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naraburns  nihil supernum  3yr ago (text post)   33709 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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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.

...

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."

Granting that the "deep state" specifically wanted to get rid of Nixon because they thought he was going to do something they wouldn't like to them, why does this make Nixon's corruption acceptable? Is your argument that Nixon should have been allowed to corruptly abuse his office because other Presidents had gotten away with corruptly abusing the office?

I'm curious what is your opinion of the CIA?

Generally negative. But this hardly means the CIA is incapable of doing good things.

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