I looked it up in Wikipedia, where it's a subsection of the article "Limited hangout."
Here's the origin story:
In a March 22, 1973, meeting between United States President Richard Nixon, John Dean, John Ehrlichman, John N. Mitchell, and H. R. Haldeman, Ehrlichman incorporated the term into a new and related one, "modified limited hangout." The phrase was coined in the following exchange:PRESIDENT: You think, you think we want to, want to go this route now? And the – let it hang out, so to speak?DEAN: Well, it's, it isn't really that –HALDEMAN: It's a limited hang out.DEAN: It's a limited hang out.EHRLICHMAN: It's a modified limited hang out.PRESIDENT: Well, it's only the questions of the thing hanging out publicly or privately.
Wikipedia provides a brief subsequent history of the expression:
The phrase has been cited as a summation of the strategy of mixing partial admissions with misinformation and resistance to further investigation, and is used in political commentary to accuse people or groups of following a Nixon-like strategy. It has also been described as the release of a package of sensitive information mixed with discoverable falsehoods in hopes that discovery of the falsity of part will lead to the entire package being considered false, and as the release of a package with a core of falsehoods wrapped in secret but verifiable information in hopes that verification of the wrapping will reinforce the believability of the false core.
See how useful this phrase is?
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This takes me back. I was home from college the summer of those hearings, working as a waitress at night, and had all day to watch the hearings, and when that witness dropped the bomb that there were tapes of all conversations in the Oval Office, woweee, what entertainment.
Back at school that fall the book came out with texts of the tapes, and I was struck at what I called Robot Poetry of the conversations, each one echoing off the others. It was so cool, I wrote a paper about what a fine theatrical performance it might be to use the text as script -- our bright Oval Office, now spotlighted in darkness.
And the text Ms. Althouse pulled is a sample of that (rather maddening) Robot Poetry.
Can't help but grin.
GR at Insty often uses that phrase.
Glenn R at Insty often uses that phrase.
Funny how so much of the lies like woodwards background and as with mark felt was left out of the story
"John Dean, John Ehrlichman, John N. Mitchell,"
There were a lot of Johns in that circle. I wonder if it gave the writers of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension the idea for having all of the aliens being named John,(something).
If a republican breathes sell its a crime when dems sell the country out the problem is the onvestigator starr walpin et al
https://amgreatness.com/2023/03/02/voters-suspect-federal-involvement-in-j6-want-tapes-released/
At some time in the last twenty years or so, my position on "modified limited hangout" went from "What the hell does that even mean?" to assuming that nearly every important news story is part of someone's modified limited hangout.
I wish I knew if that were a symptom of my age or one of the age. Either way, I'm not happy about it.
So a MLHO can be used either to make the entire package seem false, or in hopes that the bits of true material will make the false core seem to be true. It works by creating a wilderness of mirrors. Aren't we in the midst of MLHOs regarding, for instance, origin of the virus, masking inefficacy, government's role in the 1/6 events, fecklessness of vaccinating children for COVID, and a host of other news cycle excitements? It's a strategy that will never go away.
. . . I said earlier, "I can't help but grin"
Much of that grin is a wince seeing how manipulated I was back then by the same forces that really went exponentially PsyOps to get Obama in office, and now have been so relentless against the game-changer Trump.
Oh, to be young, full of myself -- but not as naive -- again.
Because they worked for nixon, dean sold out (because he was guilty as most) now when the table is turned the dems are victims poor susan mcdougal hillary et al
"Under the microscope
You can travel anywhere and hang yourself there
You always got more than enough rope"
Wuhan is perhaps the greatest crime in human memory enabled by a whole host of agencies in many countries
I’ve never experienced a “modified limited hangout.”
Eh-except sometimes, when I'm wearin' pajamas.
A Whitehouse with a revolving door, a Capitol with an erected wall, a President abroad to feather his trail.
Seems like a good time to revive another old but goodie.
"It's not the crime, it's the cover-up."
Good one, Wince.
I think 'modified limited hangout' ought to have a tag of its own.
As noted earlier, MLHO must be assumed in all public political statements when the lie isn't glaringly obvious.
Limited nothing. I'm thinking "Let it all Hang Out".
https://youtu.be/VqJqNly2UZI
Compare Nixon's tape machine to Hillary's server.
Then compare Nixon's plumbers to Hillary's Russian dossier.
Tell me again how evil Nixon was and how good Hillary is....
I'll always have a soft spot for G. Gordon Liddy. Yes he was a bastard, but he was our bastard.
Ha! Thanks, Professor, for taking the time to go into the history and meaning of this term. I've been too lazy to do so, so I've wrongly assumed that it meant some kind of restricted gathering to which only a select few were invited to "hang out" with those in the know. And in most situations where I saw it used, the context clues seemed to reinforce that erroneous assumption.
Watergate is under-appreciated for its contribution to the language--twisting slowly in the wind, coverup not the crime (noted by Christopher B), what did the president know and when did he know it. I thought of another one after observing the highly selective curation by the J6 committee: I want to see the whole enchilada!
It's not the cya, it's the wardrobe malfunction.
"Modified Limited Hangout" would be a great name for a bar.
"I think 'modified limited hangout' ought to have a tag of its own."
The correct tag, in my system, is "propaganda."
I would only create a separate tag if there were enough of a phenomenon of people using those words.
I thought of the term after asking "Why are they telling the truth now?"
And it immediately seemed clear to me that it was only partial truth and it was being told now because the larger truth was threatening to come into view. By telling the partial truth, they're trying to throw people off or to prepare them to say — later, when more does come out — oh, that's nothing, we already knew that.
"oh, that's nothing, we already knew that."
Clintonian "Old News" redux. Some people love it.
because I read james hougan's spooks, I got a much bigger picture of covert operation, at home and abroad, going back some 20 years, that deal with hughes operating against onassis was one,
hougan thought haig was woodwards source, a reasonable conjecture, considering their background,
Wilbur said...
Good one, Wince.
Credit where it's due: It's one of my favorite South Park quotes from Butters.
"Eh-except sometimes, when I'm wearin' pajamas."
PRESIDENT: You think, you think we want to, want to go this route now? And the – let it hang out, so to speak?
DEAN: Well, it's, it isn't really that –
HALDEMAN: It's a limited hang out.
DEAN: It's a limited hang out.
EHRLICHMAN: It's a modified limited hang out.
PRESIDENT: Well, it's only the questions of the thing hanging out publicly or privately.
It's funnier if you think of it as a Cheech and Chong routine.
The unfolding of this moment is told by Garrett Graff, in "Watergate: A New History," on p. 334; it's an amazingly good book:
https://books.google.com/books?id=SPynEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA334&lpg=PA334&dq=garrett+graff+limited+modified+hangout&source=bl&ots=AzXgaEAOmS&sig=ACfU3U2twJ82uit4yE7C2P6XGmrfsVnZGw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj4x_ninL_9AhVAmmoFHcRsBzgQ6AF6BAgSEAM#v=onepage&q=garrett%20graff%20limited%20modified%20hangout&f=false
Kunstler uses MLHO at Clusterfuck Nation today, in re: Chief FBIer Wray's recent testimony about Covid.
The Google Ngram viewer for "modified limited hangout" shows big peaks in 1976 and 1992-96:
Ngram Modified Limited Hangout
The same search for "modified limited hang out" has a huge peak at 1974-76 and then a much smaller bump around 96-2000:
Ngram modified limited hang out
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