by isachar » Fri Apr 28, 2006 5:55 pm
I was watching a PBS show last night produced for the 30th anniversary of the Watergate affair.<br><br>I was in high school when the break-in at Democrati HQ was discovered and knew intuitively at that time that this could have happened only with the knowledge, consent and orchestration of the highest levels of the Nixon Admin and the CREEP.<br><br>The program highlighted two points that had previously escaped me.<br><br>1) I think it was Egil "Bud" Krogh who noted that (30 years later in his interview for this documentary) that one of the primary reasons why Nixon was so upset at being investigated by the Senate Committee (Ervin, Weicher, Baker, Inouye, Thompson etc) and why he refused (initially) to step down. That being that Nixon was infuriated because previous Presidents had done similar or worse things and had gotten away with them. He, (Nixon) was being held to a standard of accountability that other Presidents had escaped. What might those other "worse than Waterate" events have been?<br><br>Well, I can certainly think of what some of them were, like Tonkin Gulf, the CIA smuggling heroin into the U.S. in body bags during Nam, the Kennedy, MLK and RFK assassinations, possibly the attempt on G. Wallace's life, cointelpro, Northwoods, etc., and collusion of high level law enforcement/government agencies with organized crime. <br><br>But there must be dozens of other events/instances/crimes which continue to remain unknown in whole or in part. Nixon thought the Watergate break-in was just a two-bit burglary. Krogh was clearly conveying that Nixon was aware of far worse crimes that had been committed by his predecessors. <br><br>2) Gordon Liddy was said to have proposed to John Mitchell that he would set up a luxury houseboat at the Washington Marina with two-way mirrors, taping devices and cameras where he would lure various Congressmen, Senators (of both parties), reporters, etc. with hookers "the finest ones from Baltimore." They would gather incriminating evidence to use to gain their cooperation, support or acquiesence as necessary.<br><br>Sounds remarkably like the recently exposed hooker/limo services made available to various Congressmen over the last several years. This tactic has probably been liberally employed throughout the years with male and/or female hookers depending upon the preferences of the stooge and the level of pressure needed to obtain the stooge's cooperation, silence, vote or whatever.<br><br>Those of us in the US have been living in a phony republic since --- well, its hard to say since when. Certainly since Roosevelt and possibly since Wilson. One could even extend it back to Lincoln, the first Pres to suspend parts of the Constitution and extend its powers.<br><br>But its clearly gotten worse, much worse. Iran-Contra was far worse than Watergate, IMO and the phony Iraq War and the other catalogue of Bushco's crimes far exceed Iran-Contra. <p></p><i></i>
