Charles Colson, dead at 80

[JoeB131]

Proof that redemption is always possible.

One look at Cheney and I can't believe in "always possible". That man really and truly is Darth Vader become real. Vile, vicious, evil, without any redeeming qualities.

Maybe you should look without the partisan glasses, then.

Incidently, in the end, Darth Vader did actually redeem himself.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Proof that redemption is always possible.

One look at Cheney and I can't believe in "always possible". That man really and truly is Darth Vader become real. Vile, vicious, evil, without any redeeming qualities.

Maybe you should look without the partisan glasses, then.

Incidently, in the end, Darth Vader did actually redeem himself.

Yabut, first public appearance after Cheney got a new heart was to add to the problems of our country. The man has never done anything good - well, except for shooting his atty friend in the face but he bungled that.

Seriously, his entire reason for existing is to make a profit. From anything and everything. Its just the way he's made.

If he has a Dem counterpart, I will say the same. I just don't know of any and I suspect that's because the Dem mind doesn't work that way.

NO, not that Dems don't want money or that they cannot be crooked but Cheney is the devil incarnate.

 

[techieny]

One look at Cheney and I can't believe in "always possible". That man really and truly is Darth Vader become real. Vile, vicious, evil, without any redeeming qualities.

Maybe you should look without the partisan glasses, then.

Incidently, in the end, Darth Vader did actually redeem himself.

Yabut, first public appearance after Cheney got a new heart was to add to the problems of our country. The man has never done anything good - well, except for shooting his atty friend in the face but he bungled that.

Seriously, his entire reason for existing is to make a profit. From anything and everything. Its just the way he's made.

If he has a Dem counterpart, I will say the same. I just don't know of any and I suspect that's because the Dem mind doesn't work that way.

NO, not that Dems don't want money or that they cannot be crooked but Cheney is the devil incarnate.

You JUST might be the biggest asshole on this forum. Get a frigging life !

 

[Dick Tuck]

Maybe you should look without the partisan glasses, then.

Incidently, in the end, Darth Vader did actually redeem himself.

Yabut, first public appearance after Cheney got a new heart was to add to the problems of our country. The man has never done anything good - well, except for shooting his atty friend in the face but he bungled that.

Seriously, his entire reason for existing is to make a profit. From anything and everything. Its just the way he's made.

If he has a Dem counterpart, I will say the same. I just don't know of any and I suspect that's because the Dem mind doesn't work that way.

NO, not that Dems don't want money or that they cannot be crooked but Cheney is the devil incarnate.

You JUST might be the biggest asshole on this forum. Get a frigging life !

You're a bigger asshole. Smoking and trading some weed? Are you totally retarded?

 

[techieny]

Yabut, first public appearance after Cheney got a new heart was to add to the problems of our country. The man has never done anything good - well, except for shooting his atty friend in the face but he bungled that.

Seriously, his entire reason for existing is to make a profit. From anything and everything. Its just the way he's made.

If he has a Dem counterpart, I will say the same. I just don't know of any and I suspect that's because the Dem mind doesn't work that way.

NO, not that Dems don't want money or that they cannot be crooked but Cheney is the devil incarnate.

You JUST might be the biggest asshole on this forum. Get a frigging life !

You're a bigger asshole. Smoking and trading some weed? Are you totally retarded?

Tuck your little dick in PLEASE !

 

[BDBoop]

/kumbaya

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

I'm sorry. As it turns out? He was human.

He did a great deal of good for a great many people.

yeah, right. buy the bullshit. he did the christian thing. he did a lot of harm to society and to individuals. he never apologized to Elsberg. He stayed mad at Deep Throat/Felt.

He was a prick to the end. No need to glorify him.

Look, my guess is you're not a Christian? Bad doesn't wipe out good, and vice-versa. He did a lot of good for a lot of people.

And he's dead.

He's dead. So now you're picking up a burden that's not yours to carry. He carried his unforgiveness, and now you're carrying the other guy's. You don't have a dog in this hunt. If the worst thing he did after prison was carry a grudge, then Go, CHUCK! Because he could have taken a different path.

But he didn't.

So using your standards and logic it is unfair to say negative things about Stalin, Hiter, etal...?


Being dead does not wipe out past actions. I said I do not doubt Chuck's faith. What I doubt is his makeover. No one is one dimentional -- and that goes for Chuck in spades. He did good deeds. So what. Hitler was very, very, nice to staff and friends. SO nice in fact they refused to recognize his evil side.

 

[BDBoop]

Seriously? You're going to compare him to THEM?

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

I'm not sure why anyone would want to defend Felt at this point.

because whistle blowers are never likeable, but they serve a sacred role. A rat is a rat, but without rats, we are in the jungle.

message to wingnuts/moonbats: I do not have to like somebody in order to defend them...it is what mature people recognize

 

[ladyliberal]

I'm not ready to praise Colson's later life. His genuine charitable works are balanced by views on gay rights, Darwinism, secular society, the invasion of Iraq, etc. that I deeply oppose. He was a partisan political operative who justified his later positions through his own interpretations of the Christian faith.

 

[ladyliberal]

Proof that redemption is always possible.

proof a prick can stay a prick while embracing religion. Chuck stayed a prick. He never apologized to Elsberg and there are other instances of his nasty side that came through his christian shield.

I admired the man for his ability ti be a mean prick. he never really changed. he just found religion, that's all.

and he spent his time with other criminal pricks who fucked society and individuals.



Chuck was a simple man who was hard-headed in everything he did. I do not doubt his passionate embrace of voodoo christianity, but he never apologize to Daniel Elsberg, and ...

Watergate figure Charles Colson has died at 80 *| ajc.com

While he admitted he'd been wrong to do so much of Nixon's dirty work, he remained embittered at one of the sources who'd exposed the wrongdoing. In 2005, when it was revealed that Mark Felt was the infamous "Deep Throat" responsible for the fall of the Nixon administration, Colson was disgusted, having worked so closely with Felt. "He goes out of his life on a very sour note, not as a hero," Colson said.

I]

I'm not sure why anyone would want to defend Felt at this point.

Felt's entire motivation was not "good government" but that he didn't get the job as FBI director after J. Edgar Hoover finally died. So his goal was to put out a bunch of leaks, hoping Nixon would get upset and fire the guy who did get the job. That's actually petty. It is no wonder why Woodward and Bernstein waited something like 35 years to actually expose the fact that they were played and were less than honest about "Deep Throat's" motivations.

Incidently as one of the last sane Republicans, I think it was actually a terrible thing Nixon was taken down. The man was visionary, understood the GOP should be on the right side of working folks. He even tried to implement the Metric System nationally, which is really something that would help us in international trade.

My dad was probalby the last guy to stick up for Nixon, observing pragmatically that Nixon did what everyone else did, he just got caught.

Every subsequent President has just learned to serve up scapegoats.

I realize that this is quite tangential to the thread, but I have to disagree with your characterization of Watergate. While I agree with you that there are things to admire in Nixon's actual political positions, his conduct was both flagrantly criminal and genuinely singular. The sheer degree to which power was abused by Nixon and his direct subordinates went beyond that of any other President of the modern era.

Nixon tried something of this defense himself, as he tried to promote a narrative that "everybody does it". This was true only to a degree, but Nixon seemed to believe it too much himself. For example, he was convinced that LBJ had bugged him, though evidence suggests that LBJ did not.

Felt certainly was upset about being passed over for promotion, but he seems to have also been genuinely opposed to how Nixon ran the FBI. Mostly, Felt wanted the FBI to be independent rather than controlled by the White House, which is not necessarily "good government" but clearly revenge was not his only motive. I agree that Felt's conduct during Watergate was not admirable, and he certainly did some other unrelated bad things (Mark Felt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

There's no denying though that Darth Vader eventually redeemed himself-- that's canonical.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

I'm not ready to praise Colson's later life. His genuine charitable works are balanced by views on gay rights, Darwinism, secular society, the invasion of Iraq, etc. that I deeply oppose. He was a partisan political operative who justified his later positions through his own interpretations of the Christian faith.

 

[JoeB131]

I'm not sure why anyone would want to defend Felt at this point.

because whistle blowers are never likeable, but they serve a sacred role. A rat is a rat, but without rats, we are in the jungle.

message to wingnuts/moonbats: I do not have to like somebody in order to defend them...it is what mature people recognize

Your complaint about Colson was that when he found out that Felt was the guy who betrayed them all, he was bitter.

I'd call that an appropriate response.

Felt didn't blow the whistle, he instigated trouble because he didn't like the fact he got passed over, hoping to make life miserable for the guy who did. There was simply nothing admirable about him, which is why W&B kept his name secret for so long.

 

[JoeB131]

I realize that this is quite tangential to the thread, but I have to disagree with your characterization of Watergate. While I agree with you that there are things to admire in Nixon's actual political positions, his conduct was both flagrantly criminal and genuinely singular. The sheer degree to which power was abused by Nixon and his direct subordinates went beyond that of any other President of the modern era.

Nixon tried something of this defense himself, as he tried to promote a narrative that "everybody does it". This was true only to a degree, but Nixon seemed to believe it too much himself. For example, he was convinced that LBJ had bugged him, though evidence suggests that LBJ did not.

Felt certainly was upset about being passed over for promotion, but he seems to have also been genuinely opposed to how Nixon ran the FBI. Mostly, Felt wanted the FBI to be independent rather than controlled by the White House, which is not necessarily "good government" but clearly revenge was not his only motive. I agree that Felt's conduct during Watergate was not admirable, and he certainly did some other unrelated bad things (Mark Felt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

There's no denying though that Darth Vader eventually redeemed himself-- that's canonical.

I would think that things FDR did during WWII were vastly worse than anything Nixon did. Locking up 100,000 + people for no other reason than their ancestors came from Axis countries, wiretapping his enemies, letting J. Edgar run amok.

I think Nixon was simply a victim of how the rules had changed. People no longer admired the president simply because he was the president. I think that started with LBJ and Nixon excellerated the process and the office didn't get some of its prestige back until Reagan.

Final note. The country itself seemed to a lot of people at the time to be coming apart at the seems. Riots in the street, etc. I remember my dad showing my mom how to use a gun just in case rioters ever spilled into our neighborhood. Nixon probably felt that he was doing what he had to do to preserve order.