
I haven’t watched the tape but the idea that Nixon was implicated in a political scandal and a palace coup are not mutually exclusive. It’s possible there are many such incidents that never see the light of day but did here.
No, they are not mutually exclusive. But, given the amount of evidence of actual wrongdoing -- evidence that members of his own party felt merited removal from office -- the idea that his resignation was caused by a coup rather than by his own misconduct seems to be a rather heavy lift.
I think to a certain extent it was a sign of the times. Watergate seems like child’s play compared to the scandals of the last twenty years
Edit: I have zero real thoughts here. Just pointing out they need not be mutually exclusive. Never really looked into this particular line of inquiry.
I don't know about child's play, given the burglaries (including the burglary of the office of Daniel Ellsberg's (who leaked the Pentagon Papers) psychiatrist, and of course the DNC headquarters) , and the fact that the wife of the former Attorney General is essentially kidnapped to prevent her from talking to the press.
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