On Watergate versus Huntergate
It’s often said – at least on the right – that the Hunter/Joe Biden scandal is worse than Watergate.
Agreed. It’s worse in terms of what almost certainly happened, but it’s also worse in another way: the suppression of the truth. In Watergate, not only did the press eagerly investigate Nixon and the Plumbers, but the GOP abandoned him when the facts were revealed. That masked something else about Watergate, though, that has only become more clear in recent years: the tale would have been just a tiny footnote to history – if that – had the perpetrator been a Democrat.
I became convinced some years ago that the press would not have pursued Watergate except for the fact that it concerned a Republican, in fact the already-detested Nixon. And Huntergate (or whatever you want to call it) has only underlined that perception. No corruption is too egregious not to be covered up, rationalized, excused, or ignored if it’s committed by a Democrat.
It is hard to get cynical enough to keep up with events these days.
I have slightly more faith in the press back in the 60s and 70s — I think they were not yet fully corrupted until the late 80s or early 90s. They would do some things wrong, as you yourself have noted, about Vietnam, for example, or about McCarthy, but I think they would have paid attention to a Nixon(D) Watergate. Not all the Old Guard had disappeared, just yet.
I grant, I may well be wrong on that.
Watergate was more than just the break-in, and Huntergate is part of the bigger Electiongate scandal, which was definitely larger than Watergate (however you define it) was. 50 years later, Nixon looks like somebody who was trying rather ineptly to do what politicians often do. The difference was that the FBI was against him and not doing his bidding. Biden is more personally corrupt than Nixon was, and politics today is more systemically corrupt than it was in Nixon’s day.
I remember my grandmother asking “what’s the big deal? LBJ did far worse!”
LBJ did enrich himself, and he did it hiding behind Lady Bird’s skirt, pretending that he had no knowledge of what was going on, and besides she was a private citizen and there was no law against her being in business.
There is no one in today’s Democrat party who I could envision filling the Barry Goldwater role, i.e. going to the White House to tell Nixon that his support among Republicans in Congress had collapsed. The funny thing is the media hated Goldwater nearly as much as they hated Nixon: there’s a famous story about Walter Cronkite reporting after the 1964 GOP convention that “Barry Goldwater is going places, and the first place he is going is Germany.” Ha ha Walter, did you think that one up all by yourself? I mean, nobody before 1964 ever thought of comparing Republicans to Nazis.
Abraxas: Not only that, but Nixon wasn’t trying to line his pockets. When he left the White House, it’s said that he had $600 in a checking account, and that was it. He was able to get hired at a high end law firm, and he certainly made money writing his memoir, but he wasn’t laundering millions of dollars overseas, showering with Tricia or Julie, boinking underage girls on a private island, etc. etc.
I think one of the reason the ruling elites are keeping such a tight lid on things is because if the full extent of what they’ve been doing is ever uncovered, they might get Ceausescu’d.
What did Brandon not know, and when did he not know it?
President Nixon only asked the head of the IRS to help him with dirt on his enemies.
But President Obama actually succeeded in blocking his 2012 opposition forces from organising. For this, all we got was institutional coverup for the guilty Administrator Lois Lerner.
In other words, zero accountability and zero punishment…and zero media objection. Not bad for President Zero….
Which brings us down to a Banana Republic today.
OBloodyHell on August 1, 2023 at 5:02 pm
JFKs womanizing was, as I understand, an open secret in the media at the time. It was never exposed. If it had been Nixon I doubt they would have been that lenient. I will say they were a bit more fair but only a bit. They killed Joe’s chances for president in 1988 for the plagiarism but that was still in the primary. They also got Gary Hart that year but he basically dared them to do it.
Abraxas on August 1, 2023 at 5:04 pm
Yes, Biden is more personally corrupt than Nixon was, and politics today is more systemically corrupt than it was in Nixon’s day.
I can’t think or any of the Presidents that didn’t come from personal fortunes that became wealthy afterward until Bill and Hillary but since then the Obama’s have and in the same timeframe lot’s of Senators and House Members have also.
Evil people act in evil ways. The press has embraced evil just as their fellow party members have embraced Big Brother and all the rest of the evil.
This won’t end without violence. It’s going to be very, very nasty. And Democrats are cheering hard for it.
IMO the true thread between WaterGate and HunterGate is the loyalty of the Deep State to the Democrats. Starting with Nixon, the Iran-Contra affair, Waco, Obama’s war on the Tea Party, Hillary’s criminality, Trump’s Russia, J6, Biden’s criminality and etc. it’s pretty clear that the government goes one way. And the GOPe is right in the middle making sure they get their cut. Anyone who thinks an election can fix this is delusional.
stan and JackWayne have the right of it.
Observe all the ” Democratic Machines ” in major cities. The Democrats have always been a criminal organization.
stan and JackWayne and Geoffrey Britain nail it.
The probl is that Federal employment is a guaranteed lucrative sinecure.
In 2008, a Cato Institute reckoned that Federal jobs including benefits amounted to about twice what the private sector job was worth.
There go all your “Studies” graduate’s straight to the spoils of the Left.
Unless and until this completely reverses or else total Federal employment becomes half as numerous (and preferably both), I can see no way to stanch the Deep State.
Once upon a time, there was partisan press on both sides. Every major city had at least one, if not more, newspaper that openly sided with one party or the other.
The press has never been neutral.
@ Neo > “It is hard to get cynical enough to keep up with events these days.”
Or satirical enough. Not the Bee often has to lead a story with the disclaimer “This is NOT the Babylon Bee!”
Dave L:
Of course they weren’t neutral. However: (1) they were pretty evenly divided rather than having a press overwhelmingly controlled by one side, and (2) they didn’t pretend to be objective; todays’ press maintains that pretense.
“…the Barry Goldwater role, i.e. going to the White House to tell Nixon that his support among Republicans in Congress had collapsed.”
Was that in the movie? My memory was that it was Senate Majority Leader Hugh Scott of PA, who gave Nixon the bad news.
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I’m increasingly thinking that learning Chinese would be a useful skill.