Z
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Post by Z on Jun 4, 2005 19:54:59 GMT -5
"hero" isn't the first word that jumps into my head, but it's a closer to the truth than "genocide causer" and "race traitor," as he has been pegged by peggy noonan and ben stein, respectively. i dont have the links but google it and read their jaw dropping columns on this.
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on Jun 4, 2005 21:10:03 GMT -5
Ben Stein's words are below (remember, he worked in the White House at this time, so he takes this a little more personally): "Can anyone even remember now what Nixon did that was so terrible? He ended the war in Vietnam, brought home the POW's, ended the war in the Mideast, opened relations with China, started the first nuclear weapons reduction treaty, saved Eretz Israel's life, started the Environmental Protection Administration. Does anyone remember what he did that was bad? Oh, now I remember. He lied. He was a politician who lied. How remarkable."www.americanprowler.com/dsp_article.asp?art_id=8242From Peggy Noonan's column (which also notes the work Chuck Colson has been doing in prison ministries since Watergate): "When Hooverism was threatened, Mr. Felt moved. In this sense Richard Nixon was J. Edgar Hoover's last victim. History is an irony factory." www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110006763
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nychoya3
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Post by nychoya3 on Jun 4, 2005 21:39:24 GMT -5
Hmmm...you're right DFW! I guess those two columns were perfectly sane. Second thought, let's take some more representive excerpts:
Stein:
"lood will tell, as the old saying goes: [Mark Felt's] posterity is now dragging out his old body and putting it on display to make money. (Have you noticed how Mark Felt looks like one of those old Nazi war criminals they find in Bolivia or Paraguay? That same, haunted, hunted look combined with a glee at what he has managed to get away with so far?) And it gets worse: it's been reported that Mark Felt is at least part Jewish. The reason this is worse is that at the same time that Mark Felt was betraying Richard Nixon, Nixon was saving Eretz Israel. It is a terrifying chapter in betrayal and ingratitude. If he even knows what shame is, I wonder if he felt a moment's shame as he tortured the man who brought security and salvation to the land of so many of his and my fellow Jews. Somehow, as I look at his demented face, I doubt it."
Umm...yeah, I think he took it pretty personal. Now, the man is in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, so I cut him a lot of slack, but this is just batsh** crazy stuff.
How about Peg-ster?
"Even if Mr. Felt had mixed motives, even if he did not choose the most courageous path in attempting to spread what he thought was the truth, his actions might be judged by their fruits. The Washington Post said yesterday that Mr. Felt's information allowed them to continue their probe. That probe brought down a president. Ben Stein is angry but not incorrect: What Mr. Felt helped produce was a weakened president who was a serious president at a serious time. Nixon's ruin led to a cascade of catastrophic events--the crude and humiliating abandonment of Vietnam and the Vietnamese, the rise of a monster named Pol Pot, and millions--millions--killed in his genocide. America lost confidence; the Soviet Union gained brazenness. What a terrible time. Is it terrible when an American president lies and surrounds himself by dirty tricksters? Yes, it is. How about the butchering of children in the South China Sea. Is that worse? Yes. Infinitely, unforgettably and forever."
You see what she did there? Yeah, me neither, but apparently Mark Felt is responsible for Pol Pot. I don't think this logic chain would get past Father Schall. I would also casually note that Nixon had already withdrawn from Vietnam by the time he was so deservedly impeached, but I guess the fact checkers missed that. Oh, and Chuck Colson, great man? Good for him to start his prison ministry, but a little contrition would be nice.
I don't really care one way or another about Felt - hero or not, he did something heroic, though certainly for his own reasons. But the rats are absolutely coming out of the woodwork on this one. No amount of revisionist history can erase the simple fact that the Nixon and his top aides went to staggering lengths to subvert the American political system, and undertook a coverup of their activities that further corrupted the executive branch.
For the record, Nixon was about 1000 times better than Bush on policy, but that's neither here nor there. He had to go, and those to who helped him along will be fondly remembered by history.
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Z
Bulldog (over 250 posts)
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Post by Z on Jun 4, 2005 21:40:25 GMT -5
"thanks" dfw. the stein article is here: www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=8255money quote: " lood will tell, as the old saying goes: [Mark Felt's] posterity is now dragging out his old body and putting it on display to make money. (Have you noticed how Mark Felt looks like one of those old Nazi war criminals they find in Bolivia or Paraguay? That same, haunted, hunted look combined with a glee at what he has managed to get away with so far?) And it gets worse: it's been reported that Mark Felt is at least part Jewish. The reason this is worse is that at the same time that Mark Felt was betraying Richard Nixon, Nixon was saving Eretz Israel. It is a terrifying chapter in betrayal and ingratitude. If he even knows what shame is, I wonder if he felt a moment's shame as he tortured the man who brought security and salvation to the land of so many of his and my fellow Jews. Somehow, as I look at his demented face, I doubt it."
noonan is here:
www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110006763
money quote:
Even if Mr. Felt had mixed motives, even if he did not choose the most courageous path in attempting to spread what he thought was the truth, his actions might be judged by their fruits. The Washington Post said yesterday that Mr. Felt's information allowed them to continue their probe. That probe brought down a president. Ben Stein is angry but not incorrect: What Mr. Felt helped produce was a weakened president who was a serious president at a serious time. Nixon's ruin led to a cascade of catastrophic events--the crude and humiliating abandonment of Vietnam and the Vietnamese, the rise of a monster named Pol Pot, and millions--millions--killed in his genocide. America lost confidence; the Soviet Union gained brazenness. What a terrible time. Is it terrible when an American president lies and surrounds himself by dirty tricksters? Yes, it is. How about the butchering of children in the South China Sea. Is that worse? Yes. Infinitely, unforgettably and forever.
And so the story that Mark Felt was Deep Throat exposes old fissures, and those fissures are alive and can burst open because a wound this size--all this death, all this loss--doesn't really heal.
Maybe the big lesson on Felt and Watergate is as simple as the law of unintended consequences. You do something and things happen and you don't mean them to, and if you could take it back you would, but it's too late. The repercussions have already repercussed. Mark Felt cannot have intended to encourage such epic destruction. He must have thought he was doing the right thing, protecting his agency and maybe getting some forgivable glee out of making Nixon look bad. But oh the implications. Literally: the horror.
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Z
Bulldog (over 250 posts)
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Post by Z on Jun 4, 2005 21:40:52 GMT -5
i guess great minds think alike NYC!!!
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nychoya3
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Post by nychoya3 on Jun 4, 2005 21:48:34 GMT -5
Very, very much alike apparently. LOL. Though I think those quotes would jump out at anyone misfortunate enough to read those articles.
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Post by HoyaLawya on Jun 4, 2005 23:20:12 GMT -5
Ben Stein and Peggy Noonan went over-the-top with their "blame Mark Felt for Cambodian genocide" line of reasoning. But their past lives as staffers in the Nixon White House go a long way in understanding their axe. Like others who've posted about how the recent revelation identifying Deep Throat resonates, I can only concur. Big time. Was at GULC during the Watergate era. Had Sam Dash teach my Ethics class. Used to see Charles Ruff around the law center where he was an adjunct, concurrent with the time that he'd joined the Special Prosecutor's office where he eventually went on to become the 4th (in a series) of Special Prosecutors who wound up doing mop-up operations at the tail end of all the probing. Used to see Peter Rodino on a regular basis all during Watergate because my job on Capitol Hill was in the same building where he had his offices. Had a working association (case referrals down to D.C. ) later on in life (during the 1980's when I had relocated to NYC) with Jake Stein, with whom many late-afternoon phone conversations would become a "special treat" as we left the topic of the case at hand and Jake would then take a trip down memory lane about some of his encounters with so many of the Watergate players. (He had played a "bit role" due to his own representation of Nixon's former campaign counsel -- who incidentally might have been the only person at CREEP who didn't end up serving a jail sentence.) But those are simply the "resonates with me" recollections of somebody who was in D.C. at the time and -- like probably thousands of others who worked on the Hill, or hundreds of others who were at GULC -- would be of the "same vein" because of ties to a certain place during a certain time. The real stunner was to find out that Deep Throat is somebody who's from the same small town that I'm from, and that he's somebody I met (albeit very briefly) at one of the State Society gatherings in D.C. shortly after first arriving. Sorry ... no tidbits of insight from me resulting from that encounter! He seemed like a bland, middle-aged guy ... ;D ;D ;D Hey .... if I'd have KNOWN what was going to unfold 30+ years later, ol' HoyaLawya would have been prying that "bland guy" with lots of malted beverages! Although his name had come up on lists over the years of "possible Deep Throats" I personally always thought that the "real source" would turn out to be either a composite (several people) or somebody at the White House. Mostly due to the range of information which seemed to go so far into crevices at the White House as to be beyond what even a top FBI official could ferret out. Local friends out in the old hometown report that the media frenzy that blew into the Magic Valley wanting to locate old 1931 high school yearbooks showing Mark Felt in all his "Bruin glory" as a member of the TFHS basketball team took a few days to die down. Felt's motives for what he did back in '72, '73, '74 and the decision he made to use the press as his outlet are probably a mixed bag. Given his frailty in old age, he's in no position to answer to motives at this late date. Given human nature and the inclination to put the "best spin" on one's conduct, even an F. Mark Felt in robust health would probably not give answers that rang true to many people. Another odd tidbit .... which really brings this thread full circle ... one of my children (!!!) was at a gathering with Ben Stein just over a week ago out in California. NevadaHoya and DFW, I'll have to PM you on that encounter offline. It's a GEM!
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vagrant
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Post by vagrant on Jun 6, 2005 21:24:00 GMT -5
Mr. Felt is a shameless recreant. I will not judge the reasons for his decision to talk to the Post, be they selfish, agenda-ridden, or patriotic. I do take issue, however, with the way he went about it. If you truly believe that America would be better served by the divulging of the situation, then say it and identify yourself. If you are willing to bring down the President of the USA, rightly or wrongly, whether he needed to be brought down or not, then be willing to take your lumps and accept the public judgement for your actions. In the aforementioned comparison to revolutionary Americans and King George, please be reminded that King George knew very welll who opposed his actions. We did not blame on the French or the Indians. By the way, I was at GU during the Nixon administration and did not support Nixon or his administration at that time, nor do I support him now. But I did detest the Post's irreverent way of reporting then as I do now. The "Tricia likes Young Cox" front page headline was a little over the top, for example.
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nychoya3
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Post by nychoya3 on Jun 6, 2005 23:10:39 GMT -5
From the AJR: "The Nixon administration variously investigated, wiretapped and audited the income tax returns of numerous reporters. In all, more than 50 journalists appeared on a special White House "enemies list." Nixon's otherwise pro-business Justice Department filed antitrust charges against all three broadcast networks. As Woodward reported a year after Nixon's resignation, Nixon himself allegedly ordered an aide to falsely smear syndicated columnist Jack Anderson as a homosexual, and two White House aides held a clandestine meeting to plot ways to poison the troublesome journalist. In many respects, reporters who investigated Nixon were less hunters than prey."
Felt may well be a snake, and I suppose he could have resigned and gone public. The fact that he doesn't does cast certain doubts on his motives. That said, he couldn't go to his superior in the FBI, who was a newly appointed Nixon flunky and the AG, Mitchell, was of course intimately involved in the coverup effort.
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Cambridge
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Post by Cambridge on Jun 7, 2005 11:26:46 GMT -5
In the aforementioned comparison to revolutionary Americans and King George, please be reminded that King George knew very welll who opposed his actions. We did not blame on the French or the Indians. Sitting in my office, looking out over the Boston harbor...I laughed a little reading this comment. Apparently you've never taken the Boston Tea Party tour up here in the hub. Why do you think our old ball club was called the Boston Braves?
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CTHoya08
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Post by CTHoya08 on Jun 7, 2005 14:08:58 GMT -5
Wasn't the Tea Party kind of a big joke though? I seem to remember learning that the colonists throwing the tea into the harbor didn't fool anyone, and didn't really expect to.
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Cambridge
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Post by Cambridge on Jun 7, 2005 14:30:17 GMT -5
Oh I'm sure no one had any doubt that it wasn't the restless natives...but it did successfully mask the identities of the participants and cause enough doubt to prevent individual prosecution.
Not to mention there is a long, storied history in the US of crimes/actions being blamed on the Native Americans...
On a side note, here is the song those patriots sang as they headed to the docks:
"Rally, Mohawks - bring out your axes! And tell King George we'll pay no taxes on his foreign tea! His threats are vain - and vain to think To force our girls and wives to drink His vile Bohea! Then rally boys, and hasten on To meet our Chiefs at the Green Dragon. Our Warren's there, and bold Revere, With hands to do and words to cheer For Liberty and Laws! Our country's "Braves" and firm defenders Shall ne'er be left by true North-Enders, Fighting Freedom's cause! Then rally boys and hasten on to meet our Chiefs at the Green Dragon. "
After the JP Morgan Corporate Challenge Race this evening I'm heading to the Green Dragon with my colleagues/fellow racers for dinner...so it was on my mind when I read and responded to that post.
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vagrant
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Post by vagrant on Jun 8, 2005 8:38:29 GMT -5
Cambridge--Although your view of historic Boston Harbor must be exquisite, it was not Boston, but rather, Philadelphia that I was thinking about. It was in that city where that Declaration was signed in defiance of King George in an attempt, at least in terms of the American colonies, to render the Crown a nugatory entity. Whereas I admire the courage of the men and women of Massachussetts, it was the big cojones of the gathering in Philadelphia which I was thinking about when I posted. That Declaration signed on that day in 1776, in my opinion, is the greatest socio-political statement in the history of human civilizattion. Peace Profound vagrant
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Cambridge
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Post by Cambridge on Jun 8, 2005 9:13:15 GMT -5
That Declaration signed on that day in 1776, in my opinion, is the greatest socio-political statement in the history of human civilizattion.Certainly spoken like a true American. PS. I don't mean that in any disrespectful way, as I tend to agree, but having been born in England to a very English household...I find it humurous that the perspectives on history are so vastly different between nations with such an intertwined past.
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CTHoya08
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Post by CTHoya08 on Jun 8, 2005 10:29:24 GMT -5
The other day I saw a thread on an IMDb board all about how Britain and Russia could have easily defeated Germany in WWII without US aid, which blew up into a 300 post flame war.
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Post by StPetersburgHoya (Inactive) on Jun 8, 2005 22:48:51 GMT -5
The other day I saw a thread on an IMDb board all about how Britain and Russia could have easily defeated Germany in WWII without US aid, which blew up into a 300 post flame war. As someone who has recently come back from Russia that is what they literally believe. I always avoid talking about it with Russian friends. They honestly believe: 1) Lend-lease either did not exist or was not significant 2) Stalin had direct control over the Red Army 3) The first two years of WWII when Russia invaded most of its neighbors and assumed them into the Soviet Union did not happen 4) The Warsaw uprising did not happen 5) They also liberated Yugoslavia
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Post by *HoyaFan* on Jun 12, 2005 17:58:47 GMT -5
hamdi and padilla off the top of my head thebin Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that both Hamdi and Padilla were formally indicted within the time limits set forth by federal law. I think what you're referring to is the many (who knows how many) people in this country subjected to indefinite detention on "material witness" warrants.
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