October 4, 2019

"It is as if Nixon held a press conference and began it by saying, 'Yes, I’m a crook. And the American people deserve to know it.'"

"'But McGovern would have been a terrible president and so it was entirely worthwhile. Sure, I committed a high crime in tampering with the last election. But sometimes high crimes are necessary to save the country from the Democrats.' Nixon, for all his profound flaws, would never have said such a thing. His cover-up was, in a way, a tribute to the rule of law the way hypocrisy is often a tribute to virtue. He had some reverence for the Constitution, even as he betrayed it. He had some sense of responsibility for the wider system of government, and for his own political party, even as he struggled to save himself. Nixon committed high crimes — but, unlike Trump, he didn’t celebrate or publicize them or declare them legal and simply dare the body politic to take him down."

Writes Andrew Sullivan (in "Trump Is Begging to Be Impeached. Give Him What He Wants — Immediately" in New York Magazine).

But it isn't as if Nixon held a press conference and said "I’m a crook." It's as if Nixon had stepped down from his "I am not a crook" abstraction and said "I worked to cover up the break in and it was perfectly legal and done for the good of the country." Many people would have been shocked. They'd call the President a liar and lecture righteously about the real meaning of the law. That would be the analogy to Trump. And — who knows? — maybe if Nixon had the Trumpian style, he'd have toughed it out and kept his partisans from cutting off their support and dooming him.

And here's a funny sentence from Sullivan: "Nixon ordered the break-in and the cover-up and tried to keep it all on the down low, where indeed it might have stayed if he hadn’t taped all his incriminating conversations."

Nixon ordered the break-in?! Who says that?!

I googled my question and came up with "Did Nixon really order the Watergate break-in?" a 2014 article by Timothy Noah (at MSNBC), which looked at a then-new book by John Dean, "The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It." MSNBC, John Dean... this is the anti-Nixon view:
Who ordered it? “There is no evidence,” Dean writes, “in all the Nixon-Watergate-related conversations that anyone in the White House had advance knowledge that Liddy was going into the Watergate.” By “evidence” Dean must mean “definitive evidence,” because he quotes Haldeman saying that setting up the espionage team for Nixon’s re-election had been the idea of campaign chief and former attorney general John Mitchell. “Mitchell,” Haldeman told Nixon several months later, “was pushing” for “[s]ecret papers, and financial data that [DNC Chairman Lawrence] O’Brien had, that he was going to get.”...
(In the Watergate tapes, Nixon repeatedly asks why and how the break-in occurred, but of course he alone knew that future generations were listening in. It’s also possible he couldn’t remember whether he’d ordered the break-in or not. Dean thinks Nixon was haunted by the possibility that he might have and then forgotten about it. Nixon was, after all, already in the break-ins business, having previously ordered the firebombing of the liberal Brookings Institution to steal some files – a yarn too rococo to detail here. Happily, that order was never carried out.)
Sullivan's "Nixon ordered the break-in" is — as they say — fake news. It was a bad analogy anyway, because Trump's open acknowledgement that he wanted Ukraine to investigate Biden is not the same as saying "I’m a crook," but by tossing in "Nixon ordered the break-in," Sullivan really makes a hash of it.

And I don't know if Sullivan wrote the headline — "Trump Is Begging to Be Impeached. Give Him What He Wants — Immediately" — but it carries a repulsive blaming-the-victim logic that he (and New York Magazine) should disown. Immediately. Somebody thinks that's funny and incisive, but it smells like the despicable response to rape and other physical violence: She was begging for it and got what she wanted.

The only other way to think of begging for it is in the Br'er Rabbit sense — that the seeming victim wants you to fall into a trap. And that can't be what Sullivan is thinking (though it may be what Trump is doing)?

93 comments:

Mike Sylwester said...

The break-in was ordered by John Dean.

He wanted to know what was going on between the DNC and his girlfriend Maureen "Mo" Kane.

Bay Area Guy said...

Has Sullivan located Sarah Palin's uterus yet? The man tends to hyperventilate a lot about politics.

In Watergate, there was a burglary of the DNC headquarters.

What precisely are the alleged "High Crines & Misdemeanors" that support the impeachment here, Andy?

Yancey Ward said...

No, the right way to say it is that it is Trump standing up and saying "Joe Biden is a crook."

That is the fundamental problem with impeaching Trump. It isn't like Trump asked them to just find dirt on Biden- he is asking them to investigate Biden for a very specific instance that looks like corruption, sounds like corruption, and smells like corruption.

The media can't really hide Biden's problems, though- that video can't be squashed, and Hunter Biden can't deny foreign countries were paying him obscene amounts of money. All the Bidens can do is try to argue Hunter Biden got all this money for things having nothing to do who his father was and the position he held, but even die-hard Trump haters don't really believe that lie, but most are willing to look stupid in pretending to believe it- the average independent isn't going to believe it at all. This will be front and center in Trump defense- his lawyers will make the prima facie case that Biden really is corrupt, and they might make the case even stronger than that.

ga6 said...

"Nixon ordered..." For this one sentence Andrew should never be taken seriously gain, and everything he now writes should be judged a lie unless proven differently.

Yancey Ward said...

I am not sure the headline is wrong- part of me does think Trump is goading an impeachment. It may well be that his lawyers are holding back some very powerful evidence against Biden and the previous coup plotters and feel the only forum where it will be unignorable by the mass media is a Senate trial. Trump is gambler, but not a reckless one that I have seen. He seems to be shoving against short stacks just before the money bubble of poker tournament.

rhhardin said...

Nixon as far as I know always did what he thought was best for the country, as Trump does.

Yancey Ward said...

And Althouse is right- all the evidence suggests that Nixon only learned of the break-in after it happened. There is also quite a bit of evidence that Dean's part was a great deal more than he let on, but he was smart enough to extricate himself early on by turning on Nixon.

Wally Kalbacken said...

John Dean makes me sick. Every time he writes on Justia - I comment that they forgot to identify him as a convicted felon. And the post usually stays up for about 10 minutes.

Jon Burack said...

I am stuck on the riddle as to why anyone things what Trump did was in the least illegal or even out of the ordinary for American presidents. As to his goading the press about Biden, that is what it is - goading. It is not illegal for him to talk trash to the press. As for Ukraine (or China) he has not bribed anyone. Nothing compares with the obviously illegal break-in at a hotel. He asked for assistance in a legitimate Justice Department matter. As for his making a big deal about Biden, it is not far off from the way Democrats talk about Trump all the time.

Sebastian said...

"It is as if Nixon held a press conference and began it by saying, 'Yes, I’m a crook.'"

Huh?

In fact, Trump is saying: Me, a crook? The other guys are crooks. They have peddled influence. They have been paid by foreign interests that tried to buy influence. They worked with foreigners to influence an election by trying to dig up dirt on me. We should find out how bad it was. And they have the gall to accuse me? And the media are falling for it? This is worse than fake news.

MikeR said...

Pretty confused article by Sullivan. '“Most impt. is for Zelensky to say he will help investigation.” “Heard from White House — assuming president Z convinces trump he will investigate/ ‘get to the bottom of what happened’ in 2016," etc. Apparently Sullivan thinks that "the investigation" means Biden. No, it means the investigation(s) of the origins of the Mueller Investigation. Does anyone think that there's someone impeachable about that?
"The chair of the Federal Election Committee, Ellen Weintraub, tweeted the bleeding obvious yesterday..." So the impeachable offense is a campaign finance violation? Really?
Arguing past the sale, Andrew. First convince me that there is something wrong here. Maybe Trump doesn't mind it being public because he doesn't think so.

Jeff Brokaw said...

Sullivan is wrong again? Huh. What are the odds?

Rabel said...

Sullivan begins that rant with the lie that Trump asked Russia to hack Clinton's emails. Sullivan is a smart man. He knows, he must know, that that is a lie.

To hell with him.

Ray - SoCal said...

Wonderful picture of the statue!

I don't know what Pelosi is going to do. My guess is she is regretting bringing this up.

Options:

1. No vote for formal impeachment - Try to keep the smoke going with lots of investigations on Trump in the 6 of so house committees. But Trump has made this harder, politically.

2. Vote on formal impeachment ASAP and give it to the Senate, where it may die a quick death. Then Pelosi can claim at least she tried. Problem with this is it puts members in swing districts, on the record.

3. Delay a vote on formal impeachment, leaving the investigations hanging over Trumps head, and saying the Dems need to look into it more. But this gets into the you can't do this during an election year BS.

4. Declare Victory, say the votes were not there, and walk away from this fiasco.

Looks like #2 was what she was going to do, but now with how the Ukraine Fiasco has disintegrated? The four Pinocchio rating from the WaPo is not a good sign.

Perhaps the house will wait, and replace it with the IRS Whistleblower case. The speed that Pelosi tried to ram this through is strange. Why? Perhaps as a way to muddy the water from what Barr will be coming out with, on the 2016 origins that looks to be horrible.

Left Bank of the Charles said...

“It’s as if Nixon held a press conference and claimed that the 18 1/2 minute gap on the tape would have proved his innocence, but someone in the deep state erased it.” - there, fixed it.

Kevin said...

He had some reverence for the Constitution, even as he betrayed it.

Please. They can't even cite a law that was broken, so they go around muttering about Trump betraying the Constitution to make impeachment sound legitimate.

Apparently "outside the norms" and "unpresidential" weren't polling well enough.

Andrew said...

Based on past experience, my guess is that Trump has numerous cards that he's holding close to his chest. When the timing is right, he'll play them one by one. I think the Dems are truly panicking. Whoever the nominee is for the Dems is going to be a sacrificial lamb. The entire party is about to be decimated.

Todd said...

It appears that every single MSM story on this topic starts with the assumed position of "Trump is GUILTY (of something)". They never bother to say what exactly Trump is guilty of that would raise to the level of impeachment. I guess they just assume that if Congress goes looking long enough they will find something to work with, cause "as every [right thinking] individual knows" Trump is destroying this great country! amiright?

gilbar said...

I see that the Anti-Trump Drudge Report has a thing on their front page, Shouting
45% Support Impeachment!!!!

I'm Guessing, that to an Anti-Trump site like the Drudge Report; that's Good News.
But, As Al Smith would say; Let's look at the record.

It takes More Than 50% of the US House to Impeach...
People Polled aren't the US House, but 45% is NOT more than 50%

It takes More than two thirds* vote in the US Senate to Convict and Remove
People Polled aren't the US Senate, but 45% is NOT more than More than two thirds

So, the polling numbers do NOT show support for Impeachment, let alone Conviction and Removal
And, YET; the Anti-Trump sites are blaring these results; acting like it confirms them


More than two thirds* it TAKES two thirds, but Fractional Votes are not allowed; show 67 Votes currently

mccullough said...

If Trump had been Nixon, he’d come out and tell the public all the shit that FDR, JFK, and LBJ had done. He’d also have shown the public what a throne sniffer to Dems that Ben Bradley was. Trump also would have named Mark Felt and shown all the shit he pulled.

Watergate would have been justified as an act of self defense.

Asking China and Ukraine to investigate the Bidens is Trump’s way of saying Ukraine, China, and the Biden’s are all corrupt and full of shit.

Trump is showing all of them are full of shit.

I like this approach. Spare us all the bullshit.

narciso said...

the brookings bombing was suggested by colson, if memory serves, to cover for recovering documents from the Johnson administration, about the origin of the war, you don't think Ellsberg did an extensive review do you, mark moyar gives the lie to that,

Ken B said...

Sullivan is implicitly arguing Nixon is better because Nixon lied isn’t he?

No, Nixon did not order the break in. This is quite well known. It is not a small matter, nor a difficult one to check, nor one anyone who knows the history has any doubt about. Proof enough I think that he does not care about being accurate.

Bill Harshaw said...

Nixon was saved from a conspiracy to commit a crime (the Brookings deal) by the refusal of his subordinates to go along with his deranged orders. Trump has been saved from some crimes by the incompetence of his subordinates and others by the refusal of his subordinates to go along with his orders (i.e., McGahn).

gilbar said...

Does Anyone think that Being Impeached would hurt a President?
CAN Anyone show ANY TIME that Being hurt A President?
Can ANYONE SHOW ANY TIME that having people so much as Talk about Impeachment hurt a President?

President Johnson was never elected, and never was going to be able to run for election; he was hated for his being a Democrat, BEFORE he was Impeached: Can anyone show it hurt HIM?

People (imho) are NOT going to say;
"I supported the President, up to and until i heard about the Impeachment Proceedings... Now i want him Gone"

Bilwick said...

I never understood how Nixon's "I am not a crook" statement is always viewed ironically: i.e., he certainly was a crook! Especially when the irony is coming from "liberals," the scummiest and most dishonest gang on the block. How was Nixon a crook? What did he steal?

tim in vermont said...

"I am not a crook" abstraction and said "I worked to cover up the break in and it was perfectly legal and done for the good of the country."

OK, where was the “break in” in your analogy? What was done that was illegal by the Trump side?

The only “break in” on opposition headquarters was by the Democrats using their operatives in the NSA, CIA, IRS, FBI, FEC, etc, etc, etc.

Andrew said...

Based on past experience, my guess is that Trump has numerous cards that he's holding close to his chest. When the timing is right, he'll play them one by one. I think the Dems are truly panicking. Whoever the nominee is for the Dems is going to be a sacrificial lamb. The entire party is about to be decimated.

narciso said...

also, tomato tomatoe, Johnson was selling the south Vietnamese out, in 1968, Claire Chennault just reminded them where that ends up, after all Taiwan was an ostensible ally of the united states, as south Vietnam was 20 years later,

Skeptical Voter said...

On the assumption that impeachment is not about the law, but about politics, Trump is playing a pretty decent game.

He says, "Come on Nancy, put your money where your mouth and Schiffty is! I'm not going to cooperate with Congress until you hold a formal vote on opening impeachment proceedings".

It's a gamble, but it's got a lot of pluses. A. Representatives have to go on record. That means that some of them, maybe a lot of them, will lose their seats in November 2020.
B. Nancy may in fact not have 218 votes (see A above). If she can't rustle them up, she's going to look like a chump. C. The formal process will allow for subpenas--which can be challenged in court. Courts might find that Congress is overreaching. It will also allow Republican committee members to speak in open hearings.

I'd say "Go for it." Of course the downside is that articles of impeachment may in fact be adopted. But the Dems are already working hard to muddy him up. As they have indeed been doing for almost three years now.

Shouting Thomas said...

I watched the video in which Joe Biden bragged about extorting bribes and strong arming Ukraine into dismissing prosecution of his son.

I’m tired of fucking liars like Sullivan trying to tell me that is not the case.

Trump did the right thing in calling out the Bidens’ extortion and bribery rackets.

In fact, Trump did what was morally right.

narciso said...

Nixon had some tax issues, because of changes in the deductability of presidential papers, if you assume political surveillance, is out of bounds, then it's unethical,

niall ferguson, in his bio of Kissinger had a much more nuanced view of what was going on in the summer and fall of 1968, it's the first volume,

tim in vermont said...

"People Polled aren't the US House, but 45% is NOT more than 50%”

Huge numbers of these people are lopsidedly in safe Democrat districts. The number in swing districts cannot be nearly as high, its simple statistics. Do you think that the numbers in a district that elected Trump but then voted in a Democrat in the heat of the Mueller persecution are anywhere near the numbers in populous districts in Manhattan, Brooklyn, LA, Chicago, where nobody ever gets to hear the other side unless they go looking for it?

Pelosi owes her speakership to 30 districts that voted for Trump. The numbers there are nothing like “45%."

Michael K said...

Pat Buchanan , in his book discusses this. His conclusion is that Nixon would ruminate and mull over issues and sometimes give an order that he thought better of later. Pat wrote that he would get a call in the morning reversing some order the night before. One of the other White House staff told him that Nixon probably told someone to do that and "the son of a bitch went right out and did it" instead of waiting for second thoughts, .like the regulars did.

Buchanan thinks Dean is a crook and a traitor but does not accuse him of choosing the break-in. Buchanan writes that he was asked to take over the "Plumbers" and refused because he thought it was a crazy idea. He thought they should just turn the "Pentagon Papers" thing over to the FBI. Kissinger was adamant about pursuing Ellsburg,.

tim in vermont said...

"“It’s as if Nixon held a press conference and claimed that the 18 1/2 minute gap on the tape would have proved his innocence, but someone in the deep state erased it.” - there, fixed it.

Or Hillary Clinton deleted 33K emails and countless other federal records and said they were about yoga and grandchildren.

narciso said...

now the dems had a surveillance outfit called intertel, set up by ex nsa, bureau, company personal, including a former kennedy aide, Sheridan, it handled paid clients like the nfl, it was financed through resorts international, yes those guys,

Gunner said...

If we can't expect China to have a legitimate investigation of failson Hunter, why accept any immigrants or tourists from China? They could all be terrorists or criminals that China is lying about! Is this what the Dems nelieve?

tim in vermont said...

The secret to playing chess well is to play from strong positions. To get yourself into strong positions, then ply your advantage. Trump is in the strong position here because the press is not going to be able to cover for Biden forever.

“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” someone once said.

Even the Soviets couldn’t do it with a complete press monopoly.

Ray - SoCal said...

Only 45% support impeachment?

That’s petty bad news for the a Democrat’s.

With probably a biased sampling that over sampled Democrats, much less what was the question. And were they potential voters, or ?

And Rasmussen has a poll that said swing voters were Against impeachment.

Mike Sylwester said...

Andrew Sullivan has HIV.

This essay of his is so scatter-brained that I wonder if he has begun to suffer from dementia.

tim in vermont said...

Tnat 45% number will only rise if actual facts come out. This is so far more four flushing from the Democrats, so the number will drop as the smoke clears, which is why the Democrats want to do this before the smoke clears.

chuck said...

> though it may be what Trump is doing

Scott Adams says it's Trump reversing the script, making impeachment the Democrats' problem. Trump is going to put Congress on trial :) Sounds about right to me.

Left Bank of the Charles said...

"The only other way to think of begging for it is in the Br'er Rabbit sense"

That begs the question, doesn't it?

readering said...

Must be tiring to interference for Trump every day, leading to bizarre rape associations for article by gay man.

readering said...

Scott Adams thing is to flip everything. Pretty empty.

Sprezzatura said...

The only way Althouse knows of the “begging” thing is cause in her world folks say that re rape.

As I was reading the post I could not figure why a fuss re a victim. Then I got to the rape link. Oh, I guess I do have some sense that that could be a thing. Way, way down re any sorta “begging” jabber.

Must be generational.

Or Althouse is especially surrounded by sicko thinking.

rehajm said...

More of that second order shit the media shovels. Since the thing we're saying Trump did isn't a thing at all let's write a high minded story where me make allusions to the thing we say Trump did so we don't have to try and articulate exactly what that thing is...

It's irresponsible journalism.

Sprezzatura said...

The word “begging” is canceled!

Unknown said...

While I was ruminating over a postcard view in Idaho Falls, a fellow came up and engaged me in conversation that somehow came to "I don't see how Christians can support Trump. He broke the law." How, I asked. What law. "Well three days before he took office he was with a whore." Not sure where you heard that, but I'm also not sure that is necessarily illegal. I asked him where he was from, "California." I told him I'm a Christian and although I'm not all that fond of some of the things Trump does and says, I like what he's doing for the country. Pretty much end of conversation, but my takeaway is because Trump doesn't do things Dems like then it's okay to throw mud against the wall to see what sticks. IMHO, Trump's tactics are right out of a Democratic Party Playbook (which is why I don't care for them; however, they do work).

And by the way, the b'rer rabbit story is VERY racist.

narciso said...

well there isn't any evidence of the incident with miss daniels, unlike say with david Vitter, who is now lobbying for the same oligarch who was manafort's business partner at mercury public affairs, the house that steve Schmidt built, they also represent Qatari and Turkish interests,

Lydia said...

That linked MSNBC article also says this:

[Jeb Stuart] Magruder said for the first time [in a 2003 interview] that he’d heard Nixon tell Mitchell, “John, we we need to get the information on Larry O’Brien, and the only way we can do that is through Liddy’s plan. And you need to do that.” Previously, Magruder had never identified anyone higher than Mitchell to have known about the break-in in advance. Now he was saying that Nixon ordered it.

Crimso said...

Ironic, isn't it? They tried so hard to get Trump on obstruction of justice, and when that failed they naturally (for their limited intellects) assumed the opposite might work. "Hey, let's see if we can nail him on facilitation of justice!"

Michael K said...

I'm not going to cooperate with Congress until you hold a formal vote on opening impeachment proceedings".

It's a gamble, but it's got a lot of pluses. A. Representatives have to go on record. That means that some of them, maybe a lot of them, will lose their seats in November 2020.


The Democrats began by threatening a House vote to "put Republicans at risk by making them vote."

Notice that never happened. Now, they are hiding.

Michael K said...

he’d heard Nixon tell Mitchell, “John, we we need to get the information on Larry O’Brien, and the only way we can do that is through Liddy’s plan

If true, that would have been on the tapes. I call bullshit by a guy who went jail and was trying to excuse himself.

narciso said...

so which account are you going to rely on


In his 1974 book, Magruder had said that the only telephone call from the White House during this meeting came from H.R. Haldeman's aide, Gordon C. Strachan. Sixteen years later, in the August 7, 1990 interview with Colodny and Gettlin, Magruder changed his account, claiming that the telephone call from the White House came from Haldeman himself. In 2003, Magruder changed his account again, saying that President Nixon had telephoned Mitchell at the Key Biscayne meeting.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

readering said...
Scott Adams thing is to flip everything. Pretty empty.


They are going to need a bigger boat of bullshit that the one little Scotty captains to get out of this one.

In a way I am glad. The regurgitated Scotty posts were the nadir of this blog. Pretty sure they were the ones that eventually sent Chuck off the deep end.

tim in vermont said...

The Democrats in the press keep using the phrase “investigation that would harm Democrats” for “investigation into election interference in 2016 from the Ukraine on behalf of Hillary.”

It’s an effective strategy. I doubt it will get Warren elected though.

tim maguire said...

The better Nixon analogy is if the Democrats tried to impeach him for going to China.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The definition of "Crook"? = Looking into democrats who might be corrupt.

Hillary/Biden

narciso said...

in thirty years, Magruder has had three different accounts, it's like howard hunt denying complicity in the assassination, for forty years through the liberty lobby libel suit, fletcher prouty ended up there,

narciso said...

at the end of his days, hunt threw in a boullabaise of conspirators, from cord meyer to one of those elusive Corsican shooters, that bill kurtis, was fooled by,

Bay Area Guy said...

We have some subversive Nixon Watergate scholars here -- I like them!

Somebody needs to persuade Althouse to read and review "Silent Coup" and let us pontificate about it in a separate thread.

Of course, for you legal eagles, in 2001, there was the famous Liddy v. Wells lawsuit decision in Federal court. Some serious legal fireworks there.

narciso said...

mission accomplished,

https://dailycaller.com/2019/10/04/ukraine-prosecutor-hunter-biden/

some of the material I sourced from james hougan (aka novelist john case) he thought haig was the likely source, which explained the woodward connection,

rcocean said...

The difference between Nixon and LBJ/JFK/FDR is that the Nixon White House had to do it all themselves. Under LBJ/JFK/FDR its the FBI that broke into people's offices, bugged their phones, and illegally did black bag jobs. LBJ had the FBI bug Nixon, Humphrey, and Wallace in 1968, under the rubric of "National security"

In any case, the only "High Crime" Nixon did was cover up the break-in. Had Nixon acted like Trump, and said "Hey, some of my people broke in to the DNC. I knew nothing about it. Good people. But bad judgement. Had to fire them. I knew nothing about it. And I don't approve of that stuff. But LBJ did much much worse. Much worse. Go read about it. And back in 1968, the fake news said nothing. Now when its Nixon. They hate me. They go crazy. This is all just Presidential harassment by Woodward and Bernstein" he would have survived.

Michael K said...

Somebody needs to persuade Althouse to read and review "Silent Coup"

I did and I have a blog post when Felt exposed his role.

I don't know if all the links still work.

rcocean said...

Sullivan is full of bullshit in any case. There's no equivalence between breaking into the DNC and planting bugs during a POTUS campaign and asking Ukraine to INVESTIGATE Biden's boast that he pressured Ukraine to fire a prosecutor that was looking into Biden's son's crooked Oil Company. No equivalence at all. Asking someone to investigate a possible crime is NOT equivalent to committing a crime!

viator said...

Trump has long trolled the swamp to please don't throw him in the briar patch.

Jim at said...

Pretty sure they were the ones that eventually sent Chuck off the deep end.

Fortunately, it was a short trip for ya, wasn't it?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The democrats and the media cannot be honest.

They want to impeach Trump over Schitt's made-up parody comments.

Drago said...

ARM: "Pretty sure they were the ones that eventually sent Chuck off the deep end."

LOL

LLR Chuck went off the deep end when his Reid Hoffman/Seminar Blogger schtick was exposed and he was no longer able to effectively fake his clear leftist sentiments and beliefs.

dbp said...

A better scenario than Sullivan's and one that doesn't make such a mess of history would be:

Nixon:

Campaign workers, out of misguided loyalty and dedication to me, broke into the Watergate headquarters of the opposition. They had no impact on the election, which was a landslide. I had no prior knowledge of this act and had I known, I would have ordered it halted and fired these campaign workers.

After I was made aware of these events, out of consideration that even though they broke the law, they caused no harm, I misused my position to attempt to protect them. This was wrong, an abuse of power and I apologize.

I will leave it up to Congress to determine if these actions warrant my removal from office.

narciso said...

ah the bulwinkle face palmed into the canyon wall,


https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/10/where-is-joseph-mifsud.php

ga6 said...

"We have some subversive Nixon Watergate scholars here -- I like them!"

I prefer James Ellroy's take on H Hughes, JFK, myself..Fiction but is it?

Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy

dbp said...

rcocean's Suggestion, in nice Trumpian phrasing, would have been better. Nixon would have survived if he had fired everyone responsible once he found out about the break-in.

Gk1 said...

'It appears that every single MSM story on this topic starts with the assumed position of "Trump is GUILTY (of something)". They never bother to say what exactly Trump is guilty of that would raise to the level of impeachment.' What Todd said. Andrew "Milky Loads" begs the question that asking the Ukrainians to look into why a Biden investigation was stopped is "illegal" without really going into why that would be. To liberals It's just a given. Then he spins his Nixon analogy from there. So tedious and so predictable. At least if Pelosi actually launches an impeachment effort they will have to enumerate what laws were broken instead of just bullshitting and hitting the table with their shoes.

Original Mike said...

@Drago - Do you have a link for that, please?

traditionalguy said...

That is a much used phrase when threatened by an opponent. Go ahead and Throw me in the briar patch ...where I will flourish you dummy. Fear is the game of the terrorist. And you never admit you care about their threats.

The Uncle Remus tales are a suppressed movie today. But the theme song is still remembered.

Drago said...

Original Mike: "@Drago - Do you have a link for that, please?"

I'm going to assume you are asking for the Reid Hoffman links.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/reid-hoffman-alabama-special-election-senate-race-russia-interference-disinformation-linkedin-a8700941.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/us/alabama-senate-roy-jones-russia.html

tim in vermont said...

Nixon had an election stolen from him in 1960.

Trump has endured a persecution by Special Counsel based on the grumblings of a sore loser. (More evidence, BTW, that women are unfit to hold high office, look what the ‘woman scorned’ has done to our democracy!)

Original Mike said...

Thanks Drago, but no. I want to understand why Chuck was banned.

narciso said...

maybe the gossiper should plead incompetent council, why aren't they talking about bakaj


https://consortiumnews.com/2019/09/30/john-kiriakou-what-was-this-cia-officer-thinking/

tcrosse said...

Please don't throw me into a suppressed movie!

bagoh20 said...

Nixon was never on offense, tried to hide as much as possible, and had no clear evidence against his attackers. Trump is closer to the opposite of Nixon. Have you seen his wife, and the one before that. Oh, right. Sullivan wouldn't notice.

bagoh20 said...

"At least if Pelosi actually launches an impeachment effort they will have to enumerate what laws were broken..."

I bet they don't.

William said...

I don't know what the opposite of teflon is, but Nixon had about the most adhesive surface of any politician in my lifetime. He was probably significantly less guileful and crafty than, say, FDR or LBJ, but he just looked guilty and evasive. He didn't have much of a gift for the deflection of the slings and arrows. He. rather, had a lot of magnetism when it came to the sharp objects directed at him. You would think that with all his experience, he would be better at dodging them.......I wonder if there will ever be a revisionist account that posits that America was weakened by Nixon's resignation.....JFK won a Pulitzer for his (lol) account of how that Senator greatly served America by voting against impeachment......Trump doesn't have a teflon surface,but his hide is so thick and leathery that he doesn't need one.

Drago said...

Original Mike: "Thanks Drago, but no. I want to understand why Chuck was banned."

It became obvious to our hosts that LLR Chuck was posting in bad faith 24/7 and was purposely disrupting every thread with his far left talking points and obvious lies not to mention his predilection for vulgarity, attacking children and many threats of physical violence.

Smerdyakov said...

Was Trump born and bred in thr briar patch?

narciso said...

It was weakened before the soviets took advantage of the turmoil to launch one attack, kissinger did the airlift, the saudis retaliated with the oil embargo, that made saudis rich, but the corruption provoked juhayman it destabilized iran,

narciso said...

Would afghanistan been more stable less prome to soviet influence, in latin america, its a little unclear now nicaragua might have stabilized for a time, procluding the wave of paramilitaries in surrounding area.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Re: "Nixon ordered the break-in" -- a preposterous howler, but I was so floored by Andrew's use of "on the down low" that I barely noticed. Yeesh, the imagery ...

tim in vermont said...

What is kind of astonishing to me is that the press never once breaks discipline and reports Trump’s side of any of this. If anything close to it comes out, it comes out with a link to a “debunking” that actually does nothing of the sort.

The press are utterly incurious as to the possibility that there are two sides to this story, with the notable exception of The Hill, which may as well not exist as far as the New York Times is concerned, even though The Hill is doing great reporting in this.

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

There are lots of demonstrations of TDS now.
1. The Bidens have made themselves great targets for a thorough investigation. Trump did not do that do them. His suggestion that Ukraine investigate was perfectly sensible, and no law was broken.
2. Of course he is thinking that discrediting Biden might help him in the election. That should not be used to protect Biden from an investigation--again, there is plenty of evidence to suggest an investigation is warranted.
3. If there was evidence of corruption in Ukraine that justified Biden in threatening to cut off funding, then there is similar evidence today--along with the issue of how much NATO partners should contribute to NATO. It is legitimate for a president to consider such matters.
4. I read somewhere that some old Nixon hater was starting to re-consider--hatred of Trump had taken over. Nixon displayed an arguably wise and far-seeing foreign policy (although deliberately extending the Vietnam War so that he, not Johnson, could get credit for ending it, was a dirty trick) combined with liberal domestic policy. What was so bad?
5. Forget Sullivan's fantasies. Could Nixon have said this after the break-in? "Apparently this was done by people working on my campaign. I regret that. I welcome any criminal investigation, and let the chips fall where they may when it comes to my senior campaign team. The law must be respected." Some of his senior people would have had their careers destroyed, but that happened anyway. No obstruction of justice, no proof that Nixon ordered the burglary. But, of course, this somehow wouldn't have been Nixon. "We can raise a million dollars, and we can raise it in cash."

Brian said...

If Andrew Sullivan asks the Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden is it a crime?

If Andrew promises to right articles bout how bad Biden is with the information gleaned is it a campaign violation?

If Andrew runs for dog catcher is it a campaign violation then?

If he says he didn't do anything wrong is it obstruction?

It seems that asking any questions of Democratic candidates fitness is a no-go zone. This wouldn't be a problem except all the media is on one side so Democratic officeholders don't feel any pain in doing corrupt things. They know they have air cover from the powers that be in the Press.

JamesB.BKK said...

Not many will know who Br'er Rabbit is or what he's famous for. The film that made him famous while bringing the races closer together in the US has been memory holed for a long time now on the flimsiest of reasons.