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Watergate - The disclosure of the taping system put Nixon in a impossible bind: he couldn't release the tapes, as he was in fact guilty. But at the same time, refusing to release the tapes was as good as admitting he was guilty, as the tapes were now the only thing that could exonerate Nixon. By this point a special prosecutor, Arcibald Cox, had been appointed by the attorney general to help investigate Watergate. Upon Butterfield's public testimony, Cox immediately issued a subpoenas for the tapes. Nixon refused, citing Executive Privilege and National Security as the reasons. [Side note: executive privilege is a weird little angle that the president has, it's complex enough that I genuinely wouldn't mind having somebody explain the inns and outs to me. I have a feeling this is going to be a current topic very soon.] Nixon also ordered Cox to drop the subpoenas. Cox refused - Nixon didn't have the power to give the special prosecutor orders, only the attorney general did. So Nixon order the Attorney general Elliot Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson resigned in protest, as did the #2 man at the department of justice, William Ruckelshaus. The next man, Robert Bork, fired Cox. [Courts would later find this illegitimate; as a special prosecutor, Cox could only be dismissed for "gross impropriety."] This of course was another bombshell, and was dubbed by the press "the Saturday Night Massacre." This triggered calls for impeachment in Congress. At the same time,(October 1973) public support for impeachment rose to a plurality for the first time, with 44% in favor, 43% opposed, and 13% undecided, with a sampling error of 2 to 3 per cent. A new special prosecutor was appointed, and Nixon agreed to release some tapes. He did this as it allowed the White House to choose what tapes to release, and partially censor them in the names of national security, and also to censor the president's profanity, of which there was a lot. This was viewed as positive by the press, but almost immediately, another scandal broke. One of the tapes given to Nixon's Lawyers had a 18 1/2 minute gap. Nixon's personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods claimed she had by accident erased it while on the phone, but at this point people didn't believe much from the White house. If it wasn't an accident, it was incredibly blatant evidence destruction, likely done by Nixon himself. What was on those 18 minutes remains a fascinating mystery to this day - Nixon and HR Halderman both later claimed to not remember the conversation in question. The movie Nixon implies it was Nixon talking about what he knew about the JFK assassination. November 1973 saw Nixon make his famous "I am not a crook" speech. It also saw the VP, Spiro T. Agnew, resign for evading income taxes. Gerald Ford was confirmed by the senate as the new VP. 1974 saw a host of Nixon-connected men be convicted of perjury. The "Watergate 7" were indited: former Attorney General Mitchell, HR Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Colson, Gordon C. Strachan, Robert Mardian, and Kenneth Parkinson. Nixon was secretly named as a unindited co-conspirator. In April 1974, Nixon started releasing censored tapes to the public. This was a desperate move - while the tapes didn't advance Nixon's innocence, they did show the public a man who swore a motherfucking fuckton, and frankly anybody who was as realpolitik as Nixon is going to sound like a callous rear end in a top hat. [side note: would any of us sound sane if we were recorded 24/7? I know I wouldn't. I know just the other day I said "if you believed everything you saw on the news, the only rational action would be to turn to supervillainy." And then "I mean, the deaths of hundreds of millions are really a solution to environmental problems and poverty all in one." And then I go onto say "I bet engineering some sort of chemical reaction in China's polluted ground water to make lots of diethyl mercury would be a good way to start." I mean I have to erase this tape, it makes me sound like a monster...]
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May 22, 2017 16:30
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 20:09 |
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come and get your Nix onquote:Initially, Nixon gained a positive reaction for his speech. As people read the transcripts over the next couple of weeks, however, former supporters among the public, media and political community called for Nixon's resignation or impeachment. Vice President Gerald Ford said, “While it may be easy to delete characterization from the printed page, we cannot delete characterization from people's minds with a wave of the hand.”[49] The Senate Republican Leader Hugh Scott said the transcripts revealed a “deplorable, disgusting, shabby, and immoral” performance on the part of the President and his former aides. By this point Watergate was a dumpster fire. Republicans in the senate and congress, initially inclined to believe Nixon, had watched the President's behavior over the past year and now wanted investigation. Nixon himself was a basket case, and at one point was hospitalized with the flu. He kept saying to underlings that he wanted to have a bonfire on the white house lawn, burn all the tapes, then resign. The house judiciary committee in July 1974 recommended three articles of impeachment to congress: obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of congress. At the same time, the court case Archibald Cox initiated 9 months ago was decided by the supreme court. The Supremes ruled 8-0 that Nixon couldn't use executive privilege to hold onto the white house tapes, and demanded the release of 24 tapes immediately. On the fifth of August, the White House released an audio tape made just a few days after the Watergate Break-in. Later known as "the smoking gun", it showed Nixon not only aware of a cover up, but instigating it. Nixon had always stuck to his line that he was innocent, even to his own lawyers. This tape made Nixon's attorneys think he was guilty, and had been lying to everybody for over two years. This was pretty much it for the N-dawg. In congress, the ten congressmen who had voted against impeaching Nixon said they would vote for impeachment when the articles came up before the full House. Impeachment first has to be voted on by congress, and then confirmed by the senate. Nixon's support in the Senate was gone - only 15 senators were willing to vote for acquittal. Barry Goldwater, and the GOP leaders in the house and senate went to Nixon, to pass on the news that he had no chance of winning, and resignation was the best option. And so Nixon resigned. The speech he extemporaneously gave when he left the White House was good. Nixon would be pardoned by Ford, a move that likely lost Ford his presidential election. I'm not sure what lessons you can pull out of this scandal. Hunter S. Thompson I think got it right when he said that the story of Watergate was ultimately a happy one; Nixon was brought to justice, the system worked. The thing that really sticks out for me in these god-cursed days is that Republicans all immediately sided by the good of the nation rather than the good of the party. Initially they did this even if they thought Nixon was innocent; they thought the issues serious enough that only a full investigation could clear the air. The other thing is that Nixon in his actions once the scandal became serious did a lot to drat himself. If you started off on Nixon's side, his actions 1973 on would almost inevitably put you in the full investigation camp, if not convince you that the dude was lying.
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May 24, 2017 14:34
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I think the lesson is the same as it's always been: the cover-up is always worse than the crime and careful media manipulation can always get you off scott-free. The GOP didn't turn on Nixon until so much damning evidence hit the public that they had to turn, otherwise they would have been dragged down with him. It's the reason the GOP hasn't turned on Trump yet; they're looking at the polls and seeing that the base is still with him and (probably correctly) assuming that these scandals will be old-hat by the time football season comes around, much less the 2018 elections. Losing moderates doesn't matter 18+ months out from an election so who cares what they tell a pollster right now. I remember when Letterman came out and said that he had an affair on his show, following his testifying in court against his blackmailer. His doing so circumvented the tabloids and had them playing catchup, and the interest in a possible scandal is always more interesting then once the details come out and doesn't live up to imagination, and thus it ended up doing relatively minor harm to his reputation when he could easily be at a level below Cosby now. Had Nixon come (relatively) clean after his re-election he serves his full term and you probably go Nixon into Reagan, though I'm not versed enough on political history to say that's the case. e - in terms of major political figures Nixon sunk himself, Ford after the pardon, and Bork once he was denied the Supreme Court due to following Nixon's order to fire Cox. The rest of the GOP leadership skated on and get treated like heroes because "they did the right thing" once it became convenient. Someone see if Bitch Boy Nate can find the polls from this time and see where the tipping point was, from where public opinion turned against Nixon to the point where the GOP had to turn in order to survive themselves. I get that different times and all, but if it took Nixon dropping into the teens or so it stands to reason Trump won't face anything at all. C. Everett Koop has issued a correction as of 23:15 on May 24, 2017 |
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May 24, 2017 23:11
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situation is quite a bit different among the 3 people you reference in all that because yeah davey l had an affair but end of the day that was two consenting adults and lots of people have had affairs and gone on to be otherwise cool people so there's some sympathy there. billy cos drugged and raped multiple women over the course of a decade or more. not too many stories of those sorts of folks generally turning out okay. dicky nix ordered sunglasses-at-night thugs to break and enter his enemies' HQ, most people when they think of that sort of behavior think of v bad hombres like mafia dons. you're not wrong that a lot of guilty people overestimate the severity of their crimes and make them worse by continuing to lie but dicky nix and billy cos had pretty goddamn good reasons to lie. the real reason obstruction comes up so much in presidential impeachment proceedings is because it's easier to prove than a lot of other crimes and because that's the thing that actively makes more work for congress. the real instrument of impeachment is for congress to check the president, so don't fool yourself into thinking it's some sort of populist proceeding or whatever, it's specifically the president pissing off congress and congress pissing on him in return.
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May 25, 2017 00:37
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C. Everett Koop posted:I think the lesson is the same as it's always been: the cover-up is always worse than the crime and careful media manipulation can always get you off scott-free. The GOP didn't turn on Nixon until so much damning evidence hit the public that they had to turn, otherwise they would have been dragged down with him. It's the reason the GOP hasn't turned on Trump yet; they're looking at the polls and seeing that the base is still with him and (probably correctly) assuming that these scandals will be old-hat by the time football season comes around, much less the 2018 elections. Losing moderates doesn't matter 18+ months out from an election so who cares what they tell a pollster right now. You could be right, though I've read books on the Nixon era and the degree that the Republicans actually cared about at least getting to the bottom of the scandal surprises me. The GOP political culture has undeniably been completely transformed since then. Like the guy who said "what did the president know, and when did he know it" was a Republican (forget if he was a senator or a congressman, he was on the Watergate committee.) Another plink against the cynical interpretation is that the public still had some support for the president when both houses were united in wanting first an investigation, and then impeachment. If most of the GOP members were strictly poll-watching, you'd think Nixon's erosion of support would have tracked those polls more closely.
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May 25, 2017 00:48
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Coolguye posted:the real reason obstruction comes up so much in presidential impeachment proceedings is because it's easier to prove than a lot of other crimes and because that's the thing that actively makes more work for congress. the real instrument of impeachment is for congress to check the president, so don't fool yourself into thinking it's some sort of populist proceeding or whatever, it's specifically the president pissing off congress and congress pissing on him in return. It's true, unlike other proceedings, impeachment is totally political, this is how Bill Clinton ended up having articles of impeachment against him for lying about having an affair Also Mr. Koop you may be interested in this article agreeing that the GOP was a bunch of partisan motherfuckers with Nixon until it became too hot a position: http://www.dailykos.com/stories/201...l-they-couldn-t 
Nebakenezzer has issued a correction as of 23:21 on May 29, 2017 |
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May 29, 2017 23:19
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uh, ok 
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May 30, 2017 00:04
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Lindsey O. Graham posted:uh, I don't think it's real; the date is '72 and that's some young Dick right there
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May 30, 2017 00:31
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May 30, 2017 00:52
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turn on, tune in, vote for nixon
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May 30, 2017 01:00
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get that OUT of my face posted:turn on, tune in, vote for nixon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUb4oI5MlQA
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May 30, 2017 01:29
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Nebakenezzer posted:I don't think it's real; the date is '72 and that's some young Dick right there  i jus' love what you did there! 
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May 30, 2017 02:07
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^^  Contains supremely ironic cuts of the war in Vietnam implying its a democratic mess Honestly though properly psychedelic campaign ads sound groovy, I'm in an era where one of the candidates retweeted the trailer for Mass Effect 2 with some sound editing to make it a campaign commercial
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May 30, 2017 02:08
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Nebakenezzer posted:^^ the dark futa' is upon us
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May 30, 2017 02:13
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Nebakenezzer posted:It's true, unlike other proceedings, impeachment is totally political, this is how Bill Clinton ended up having articles of impeachment against him for lying about having an affair that's dr. koop to you  And I'd imagine that any Republican congressperson who didn't have a lead pipe lock on their district would be primaried for daring to speak out against Trump. As long as Trump keeps the bare minimum of the base, and who knows what it'd take for Trump to lose that pardoning Hillary I guess, they can't dare approach the throne without being beheaded themselves. It's too much to expect a Rep to risk rebellion with the constant re-election cycle, it'd have to be a Senator who just got re-elected to lead the charge with five years to either be proven right or plan an exit. Looking through GOP Senators up in '22 and from a state that has some blue leanings, Rubio's not going to risk his next presidential run on making a probable base-obliterating move, Roy Blunt just looks like a cocksucker, and John Hoeven has a mustache and I don't trust a man with a mustache. Realistically it's looking like it'd come down to Richard Burr and Rob Portman to make the move and Burr is certainly in position to do so, but the way that North Carolina keeps trying to light it's dick on fire he may not win re-election in that state. In short nothing matters, drink more, listen to your mother, death is welcome.
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May 30, 2017 02:56
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 20:09 |
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C. Everett Koop posted:that's dr. koop to you
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May 30, 2017 03:57
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