"There are elephants crashing around in the forest!"

I apologize for linking to a story written in March, but it is one that I missed, and maybe you did, too. James Rosen writes in the Examiner,

...the academic scholarship published since 1977 has documented in exhaustive detail how the critical wings of the Nixon White House, the National Security Council, the covert operations unit dubbed “the Plumbers,” and Nixon’s campaign arm, the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, were all infiltrated by rival power centers in the capital and exploited for intelligence. The people burrowing in came from the military, the intelligence community, and the news media (reports that the Soviet Union also placed moles in the Nixon White House have not been confirmed).

Sen. Howard Baker, R-Tenn., the ranking Republican on the Senate Watergate committee and later President Ronald Reagan’s chief of staff, never spoke explicitly of a Deep State. But he alluded to it once, in suitably cryptic terms. Reeling from his discovery that the Pentagon had spied on Nixon, and struggling to grasp the large role of the Central Intelligence Agency in Watergate, Baker said: “There are elephants crashing around in the forest.”

The instrument the military men used was the JCS-NSC liaison office, housed in the Executive Office Building and run by a pair of admirals. The late Melvin Laird, the longtime Wisconsin representative selected by Nixon to run the Pentagon, told me in a 1997 interview that before becoming defense secretary in January 1969, he had observed the chiefs building what was, in literal terms, a covert intelligence capability against the White House.

By December 1971, the White House Special Investigations Group, a covert unit called the "Plumbers" formed to plug leaks of classified material to the news media, had uncovered the activities of Navy Yeoman Charles Radford, a stenographer and courier detailed to the JCS-NSC liaison office. After intensive polygraph examination, Radford admitted to having stolen some 5,000 classified documents in 1970-71 from White House National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger and his aides. He'd even rifled through Kissinger’s briefcase while he slept on his official airplane. Radford admitted having passed top-secret documents, via the liaison office, to Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Thomas Moorer.

...the CIA’s inspector general reported in 1975, after Nixon had resigned, that CIA agents had been placed in “intimate components of the Office of the President.”

...Why would these institutions have wanted to spy on Nixon? Mitchell had a theory. As he told Len Colodny, co-author of Silent Coup (1991): “It was his [Nixon’s] personality and his mode of operation that did him in.”

...In the political donations made by Mueller’s staff lawyers, federal filings show, more than $62,000 went to Democrats, only $2,750 to Republicans.

Nixon would have understood. Seven of the top eight lawyers on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force had served under Robert Kennedy at the Justice Department. In the early 2000s, again using FOIA, I became the first researcher to mine the WSPF's 10,000-page archive: 10,000 pages in all. And while those papers did not contain the kind of sophomoric invective for the incumbent that would later characterize the Strzok/Page texts, the WSPF archive captured the prejudicial bias the Watergate special prosecutors harbored toward their prey.

As Trump surveys the political landscape of 2018, he too can be forgiven for imagining that the Deep State, or something like it, exists. Like Richard Nixon, our 45th president took the oath of office keenly aware that influential figures in the military and intelligence communities deeply distrusted him as an accused colluder with a foreign power, as someone who was not “one of us,” and as a man many said was psychologically unfit for the presidency, whatever voters thought. Both saw their inaugurations marred by rioting. Both would stand eternally accused, whatever the evidence, of capturing the presidency through collusion with a foreign power, and thus be stripped, by media elites that despised them, of all legitimacy. And like Nixon, Trump has been subjected, from the inception of his presidency, to unprecedented leaks of classified material to those elites.

In all this, with the various Russia investigations still unresolved, their ultimate discoveries and outcomes unknown, Trump would do well to internalize the central lesson of Watergate, and perhaps thereby avoid some of the many self-inflicted wounds that Nixon committed during his own death throes against entrenched forces. This lesson Nixon articulated in the final minutes of his presidency, in the maudlin and meandering farewell address he delivered to the White House staff in the East Room on Aug. 9, 1974, shortly before boarding the helicopter that whisked him away from power.

“Always remember,” he said, “others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.”

Read more here.

Finding the good in tough times

In his USA Today column Glenn Reynolds finds some good in his father's last days.

A dramatic moment in the life of the nation

Do you remember what happened on this date in 1974? President Nixon resigned. Here is the Washington Post account of the day.

If Hillary Clinton is elected in November, will she be faced with a similar choice? Not if the media continues to give her pass after pass.

Winners and losers

I don't know if this is a brilliant prediction, or just wishful thinking. I keep seeing this year's election as similar to 1972. The Watergate story broke that summer, but Nixon won every state except Mondale's Minnesota. Then, for the next year and a half, the Watergate hearings and journalists like Woodward and Bernstein relentlessly gave us a glimpse into the corruption of Nixon and his team, culminating in Nixon's resignation in August of 1974.

The same could happen this year. The next Clinton scandal to be uncovered may be the Clinton Foundation. Are there any Woodwards and Bernsteins still out there?

B.S. from the White House to the press

From Henry Kissinger's White House Years: When Nixon offered Kissinger the job as National Security Adviser, he told Kissinger he did not trust the State Department, and that he definitely did not trust the C.I.A., whom Nixon viewed as a bunch of elite liberals. Nixon told Kissinger, therefore, that he wanted to run foreign policy out of the White House.

However, on Dec 2, 1968, when Nixon introduced Kissinger to the press, he lied about his intentions, and Kissinger backed him up!

The President and top advisers lying? Whoever heard of such a thing?

Henry Kissinger saves me from a day at the bureaucracy

I had the day off today, so I decided to renew my license plates. When my number was called, I was informed that I needed to get an emissions test. The last time I got my license plates renewed I was living on the plains in rural Colorado, where the politicians do not require emissions testing. Now I am in the affluent suburb south of Denver, where no one wants to be politically incorrect.

Knowing that these operations were run by the government, which has no competition, I decided to stop by the house and get a book to read from my shelf full of books I had purchased at used book sales, but had never read. I picked Henry Kissinger's White House Years.

Sure enough, the lines at the emission testing station were around the block. I got so engrossed in reading Kissinger's book, that several times I neglected to move my car forward when the line was moving. Later, when I went across town to get my license, I was number 574 in line, I kid you not! The time went fast, as I read about how Kissinger was a loyal friend and admirer of Nelson Rockefeller, and was shocked when Nixon asked him to be his adviser.

Writing this book in 1979, Kissinger writes candidly about Rockefeller and Nixon. Some of his observations about the process of electing politicians are even more true today than they were in the 1970s:

A man who understands the complex essence of the nominating process, as Nixon did supremely, will inevitably defeat a candidate who seeks the goal by emphasizing substance.

Obama v. Romney anyone? One more:

The politics of manipulation may yet be the essence of modern American Presidential politics.

A Lot Less Action

Guest post
by
Suzann Darnall

Two of my favorite songs are "A Little Less Conversation" (Elvis Presley) and "A Little Less Talk and A Lot More Action" (Toby Keith). The Elvis song includes the line, "A little less conversation, a little more action please". The Toby Keith title kinda says it all. But, I have to admit I am now finding a need for a lot more talk and a lot less action. In particular, I would like lots less action by Obama and his Dem cohorts in DC!

As much as I hate to hear Obama give one more teleprompter story-time, I do have to admit I prefer his oh so very dishonest words to any more of his oh so very destructive actions! Which are also dishonest in that they frequently violate the laws of the land and principles upon which our Constitution and country were founded. Not to mention that he and his minions so very often lie about what is going to be done, has been done, or will be done!

I know the Left loves to bring up Richard Nixon whenever anyone mentions the scandals swamping Obama's . . . ummm . . . transparent(???) administration. But, it still comes down to the fact that while Nixon lied, no one died! Unlike the four dead Americans in the Benghazi terror attack!!! And, while Nixon and his minions were guilty of breaking into an office, Obama and his minions are guilty of breaking an entire healthcare system! Much of it done outside the checks and balances of our Constitutional governance system.

Now Obama is threatening to even more completely bypass Congress with additional Executive Orders in his rush to leave a Leftist Legacy behind as he heads into the lame duck years in his presidency. The problem is that his agenda will leave our economy and society more than lame, it will cripple America for possible decades and even generations to come.

So, I am hoping and even praying that Obama becomes so enamored with hearing his own voice that he will be too busy appearing on late night television, daytime talk shows, and doing more of his non-campaigning campaign events to actually sign anything . . . except possible autographs for the idiots who get shivers up their legs upon hearing his teleprompter fairytales! Unfortunately, the Democrats running for office are also running from Obama, which cuts down on the potential for out of DC appearances we can hope for to fill up his calendar.

But, we can only hope there are still enough other Liberal speaking venues to keep Obama out and about for at least a good portion of the next few years. 'Cause we definitely need him doing a lot less action! Even at the price of having to listen to a lot more conversation . . . or teleprompter renditions of what passes for great oratory in the world of the Progressives.

© Suzann C. Darnall, FEBRUARY 2014

The President's Secret Service

Here are some excerpts from Ronald Kessler's book In the President's Secret Service. Thanks to The Conservative Angle blog and Before Its News.

JOHN & JACQUELINE KENNEDY
*A philanderer of the highest order. *
*She ordered the kitchen help to save all the left-over wine during a State dinner, mixed it with fresh wine and served again during the next White House occasion.*

LYNDON & LADYBIRD JOHNSON
*Another philanderer of the highest order. In addition, LBJ was as crude as the day is long. Both JFK and LBJ kept a lot of women in the White House for extramarital affairs and both had set up early warning systems to alert them if/when their wives were nearby. Both were promiscuous and oversexed men.*
*She was either naive or just pretended to not know about her husband’s many liaisons.*

RICHARD & PAT NIXON
*A “moral” man but very odd, weird, paranoid. He had a horrible relationship with his family and was almost a recluse.*
*She was quiet most of the time.*

GERALD & BETTY FORD
*A true gentlemen who treated the Secret Service with respect and dignity. He had a great sense of humor. *
*She drank a lot!*

JIMMY & ROSALYN CARTER
*A complete phony who would portray one picture of himself to public and very different in private e.g. would be shown carrying his own luggage but the suitcases were always empty. He kept empty ones just for photo ops. He wanted people to see him as pious and a non-drinker but he and his family drank alcohol a lot! He had disdain for the Secret Service and was very irresponsible with the “football” with nuclear codes. He didn’t think it was a big deal and would keep military aides at a great distance. Often did not acknowledge the presence of Secret Service personnel assigned to serve him.*
*She mostly did her own thing.*

RONALD & NANCY REAGAN
*The real deal, moral, honest, respectful and dignified. They treated Secret Service and everyone else with respect and honor, thanked everyone all the time. He took the time to know everyone on a personal level. One favorite story was early in his Presidency when he came out of his room with a pistol tucked on his hip. The agent in charge asked: “Why the pistol, Mr. President?” He replied, “In case you boys can’t get the job done, I can help.” It was common for him to carry a pistol. When he met with Gorbachev, he had a pistol in his briefcase.
*She was very nice but very protective of the President and the Secret Service was often caught in the middle. She tried hard to control what he ate. He would say to the agent, “Come on, you gotta help me out.” The Reagans drank wine during State dinners and special occasions only otherwise they shunned alcohol. The Secret Service could count on one hand the times they were served wine during family dinner. For all the fake bluster of the Carters, the Reagans were the ones who lived life as genuinely moral people.*

GEORGE H. & BARBARA BUSH
*Extremely kind and considerate, always respectful. Took great care in making sure the agents’ comforts were taken care of. They even brought them meals. One time she brought warm clothes to agents standing outside at Kennebunkport. One was given a warm hat and, when he tried to say “no thanks” even though he was obviously freezing, the President said “Son, don’t argue with the First Lady. Put the hat on.” He was the most prompt of the Presidents. He ran the White House like a well-oiled machine.*
*She ruled the house and spoke her mind.*

BILL & HILLARY CLINTON
*Presidency was one giant party. Not trustworthy. He was nice mainly because he wanted everyone to like him but to him life is just one big game and party. Everyone knows about his sexuality.*
*She is another phony. Her personality would change the instant cameras were near. She hated with open disdain the military and Secret Service. She was another who felt people were there to serve her. She was always trying to keep tabs on Bill Clinton.*

ALBERT GORE
* An egotistical ass who was once overheard by his Secret Service detail lecturing his son that he needed to do better in school or he would end up like these guys, pointing to the agents.*

GEORGE W. & LAURA BUSH
*The Secret Service loved him and Laura Bush. He was also the most physically in shape who had a very strict workout regimen. The Bushes made sure their entire administrative and household staff understood that they were to respect and be considerate of the Secret Service.*
*She was one of the nicest First Ladies, if not the nicest. She never had any harsh word to say about anyone.*

*BARACK & MICHELLE OBAMA
*Clinton all over again – hates the military and looks down on the Secret Service. He is egotistical and cunning. He looks you in the eye and appears to agree with you but turns around and does the opposite. He has temper tantrums.*
*She is a complete bitch who basically hates anybody who is not black, hates the military and looks at the Secret Service as servants.