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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
So I watched the Carlson segment and I don't understand what the segment has to do with what was corrupt about Watergate and what was corrupt about Nixon's actions, specifically. As best I can tell the reason people think Nixon's actions with respect to Watergate were corrupt is because he tried to obstruct a federal investigation into a break in at the DNC headquarters when it became clear that investigation was going to implicate high level members of his administration (including his Attorney General John Mitchell) in the crime. This culminated with Nixon firing his second Attorney General (Elliot Richardson) and Deputy Attorney General (William Ruckelshaus) when they refused to fire the Special Prosecutor (Archibald Cox) who was investigating the Watergate break in, in what came to be known as the Saturday Night Massacre.
So, how is Bob Woodward's status as former Naval intelligence relevant? What does Nixon's meeting with Helms have to do with anything? Nixon's meeting with Helms happened months after the break in. Why does it matter that Woodward's source was the Deputy Director of the FBI?
Carlson's monologue is big on free association (CIA! JFK! FBI! COINTELPRO!) but pretty light on actually connecting any of these facts to any of the facts of Watergate.
The people who were working for Nixon in Watergate were freshly ex-FBI and ex-CIA. Hunt even worked for a CIA front company, apparently, which wasn't known to Nixon's chief of staff.
People at their former institutions - who were probably guilty of doing similar stuff in the past for other presidents, exposed Nixon for the kind of wrongdoing they themselves were likely guilty of.
The narrative people have of Watergate is something like 'intrepid reporter and brave FBI source' expose corrupt presidential administration, government somewhat improved and more democratic afterwards.
Meanwhile, the actual narrative is something like 'somewhat corrupt president exposed by intrigues of even more corrupt institutions', presidency afterwards even more influenced by the secret services. I mean, if you're long serving FBI, one of the old guard, and deputy director, it's not particularly brave to leak to the press. There's only like 2-3 people ranking higher than you.
I suggest that the institutional affiliation and ranks of people involved suggest the latter narrative is more closer to the truth than the former.
Ok, granting that the correct narrative of Watergate is one of relatively more corrupt executive branch employees exposing the corruption of a relatively less corrupt President it seems to me the correct conclusion is "more people should have been prosecuted for corruption" not "Nixon wasn't corrupt."
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