What??
Woodward and Bernstein Skewered?
Watergate Yarn Unravels in Unclouded Light of History?
Could this be another nail in the coffin of the century long ascendancy of Progrssivism.
Truth about McCarty....FDR...Obama..........Nixon?
1. "Gradually, inexorably, the great Watergate fraud is unraveling. ... Bob Woodward, unable to resist the temptation to try again and again to be at the forefront of investigative journalism, is being steadily exposed as a chronically dishonest myth-maker. Carl Bernstein, his Watergate partner, is at least cautious enough not to tempt the fates with a regime of endless returns to the well of public gratitude for spurious and destructive exposés.
2. Because he compulsively seeks to be always in the vanguard of the exposeurs, Woodward, is a Ralph Nader figure, a runner whom renown outran... The most prominent early episode in this disintegration of a gigantic, methane-filled balloon of a reputation was Veil, the quickie, me-too scramble of the siren-chaser over the Iran-Contra affair.
3. Woodward claimed to have dressed up as an orderly, penetrated massive security, and entered the hospital room of dying former CIA director William Casey, and although all records show that there were nurses in his room as well as a leak-proof security perimeter, and that Casey was comatose, Woodward claimed to have extracted from him a deathbed confession of wrongdoing.
a. This was a fabrication. It was impossible and everyone knew it was impossible, but the psycho-investment of the liberal media and political establishment in Woodwards credibility prevented the mainstream media and the bipartisan post-Watergate political consensus from acknowledging this egregious grotesquerie.....
4. Then came the authorized biography of long-serving Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee ...., in which Bradlee allowed his biographer to see all his notes of the Watergate era. In these, Bradlee shrewdly covered both sides of the street by repeatedly expressing doubt about the truthfulness of the Woodward-Bernstein account of Watergate. It also clearly detailed that Woodward and Bernstein did little actual investigating; they just made themselves the spokesman for Deep Throat, Mark Felt, who had been passed over by President Nixon as successor to J. Edgar Hoover as director of the FBI and, in his rage, showered the administration with accusations of lack of probity, some true and some not.
5. It was because of the great Watergate myth that Nixons subsequent kindnesses to Felt including forcing his way into Felts subsequent trial for criminal violations of the privacy of urban guerrillas and testifying for him (although Nixon suspected he was Deep Throat) and successfully asking President Reagan to pardon him and his co-accused after their conviction had to be overlooked.
6. The unmasking of Woodward and Bernstein sheds no credit on Bradlee, [who] went to extraordinary lengths to destroy a distinguished administration, although they knew that the basis on which the destruction was happening, while it inflated their prestige and profits, was of questionable accuracy and fairness.
7. Article II of impeachment claimed Nixon had endeavored to misuse the IRS (not that he had actually done so, as some of his predecessors had), had not fulfilled his oath to uphold the Constitution, and had violated the constitutional rights of citizens. Article III of impeachment charged Nixon with impeding impeachment proceedings by non-compliance with eight Judiciary Committee subpoenas for 147 tapes of White House conversations. All the Democrats voted for these three articles and half the Republicans for the first two.
8. But such was the sense of presidenticidal righteousness confected by the Woodward-Bernstein revelations and their media echo chamber that Richard Nixon resigned. Thus ended an administration that must be ranked with Lincolns time in office, Washingtons first term, and Franklin D. Roosevelts first and third terms as one of the most successful presidencies in American history. Woodward, Bernstein, Bradlee, and others have jubilated about it ever since.... What occurred was a tragedy that wounded the country and the presidency and facilitated the Democratic desertion of the anti-Communists of Indochina which led to the massacres of the South Vietnamese resisters, the Killing Fields of Cambodia, and the Boat People.
9. It is too late to redress the unjust fates of those who gained and those who lost, including among the disserved the whole nation, in the Watergate debacle and its sequels, but not too late to welcome the miraculous emergence of a balanced treatment of a cautionary and tragic episode, and to reassess blame and credit accordingly.
10. . Richard Nixon did not live to see his comeback, but it is no less real and just and astonishing for that, and he was confident it would come. And Woodward and Bernstein will, with the luck of a few more years, see themselves, figuratively, shorn like harlots in olden time. The political system and the media failed, with unseemly self-celebration, but history will not."
Watergate Yarn Unravels in Unclouded Light of History - The New York Sun
We live in interesting times......
Woodward and Bernstein Skewered?
Watergate Yarn Unravels in Unclouded Light of History?
Could this be another nail in the coffin of the century long ascendancy of Progrssivism.
Truth about McCarty....FDR...Obama..........Nixon?
1. "Gradually, inexorably, the great Watergate fraud is unraveling. ... Bob Woodward, unable to resist the temptation to try again and again to be at the forefront of investigative journalism, is being steadily exposed as a chronically dishonest myth-maker. Carl Bernstein, his Watergate partner, is at least cautious enough not to tempt the fates with a regime of endless returns to the well of public gratitude for spurious and destructive exposés.
2. Because he compulsively seeks to be always in the vanguard of the exposeurs, Woodward, is a Ralph Nader figure, a runner whom renown outran... The most prominent early episode in this disintegration of a gigantic, methane-filled balloon of a reputation was Veil, the quickie, me-too scramble of the siren-chaser over the Iran-Contra affair.
3. Woodward claimed to have dressed up as an orderly, penetrated massive security, and entered the hospital room of dying former CIA director William Casey, and although all records show that there were nurses in his room as well as a leak-proof security perimeter, and that Casey was comatose, Woodward claimed to have extracted from him a deathbed confession of wrongdoing.
a. This was a fabrication. It was impossible and everyone knew it was impossible, but the psycho-investment of the liberal media and political establishment in Woodwards credibility prevented the mainstream media and the bipartisan post-Watergate political consensus from acknowledging this egregious grotesquerie.....
4. Then came the authorized biography of long-serving Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee ...., in which Bradlee allowed his biographer to see all his notes of the Watergate era. In these, Bradlee shrewdly covered both sides of the street by repeatedly expressing doubt about the truthfulness of the Woodward-Bernstein account of Watergate. It also clearly detailed that Woodward and Bernstein did little actual investigating; they just made themselves the spokesman for Deep Throat, Mark Felt, who had been passed over by President Nixon as successor to J. Edgar Hoover as director of the FBI and, in his rage, showered the administration with accusations of lack of probity, some true and some not.
5. It was because of the great Watergate myth that Nixons subsequent kindnesses to Felt including forcing his way into Felts subsequent trial for criminal violations of the privacy of urban guerrillas and testifying for him (although Nixon suspected he was Deep Throat) and successfully asking President Reagan to pardon him and his co-accused after their conviction had to be overlooked.
6. The unmasking of Woodward and Bernstein sheds no credit on Bradlee, [who] went to extraordinary lengths to destroy a distinguished administration, although they knew that the basis on which the destruction was happening, while it inflated their prestige and profits, was of questionable accuracy and fairness.
7. Article II of impeachment claimed Nixon had endeavored to misuse the IRS (not that he had actually done so, as some of his predecessors had), had not fulfilled his oath to uphold the Constitution, and had violated the constitutional rights of citizens. Article III of impeachment charged Nixon with impeding impeachment proceedings by non-compliance with eight Judiciary Committee subpoenas for 147 tapes of White House conversations. All the Democrats voted for these three articles and half the Republicans for the first two.
8. But such was the sense of presidenticidal righteousness confected by the Woodward-Bernstein revelations and their media echo chamber that Richard Nixon resigned. Thus ended an administration that must be ranked with Lincolns time in office, Washingtons first term, and Franklin D. Roosevelts first and third terms as one of the most successful presidencies in American history. Woodward, Bernstein, Bradlee, and others have jubilated about it ever since.... What occurred was a tragedy that wounded the country and the presidency and facilitated the Democratic desertion of the anti-Communists of Indochina which led to the massacres of the South Vietnamese resisters, the Killing Fields of Cambodia, and the Boat People.
9. It is too late to redress the unjust fates of those who gained and those who lost, including among the disserved the whole nation, in the Watergate debacle and its sequels, but not too late to welcome the miraculous emergence of a balanced treatment of a cautionary and tragic episode, and to reassess blame and credit accordingly.
10. . Richard Nixon did not live to see his comeback, but it is no less real and just and astonishing for that, and he was confident it would come. And Woodward and Bernstein will, with the luck of a few more years, see themselves, figuratively, shorn like harlots in olden time. The political system and the media failed, with unseemly self-celebration, but history will not."
Watergate Yarn Unravels in Unclouded Light of History - The New York Sun
We live in interesting times......
