(Pictured is John Dean III, former White House counsel, being sworn in before the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities in 1973.)
This post was inspired by this article, which got me to thinking about the differences and similarities between Watergate and Rathergate.
For its time, Watergate was quite dramatic, but the current scandal doesn’t have the same feel. Thirty years later, we’re much more jaded about politics, and we don’t believe journalists are objective.
For instance, we know Dan Rather and most of mainstream media are liberals who hate George Bush. That CBS aired an episode of “60 Minutes” where they attempted to discredit the president and accuse him of lying was neither shocking nor unexpected.
What might be a tad surpising is that the network didn’t do a more thorough investigation of what turned out to be forged documents. I’m still reeling over this and the glaring fact that no one has been canned over it.
Let’s take a trip back to what is ancient history to some, the days of bell-bottoms and disaster movies…
Watergate
Long after this generation passes away, people will still be affixing the word “gate” to the names of big scandals from now until the end of time. Between 1972-1974, America was engrossed by Watergate, the mother of all scandals (so far). It brought down a sitting president and uncovered one idiotic, ill-conceived scheme after another.
I have a very vague memory (I was about 5 years old) of sitting in front of what passed for color television wondering why cartoons weren’t on. In my mind I see men in suits sitting at tables speaking into microphones. Boring. Every now and then I saw an image of the White House (subliminal suggestion?). My mother told me she watched some of the hearings, so the memory may be real.
The day five bozos decided to break into the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate office building changed America. Investigators quickly discovered that one of the burglars, James McCord, worked for the Committee for the Re-election of the President (CRP). Money found on the burglars was traced to the bank account of one of the other burglars, which was traced to Kenneth Dahlberg, who also worked for the CRP.
Searches of the burglars’ homes turned up address books and other items linking the five to E. Howard Hunt, a White House consultant. That was it. The jig was up. Stupid is as stupid does.
More men were drawn into the circle, including Nixon’s Special Counsel Chuck Colson, who set up the “Plumbers” (secret White House team whose job was to seal news leaks and spy on political opponents), John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s top aide, H.R. Haldeman, Nixon aide, John Mitchell, Director of the CRP, and others.
During the hearings, Nixon was ordered to turn over his formerly secret White House tapes of conversations. When the tapes were subpoenaed by the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, Nixon refused to turn them over, citing Executive Privilege. He finally broke under pressure and released some of the tapes, including one with the famous 18 1/2 minutes gap. On August 8, 1974, Nixon resigned. Read the resignation letter.
To save time and space, I’ve skipped over many important details, but since you know how to read, I’ll direct you to the Washington Post’s chronology with stories referenced. It’s a great resource.
Watergate changed the way we viewed politics and journalism. As I stated before, we’re much more battle-weary now, so I don’t know whether Rathergate will have a similar impact. However, one change is obvious: the ascendence of citizen-journalists and hobbyists in the blogosphere.
I’ve listed a few similarities and differences I see between the two scandals, but only time will tell if anything on the list changes in the coming weeks.
Similarities between Watergate and Rathergate: 1) Nobody wants to talk and everybody is pointing fingers at the other guy; 2) Anti-Vietnam demonstrations and the leaking of the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times made Nixon’s people nervous. (The Swift Boat Veterans ads made the Kerry camp nervous.); 3) The trail of evidence led to the White House and eventually to President Nixon. (CBS’s trail of deceit leads to an official inside the Kerry campaign. Will it lead to Kerry?); 4) The desire to protect their guy from threats, perceived or otherwise, got the ball rolling on the whole thing. (Kerry’s ratings were plummeting, due to his ineptness and the Swift Boat ads.)
Differences between Watergate and Rathergate: 1) Mostly all of Nixon’s men went down. (As of this writing, no one we know of at CBS or in the Kerry campaign has been fired.); 2) According to Woodward and Bernstein, they refused to contact the McGovern campaign when requested. (Kerry’s man Joe Lockhart willingly spoke to CBS’s source before the story ran.); 3) Nixon was president. (John Kerry is not president nor will he be in November.)
*Your assignment: What did I miss? Any other similarities and differences (besides obvious ones)?
Interesting links: Watergate.info, Watergate Timeline, Houston Chronicle.
Power Line blogs Watergate, too.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 44 comments }
One difference that I can see (that may well change #1 of your differences list): Rathergate isn’t “over” yet.
In the time of Watergate Nixon called it just a third rate burglary. Now CBS (and the rest of the press) is saying what they did was just a mistake.
I was doing my undergraduate work during Watergate and I remember how forcefully the press was digging at the story. I don’t see the digging now, except for the bloggers and the cable news outlets. The DNC and the press are both being very mum and very selective about how they are responding.
In one of his press conferences, President Nixon said what was on the public’s mind – “the people want to know whether or not their president is a crook.” Well, a lot of us want to know whether Dan Rather, CBS, and the traditional media (print and television) are more than just bumbling fools. We want to know whether or not they’re crooks. The digging is going to get done, with or without their help. We will find out!
“John Kerry is not president nor will he be in November” — sweet music to my ears, dear heart. Thanks so much for the post. Important to be refeshed as to the original “gate” that started it all. Spiro Agnew thanks you.
We didn’t have bloggers back then, but we had right-thinking grandmas who wrote us letters we’ve kept forever. Well, I least I did.
I was a potsmoking liberal 18-year-old and had just moved into my first apartment. My Republican grandma had taken to writing me letters, even though she only lived 30 minutes away. I love the note she attached to a William Buckley newspaper clipping and mailed to me. She scribbled, “More bad about R.N.”
She and my Grandpa had both voted for Nixon, but they weren’t so partisan that they wouldn’t speak their minds when they thought he’d done wrong. If they’d only lived, they would have been bloggers!
Keep it up, La Shawn, in honor of the scribblers of old!
IT is weird, watching he coverage of Rathergate. It is clear that the media would love feed on Dan’s corpse, and replace him with a new gawd… even the Philadelphia Inquirer, who’s treatment of liberal icons and media elites in normaly the journalistic equivalent of felatio, has jumped on the Rather’s neck.
But it seems tempered with two fears…
1) Going too deep or too long with this story will hurt the myth that the MSM is not biased. Sure, plenty already think it is a myth, but their subscribers and loyal viewers aren’t among them (mostly). The more they talk about Rather, Mapes, CBS etc and their collective lapses in judgement and partisan activities, the more likely it is that the masses will turn a critical eye toward the rest of the media.
2) This all can hurt their man, Kerry. This is not to say they all love him. but he is their parties candidate, and he is NOT BUSH.
The longer this goes on, the more this will hurt Kerry, if only from the blast/splash that he’s hit with from association. Now that we know that at least 1 of his senior guys was in contact with Mapes and Burkett (Joe Lockhart), it opens the door for people to think it could go further… it isn’t hard for the newsies to think that it could go much deeper, if only they look… and they don’t want to look.
So, to me at least, it seems like they are torn: Kill Rather and struggle to fill the gap in foodchain it creates and run the risk of helping Kerry with his Kevorkian campaign (thus electing the EVIL which can’t be named [without jokes about female sex organs]) OR, ignore the story, give Dan a pass, and hope that their audience doesn’t pull up stakes and go to another outlet/medium.
Personally, I see this as a win/win.
I’ve even been watching extra CBS this week (except for Monday, had to watch my beloved Eagles trounce the Vikings). Why? To write down the advertisers I see on the local and national shows. Then the form letters go out…
The libs did a number on Dr. Laura this way, so it’s time to hit CBS where it hurts, in the wallet.
“John Kerry is not president nor will he be in November” – sounds good to me as well.
But I still have some doubts about it:
1. Kerry looks still very good in the polls (considering everyone should know by now that he is an inapt fraud)
2. Having had Kennedy, Carter and Clinton as president, is no reason for confidence in the judgement of the american voterage.
You’re a bucket of cold water, Andreas!
Yeah, what AWG said. It ain’t over till it’s over.
Burkett’s lawsuit against CBS shouldn’t be the only one. CBS owes George Bush a big apology, and if he doesn’t get it, then he should sue CBS as well. I doubt that he will, but he could do it and win.
La Shawn, Andreas
Don’t forget, a trained chimp could have won against Ford back in 76. The only requirement for victory was not being assoiciated with Tricky Dick.
Clinton… charm, charisma, Perot and the media in his back… pocket. Kerry has only the last thing going for him.
Kennedy: To steal a phrase: I knew Jack Kennedy, and Mr. Kerry, you are no Jack Kennedy.
Aside from having lied about his exploits in the military, of course…
I think the Killian estate and the TANG have better cases for a suit than Burkett or Bush, IMO.
I wonder what Beldar and Hindrocket think…
News professionals have not yet kept up with the times –
and it sure shows for Rather et al.
These “news pros” have always had contempt for “the people”. They didn’t believe people could assimilate news if it was “filtered” – in other words, too much information would “confuse” “the people” so it was up to them (the anointed) to help “the people” become informed – their way (the “news pros” way). And they still have contempt for “bloggers in pajamas” and “right wing talk radio”. They have missed something basic:
1 Talk radio hosts are not all rocket scientists or “news pros” – but by presenting their material (mostly from other sources) and allowing an open discussion, they magnify the investigative power of “news pros” many times – by obtaining new information and opinions from “the people”.
2 Likewise for the Internet. “Bloggers in pajamas” may not be rocket scientists or “news pros” – and by themself may not offer much. But by opening up for new ideas, millions of “little guys” have influence.
The collective influence of millions of “little guys” makes talk radio and the Internet much more powerful than the one-way communication of the networks like CBS.
Of course, two way communication is something many “news pros” haven’t yet learned how to deal with.
“Thirty years later, we’re much more jaded about politics, and we don’t believe journalists are objective.”
didn’t you see the daily show last nite:
“the president, vice president, secretary of defense, and national security advisor must resign. from CBS.”
Dan made a fatal career mistake by not running for a democratic political office, leaving his current one, years back when he was caught at a democratic fund raiser.
I am serious. He clearly is political and liberal.
He was getting too old for the preferred pretty faces in his current job and CBS ratings were struggling. It was just a matter of time before he would be put out to pasture anyway.
He may still have a chance as a political candidate in a couple of years(voters have short memories) if he resigns CBS now, rather than wait to be fired!
The main difference I see:
Even if Kerry knew about the docs before CBS aired them, we have no proof that he knew they were forged.
I don’t think Rathergate is as big a deal as Watergate, unless we can prove that someone running for elected office (not the news media, their sources, etc.) went along with this, knowing the docs were forged.
Thus far, we have no basis for saying that Kerry knew the docs were forged. And if Bush were in a similar situation right now, I bet all of us would be saying it was Rather’s fault, Bush didn’t know about the docs, or if he did know about the docs he didn’t know they were forgeries, etc.
Shouldn’t we give Kerry the same benefit of the doubt?
In the old times of watergate most everything reported by the MSM was accepted by the american people as fact.As time went on conservatives became frustrated not being able to present their side of the story on MSM. Conservatives found a way to express their views by using talk radio, cable tv, and the new internet.During the time of the Berlin Wall the russians blockaded West Berlin and the allies flew over it.The russians walled off East Berlin and the people dug tunnels under it or went around it until they could find a small opening. Well we are seeing that now. In the long run the MSM either allows more coservative views or their empire will continue to crumble.
Mayflower
You’re half right. We don’t know that the Kerry campaign knew the documents were forged. But we do know that there are now links between Burkett, CBS, and the campaign. We know that CBS spent an inordinate amount of time in denial. We know know that Terry Mcauliffe drafted a very careful response – “we didn’t PREPARE the documents.” Etc…etc…etc.
There’s smoke. I don’t know if there is a fire. There was smoke back in the seventies. We didn’t know then that there was fire. But there was. It just took time to get things unravelled.
There may not be fire in this one, but it merits more checking in to than the mainstream media is willing to undertake. But that’s okay. The bloggers and cable news outlets will keep digging. If there’s fire they’ll find it!
Hi, LaShawn…
This is concommitant, perhaps, with Nixon’s having been President and JF Kerry not, but Watergate was particular pernicious because Dick Nixon used the powers of his office to cover up the scandal. We’re fortunate that Kerry did not have that opportunity…
History might look at this as a bumbling bit o’ fraud perpetrated by a failed presidential candidate. -m
Phil,
All I’m saying is that, until we know more details, comparing this scandal to Watergate is very premature. It strikes me as wishful thinking (”wouldn’t it be great if Kerry knew the docs were forged! what a scandal that would be!”), ungrounded in the facts we have at this time. And this jumping to conclusions & wishful thinking is one of the #1 reasons why the blogosphere is criticized by the MSM (who are too stupid to see that they engage in it themselves). So I’m suggesting that perhaps we should hold ourselves to a high standard & avoid comparing this to Watergate until we know exactly how much Kerry knew. Because, after all, if Kerry *didn’t* know the docs were forged, this is *not* remotely as scandalous as Watergate. And we have no reason (other than our own dislike for the man) to say conclusively that he *did* know.
Mayflower,
If you think the point is that a president or candidate is the one falling from grace is what it take to make this similar to Watergate, you may be right.
But, if the point is that Dan Rather is going down, then it is very similar.
But if Woodward and Bernstien didn’t dig at Watergate, they never would have found the links to Nixon. The same is happening now. It may lead to Kerry, it may not. Some of the office moonbats here think it was all Karl R and John Stone.
We won’t know until we dig deeper.
SCSIwuzzy –
Did I say not to dig for the facts? NO, I did not! Dig all you want, please keep digging, keep reporting what you find, but don’t make accusations or comparisons before you have the facts.
And don’t tell me that Watergate wouldn’t have been as big a deal if it hadn’t been the president. If, say, BK officials broke into McD’s HQ to see what their marketing strategy was, well, that would be a shame, and we’d probably prosecute them, but it wouldn’t be a national scandal at the level that Watergate was. Dan Rather might be an important newscaster, but he is *not* running for the highest elected office in this country.
Mayflower
I’m not jumping to conclusions at all. There is smoke. The documents are only one piece that’s comparable to the third rate burglary of Watergate days. You cannot tell me that a line of connections between Burkett, the DNC, and CBS news doesn’t warrant further investigation. That, in itself, merits further investigation.
Are you saying that it would be alright for the RNC or the DNC to use the media or vice versa for political gain or to smear another candidate. If that’s what you’re saying then I say it will lead us down a road where our politics are really tainted and untrustworthy and the independence of the press is nothing but a flimsly newsprint facade.
The main difference is that Kerry isnt linked to publishing the forged documents, and is unlikely to ever be linked to it. In Watergate, Nixon was directly involved with CRP, and the tapes and accounts proved it. If Kerry really is in on this, then you are all right, he shouldnt be voted for. But i highly doubt he is.
Have you read “Liberal Bias” by Bernard Goldberg?
Check your e-mail, Chuck.
Dan Rather may not be running for the highest office, but he was trying to influence the election for that office via skulduggery.
Is a newscaster playing games as bad as a president? No. But are they similar? Yes.
Omar said it.
Is this an outrage? Yes.
Should we keep digging? Yes.
Should Rather, Mapes, et al get the boot? Yes.
Should CBS make amends to the folks they lied about, including our President? Yes.
Should we prosecute Burkett or his conveniently MIA source for forgery? Yes.
But is this Watergate? Not yet, not by a long stretch.
IF we can prove that Kerry (not a campaign member, not a DNC spokesman, but Kerry himself) *knew* that these docs were forgeries, and that he *personally* ordered them to be given to the media… THEN this will begin to be comparable to Watergate.
Until then, it’s not even close.
‘IF we can prove that Kerry (not a campaign member, not a DNC spokesman, but Kerry himself) *knew* that these docs were forgeries, and that he *personally* ordered them to be given to the media… THEN this will begin to be comparable to Watergate.’
Amen.
Actually, I’d be surprised if Kerry was personally involved, even if the DNC was a key player. His handlers just don’t let him make these kinds of decisions. Right now, they’re trying to reign him in, because he’s going off all half-cocked (spare me the jokes, please!) in every direction.
No, the way political handlers and spinmeisters operate today, they wouldn’t let Kerry near this. But Lockheart and his fellows are in it up to the eyeballs.
Viacom should clean house at CBS, starting with Rather. I have watched him since the early years of the Vietnam War. He is a poser and self-promoter. All the adulation still being heaped upon him even by those who are angered by his action is infuriated. He NEVER deserved respect and should be fired now. How CBS ever decided to replace Cronkite with Rather is beyond me. I haven’t watched their evening news since Cronkite retired.
Stan in San Diego
Stan said (and I find myself agreeing… must be Bizarro Friday at LBC
)
“Viacom should clean house at CBS, starting with Rather. I have watched him since the early years of the Vietnam War. He is a poser and self-promoter. All the adulation still being heaped upon him even by those who are angered by his action is infuriated. ”
No wonder he is in the tank for Kerry… they’re kindred souls!
Ah well…..
No, Rather’s idiotic follies don’t stack up to Watergate at present, though if one was able to incontrovertibly prove that Kerry’s band of boneheads were in on the fakes everyone would confuse Watergate with that horrid Kevin Costner movie forevermore (hat tip to Ali G).
Still and all, it’s pretty damn funny watching the one time King of ambush journalism get ambushed by a new technology he disdained and thought he could dismiss with one wave of his royal (in his mind, anyway) hand. Considering that ole Dan has been caught falsely claiming he was a Marine/did Marine training on a couple of occasions, I find it doubly funny that what took this pompous clown down was a story about military service. Ooooh, the delicious irony.
Hey, speaking of Presidential scandals, ridiculous liberal bias in the media and such….. does anyone but me still find it amazing that Clinton was caught in the White House with over 100 fbi files of potential political enemies during his first term (no, no abuse of power there), and was able to walk away by blaming some fourth tier flunky for it? This was a crime that dwarfed anything Nixon even thought about doing, and yet the lefty press dropped it after a week.
If the press had only done their job then, none of us would have been subjected to Monicagate and all the other ‘gates that heathen hillbilly brought down upon us all. Course if you think about it, Rathergate broke within days of Easter Island Statue Head hiring some of Clinton’s boys- suppose we might be able blame Slick Willie for this ‘gate too?
“Easter Island Statue Head” LOL
Good point about the FBI files. The Clintonistas just roll from one scandal to another simply because they believe that they must by any means necessary win. Well no more because the Pajamaheddin is here to stay. And that is the significance of rathergate. We won’t get fooled (or bamboozled) again.
Yeah, but it is OK when the left does it, since they are serving a higher truth, and their hearts are in the right place.
I still want to know how if Bush is an idiot, how he tricked John Kerry into voting for the war, and giving speaches in favor of the war. And how he got Clinton, Gore, Kerry and other lions of the left, to go on the record saying Saddam was a threat, in possesion or in pursuit of WMDs (and needing dealing with) before he even ran for office. Or how he knew the widowmaker plane he trained for years to fly would come out of service years before the Pentagon did.
Maybe it was Skull and Bones…
Bingo!! It was Skulls and Bones that’s behind it all, I tells youse, by jingo!!.
Call it RATHER GATE and it looks like CBS could catch it big time for fruadulent news reporting but this is not the first time that a major news networks been cuaght at a fruad back when NBC was cuaght at a lie having to do with GM pick-ups back in 1993 on NBCS program DATELINE they were cuaght red handed with their hands in the cookie jar when it was revealed that NBC had rigged a GM pick-up truck with a incenterary device they had also overfilled the tank and used the wrong sized gas cap all to get the same results but it backed fired on NBC and they were forced to reveal the truth about the whole thing it shows you cant at all trust these reptiles ever for anything
Wuzzy,
Have you ever done extensive independent research on Skull & Bones?
Stan in San Diego
You didn’t miss anything glaring, but a little known fact is that Shrillary Clinton was attached to the Justice Department as a young lawyer, at that time, and worked long hard hours to bring down the Nixon administration. Maybe it is time our side got to be just as dedicated…or are we bloggers accomplishing that, since the MSM won’t?
Stan,
I have read about them, but not studied them. For the purposes of my joke I think I know enough to get by. Any particular reason for the question?
Wuzzy,
Re: Skull & Bones…read some more
Stan
Stan,
How about some suggested readings? Or some points to think on? Or do you just think I would find it a ripping good read? Please, share with the class.
Have you done any extensive independent research on the subject (I know, if you tell me too much mine won’t be independent anymore, but I am short on time lately. Election season is always rough)
There’s a nice article in either the June or July issue of Vanity Fair that details both candidates involvement in the super secret organization at Yale.
Wuzzy,
I just did a Google search. There was a good article on it last year. The woman who wrote it was on TV. None of this is a secret. It is interesting to trace S&K back to the founding of Yale. The Bushes and Walkers were involved early on. The influence of the members of the club on government, arms dealing, financing, espionage, etc. is astonishing. Sounds like some conspiracy theory but its not.
There is also some in Kevin Phillips “American Dynasty”, which some have scoffed at me for suggesting. But there is much in it that I found on the Internet. It is really scary. Its a good read that can be checked out. Most of it is taken out of public documents. Kerry is also Skull & Bones by the way. Everyone should at least check it out and then make what they will out of it. Chris probably knows more.
Stan
Stan,
That stuff, I knew. When I said I didn’t study, I mean I haven’t gone wild in the library or otherwise spent tons of time on it. When I research, I research (notes, 3×5, Lexis Nexis, etc). One benefit of being one of those 4 hour a night sleepers is that I do a lot of reading
Just wanted to drop in and say hello to the lovely and talented La Shawn. RaTHergate is a mirror of Watergate in one very important way. The press was relentless in taking down those responsible for Watergate and they were going to take it as high up the food chain as they could. In this round, some of their own are in the hot seat. The result being that they’ve done their level best to minimize the responsible parties. Taking this to the extreme, Bill Burkett faxed the forged docs to SeeBS and now he is being allowed to offer pathetic and inconsistant responses to the inquiries of the press. Power has it’s advantages.
Keep up the great work, La Shawn. God Bless.
Comments on this entry are closed.