From: "Ted White" <twhite8 at cox.net>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: The end of a Washington mystery
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 21:09:24 -0400
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 02, 2005 7:23 PM
Subject: [WSFA] Re: The end of a Washington mystery

> At 06:30 PM 6/2/05 -0400, Ted White wrote:
> >From: "Mike B." <yahoo at omniphile.com>
>
> >> Agreed, but let's not forget what we are actually talking about here:
a
> >> third rate bungled burglary to tap a phone and a coverup of it, not
> >> something really serious, like getting us bogged down in an Asian war
> >that
> >> killed tens of thousands of our soldiers because we weren't serious
about
> >> winning it once we were in...which Nixon got us out of.
> >
> >Uh huh, sure.  Nixon was elected in 1968.  *When* did we pull out of
> >Vietnam?  Hint:  It was after Nixon had resigned his presidency --
during
> >his *second* term.
>
> So what?  You think ending a war that way happens quickly?  It took the
> Democrats (mostly) over a decade to dig us that hole...climbing out
wasn't
> going to happen overnight...unless we decided we actually wanted to win
it
> and acted accordingly (I'm talking about the Congress, White House and
> Pentagon, not the guys actually doing the fighting here).

Your chronology is messed up.  "Over a decade"?  The Democrats were in
power from 1961 to 1969 -- eight years.  Eisenhower made the first moves
that put us in Vietnam, and Kennedy followed up on them, but it was in 1964
that we began seriously commiting our armed forces to that war.   So it
took us only four years to "dig in."

We could have pulled out at any time after Nixon was elected, if he'd had
any actual interest in ending the war.  He did not.  He *never* ended that
war.  Gerald Ford pulled us out unceremoniously and pretty much overnight.

> >Do you recall that in 1968 Nixon had "a secret plan" to
> >end the war in Vietnam? Funny how that disappeared after his election.
>
> Well, since I was 12 when he got elected the first time, I wasn't
following
> things all that carefully, but did he say his "secret plan" would be done
> in his first term?

I don't recall the timetable, but he *ran* on ending the war.  It was his
principal campaign promise.  And the first that he broke.

> >> The burglary and
> >> the coverup were crimes, but so was what Clinton did, and you don't
hear
> >> people saying he "betrayed the nation".  Ditto for all the Democrats
who
> >> ignored the evidence and the law and voted pure-partisan to keep
"their
> >> guy" in office.  Seems like a double standard.  Either it's a betrayal
of
> >> the nation to break the law and use your position to cover it up and
> >> evade
> >> the consequences, or it isn't.  I'd say it is, personally.  Any
violation
> >> of the oath of office is...but if we were going to actually do
anything
> >> about it the Congress would be pretty empty of the majority of those
who
> >> keep getting re-elected anyway (anyone who's voted for a gun control
bill
> >> that prevents an honest citizen from owning or carrying a firearm is a
> >> traitor to the nation and in direct violation of their oath of office
for
> >> instance.  See the Second Amendment and the oath of office).  At least
> >> Nixon had the intelligence to resign and not force an impeachment
> >situation.
> >
> >That "third rate bungled burglary" was only the tip of the iceberg of
> >Nixon's crimes and deceits.  He orchestrated a number of other break-ins
as
> >well.
>
> Got proof?  I can show you claims of crimes for Clinton that make
break-ins
> look trivial (dozens and dozens of them).  Things like murder for
instance.
>  Claims are easy to come up with.

And in Clinton's case they've been discredited.  Whitewater represented
Starr's failure to find any truth in the original charges against Clinton.
Nixon, on the other hand, was caught planning his crimes on tape -- his
*own* tapes.  And surely you don't think the Daniel Elsberg prychiatrist's
office break-in was unproven?   The Plumbers carried out a number of
"missions" and planned yet more.  Liddy boasts of this.  And these cases
have been documented in a number of mainstream books and articles over the
years.  I'm amazed you would, at this late date, demand "proof."

> >There is no comparison between the many criminal acts of Nixon and his
crew
> >and Clinton getting a blowjob from an intern.  None.
>
> Wrong.  There is a comparison, and I made it.  Since you seem to have
> missed it, I'll do it again (but just this once, ok?)  Both are illegal
> acts under the law.  Both are abuses of power when you use your position
as
> President to try to avoid the consequences of your actions.  Both are
> hypocritical when the government branch you head put *other* people on
> trial for the same crimes, but did anything you could, no matter how much
> damage it did to the country, to avoid it yourself.  See?  Lots of
> similarities.

One is a mountain and the other is an ant-hill.  There are many
similarities, all of them superficial and obfuscating.

> Here's another: Like with Watergate, it wasn't so much the initial crime
> that is the problem...burglary/blowjob...pretty common stuff.  It was the
> coverup/perjury where the serious crime lies (no pun intended).  Perjury
is
> a felony with a potential 15 year jail term I believe.  Clinton is
> certainly guilty of it, but for some reason, and unlike a number of other
> folks in government during his term, he didn't get penalized for it
because
> too many in Congress shirked their duty for political gain, and his
> attorney general did likewise.

If "perjury" was the crime you claim it to be in this political context,
why hasn't Bush been impeached for the lies he's told which put us in Iraq?
Why isn't every single member of congress on trial?  The obvious answer is
that most people have a better sense of proportion than you reveal here.

--Ted White