Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

The jury literally has a bell they can ring to force Trump to show up on command. Greatest thing ever!

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

“Let’s not pretend [Trump] wants to engage in high-minded discourse.”

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Another missed opportunity for Jamie Dimon to just shut the fuck up.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

People are weird.

Found liable for massive fraud, is required to post a massive bond, gets a break, then files a *fraudulent* bond!

If you’re looking for someone who’s young and athletic, go watch a fucking movie.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Let’s finish the job.

Never forget that he train is barreling down on Trump, even as he dances on the tracks.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Hail to the Hairpiece / Open Thread: Angry Rubes & the Media Courtiers Who Love Them

Open Thread: Angry Rubes & the Media Courtiers Who Love Them

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For anyone young or naive enough to think this is a new low for the Republicans, fresh historical note, via RawStory, in the NYTimes:

Richard M. Nixon always denied it: to David Frost, to historians and to Lyndon B. Johnson, who had the strongest suspicions and the most cause for outrage at his successor’s rumored treachery. To them all, Nixon insisted that he had not sabotaged Johnson’s 1968 peace initiative to bring the war in Vietnam to an early conclusion. “My God. I would never do anything to encourage” South Vietnam “not to come to the table,” Nixon told Johnson, in a conversation captured on the White House taping system.

Now we know Nixon lied. A newfound cache of notes left by H. R. Haldeman, his closest aide, shows that Nixon directed his campaign’s efforts to scuttle the peace talks, which he feared could give his opponent, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, an edge in the 1968 election. On Oct. 22, 1968, he ordered Haldeman to “monkey wrench” the initiative…

Nixon had entered the fall campaign with a lead over Humphrey, but the gap was closing that October. Henry A. Kissinger, then an outside Republican adviser, had called, alerting Nixon that a deal was in the works: If Johnson would halt all bombing of North Vietnam, the Soviets pledged to have Hanoi engage in constructive talks to end a war that had already claimed 30,000 American lives.

But Nixon had a pipeline to Saigon, where the South Vietnamese president, Nguyen Van Thieu, feared that Johnson would sell him out. If Thieu would stall the talks, Nixon could portray Johnson’s actions as a cheap political trick. The conduit was Anna Chennault, a Republican doyenne and Nixon fund-raiser, and a member of the pro-nationalist China lobby, with connections across Asia…

Nixon also sought help from Chiang Kai-shek, the president of Taiwan. And he ordered Haldeman to have his vice-presidential candidate, Spiro T. Agnew, threaten the C.I.A. director, Richard Helms. Helms’s hopes of keeping his job under Nixon depended on his pliancy, Agnew was to say. “Tell him we want the truth — or he hasn’t got the job,” Nixon said.

Throughout his life, Nixon feared disclosure of this skulduggery. “I did nothing to undercut them,” he told Frost in their 1977 interviews. “As far as Madame Chennault or any number of other people,” he added, “I did not authorize them and I had no knowledge of any contact with the South Vietnamese at that point, urging them not to.” Even after Watergate, he made it a point of character. “I couldn’t have done that in conscience.”…

Fortunately for future historians (assuming there’s a future), Donald Trump is happy not to have a conscience. Any bets on the date when he’ll take credit for “permitting” Putin to monkey-wrench the election and/or brag that James Comey was his puppet?

(Think he’s got the patience to save it for his inaugural address?)

Reader Interactions

130Comments

  2. 2.

    Corner Stone

    “reliable” “trustworthy” “news organization” “reports”

    This is fucking hilarious.

  4. 4.

    Baud

    The media didn’t have the appearance of objectivity to me. But I doubt I’m whom they care about.

  6. 6.

    Bruuuuce

    Now we can draw a line directly from Nixon to Reagan’s illegal arms for hostages dreck to Trump’s seditious encouragement of foreign hacking (which he then conveniently denied). Sadly, in each case, Republican electoral shenanigans FTW. (I’d say a straight line, but all three of them were as crooked as a shepherd’s staff.)

  7. 7.

    Gravenstone

    Thanks for admitting that you will remain an uncritical stenographer for all things Republican, WSJ. Shit you are and shit you remain.

  8. 8.

    Bruuuuce

    Of course a WSJ editor is more concerned with appearance than reality. It was that way even before Murdoch bought them and turned it into a yellow rag, but now, that’s about all their editorial policy has left.

  9. 9.

    geg6

    @Yarrow:

    This. At least one media outlet is doing its job. Oh, and I have no doubt that the best snark on the new administration will be from Vanity Fair. Graydon Carter has no intention of stopping his decades long trolling of That Man at this point.

  11. 11.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Baud: Took them about that long to sort of, but not quite repudiate Walter Duranty.

    They haven’t returned his Pulitzer, though.

  12. 12.

    Baud

    @efgoldman:

    The NYT has always seen itself as the paper for smart, thinking people

    Like I said….

    Any paper that wants to cater to people who like Maureen Dowd doesn’t want me as a reader.

  15. 15.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Hardly mentioned in the year’s obituary roundup is Charmian Carr — “Liesl” — who died last September, aged 73. That makes the cleverly-captioned photo especially poignant.

  16. 16.

    Anne Laurie

    @raven:

    I posted the times article earlier, maybe someone will be interested tonight.

    Between us, old comrade, we cover all the shifts!

  19. 19.

    tpherald

    Why focus just on the Nixon Vietnam example? How about the Reagan example of the American hostages in Iran in 1979? Or the more recent example of Donald Trump speaking with Russia in 2016 to not expel American operatives from Russia?

  21. 21.

    TriassicSands

    For anyone young or naive enough to think this is a new low for the Republicans…

    I’m making an effort to read all of the books I’ve accumulated over the years. The one I’ve recently begun is a nearly 800 page history of American involvement in Vietnam. It begins in the 40s with the Truman administration and his Republican opposition. It becomes clear after just a few pages that the Republicans of the 40s and early 50s were just as despicable and dishonest as the “Modern Republican Party” is. McCarthy, Nixon, Taft, and even Eisenhower used disgusting accusations of Democrats either being communists or simply soft on communists.

    Today’s revelations in the NYTimes show Nixon to be as bad or worse than his most ardent critics imagined. In addition to Nixon’s treason with regard to the Vietnam War, his “promise” to “ ‘lay off pro-Negro crap’ if elected president” is an especially telling commentary on just how racist Nixon, his fellow Republicans, and their “Southern Strategy” really were.

    We can only hope that these latest revelations will put to rest any attempt to reconsider Nixon.

  27. 27.

    Jeffro

    I was really surprised to see David Fahrenthold retweeting this Politico article as “interesting”…

    President-elect Trump has characteristics that can aid him in defining what comes next. He is, first and foremost, a rule-breaker, not quantifiable by metrics we know. In a time of inconceivable change, that can be an incredible asset. He comes across as a straight talker, and he can be blunt with the American people about the threats we face. He is a man of many narratives, and can find a way to sell these decisions to the American people. He believes in strength, and knows hard power is necessary.

    So far, Trump seems far more likely than any of his predecessors to accelerate, rather than resist, the unwinding of the postwar order. And that could be a very bad — or an unexpectedly good — thing. So far, he has chosen to act as if the West no longer matters, seemingly blind to the danger that Putin’s Russia presents to American security and American society. The question ahead of us is whether Trump will aid the Kremlin’s goals with his anti-globalist, anti-NATO rhetoric– or whether he’ll clearly see the end of the old order, grasp the nature of the war we are in, and have the vision and the confrontational spirit to win it.

    C’mon David (much less C’MON, POLITICO!!)
    1) How is Trump’s “rule-breaking” (i.e., lying, grifting, shamelessness) an asset to the US? It’s not – it’s only an asset to Trump.
    2) He “comes across as a straight-talker”?!?!?!?!? To his moronic following, perhaps? To everyone else, ya gotta be kidding me…
    3) He’s “blunt with the American people about the threats we face”…name one he’s been truthful about? Jobs have mostly been lost to automation, ISIS is on the run, Trump lies about global warming…what threat is he accurately describing?
    4) He “believes that hard power is necessary”…yeah, so does Obama…the difference is in using hard power as a first or as a last resort.
    5) Please explain, POLITICO, how Trump’s ‘unwinding of the world order’ might be an ‘unexpectedly good thing’??? Does he really strike y’all as someone who will “grasp the nature of the war we’re in” (with Russia, his BFF, no less!) and have the “vision” to win it? Yagottabekiddinme

    What crap. Trump is Trump and whatever decisions he reaches will always involve the following, in order:
    – what’s in it for Trump, as he perceives it at the moment, subject to change daily (and/or subject to whomever has last whispered in his ear)
    – what does Putin think?
    – what do my billionaire aspirational peers think?
    – what is most likely to make me popular with the rubes?

  30. 30.

    Corner Stone

    Ahhh, the second night of illegally setting off fireworks has apparently started here.

  32. 32.

    hitchhiker

    Just saw a thread on twitter that exposes the WSJ calling HRC a liar hundreds of times. I guess they can divine her intent easily?

  34. 34.

    raven

    Re 1972

    The pig fuckers also slandered the shit out of that commie that Nixon ran against:

    McGovern grew up in Mitchell, South Dakota, where he was a renowned debater. He volunteered for the U.S. Army Air Forces upon the country’s entry into World War II and as a B-24 Liberator pilot flew 35 missions over German-occupied Europe. Among the medals bestowed upon him was a Distinguished Flying Cross for making a hazardous emergency landing of his damaged plane and saving his crew. After the war he gained degrees from Dakota Wesleyan University and Northwestern University, culminating in a PhD, and was a history professor. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1956 and re-elected in 1958. After a failed bid for the U.S. Senate in 1960, he was a successful candidate in 1962.

  36. 36.

    raven

    By the final week of the campaign, McGovern knew he was going to lose.[222] While he was appearing in Battle Creek, Michigan, on November 2, a Nixon admirer heckled him. McGovern told the heckler, “I’ve got a secret for you,” then said softly into his ear, “Kiss my ass.”[223] The incident was overheard and reported in the press, and became part of the tale of the campaign.[nb 14]

  38. 38.

    Anne Laurie

    @Baud:

    I don’t understand why [Nixon] was so popular in 1972.

    Same reason Trump managed to be as popular as he was in 2016: He appealed really hard to the angry bigots, know-nothings, and semi-literates who were convinced that the world was rushing to become a place they couldn’t understand and didn’t want.

    That’s why Trump’s supporters — not least those in the media — were so careful to replicate as much of Nixon’s 1972 campaign as they did.

    I’m thinking of doing a ‘book club’ (re)reading of Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail in preparation for January 20th…

  40. 40.

    p.a.

    file under “I am not making this up”: Lion’s OC’s name is Jim Bob Cooter.
    Believe B. Cracker runs into him offseason at Piggly Wiggly.

  43. 43.

    Baud

    @Anne Laurie:

    I know enough to know that they ran the same playbook. But Nixon was the incumbent in 1972, while Trump was just a celebrity. And white America was still Democratic and liberal on a number of issues in 1972. That’s why I’m wondering what made Nixon so popular.

  46. 46.

    dr. bloor

    @Anne Laurie: True, but it’s also hard in retrospect to make people understand how much America thought George Fucking War Veteran McGovern was “out there” beyond reason in 72. It’s why I laugh out loud at anyone who tries to tell me that “BERNIE WOULD’VE WON!!!”

  49. 49.

    Mike J

    @Anne Laurie: Has anyone talked football with Trump? HST did w/ Nixon, and Nixon actually knew the game. I can’t imagine Trump knowing anything about anything that wasn’t Trump.

  54. 54.

    tpherald

    @raven: Yes, but it is only 1 of several examples of Republican interference in international negotiations with people’s lives at stake in order to gain a political edge in the past 50 years.

  55. 55.

    sapient

    Let’s remember that Roy Cohn, and Roger Stone, both friends of Nixon, have advised Trump. Cohn was an early mentor, and Stone worked for Nixon early in his career. Nice.

    I’m perplexed why the story of Nixon scuttling the Paris peace talks is new though. One Man Against the World, by Tim Weiner, described this (published in the summer of 2015). I’m glad it’s getting more attention because we definitely need to know that this has been going on in the Republican party for a long time. It just has gotten worse, and more brazen. And now Trump.

    These revelations do cast doubt on the possibility that Republicans will impeach him though, since this kind of treachery has been their M.O. for the past half-century.

  56. 56.

    Anne Laurie

    @Jeffro:

    I was really surprised to see David Fahrenthold retweeting this Politico article as “interesting”

    Given that Fahrenthold is an actual reporter, hence outcast from the Media Village Idiots, I’m guessing he means “interesting” as in “how low can you guys sink, when it comes to tongue-bathing Trump?”

    It’s like telling a proud finger-painter, in front of hostile witnesses, that his latest diaper-fueled wall-scrawl is “interesting”.

  57. 57.

    Baud

    Why does farmersonly (dot) com advertise on HGTV? Am I stereotyping farmers by thinking they aren’t a big part of the HGTV audience?

  60. 60.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Baud: When you spend all day out in the fields, you want to come home to a tasteful and elegant residence.

  61. 61.

    chris

    @Baud: It was written in chalk on the wall of my high school and it worked.

    Don’t change dicks in the middle of a screw,
    Vote for Nixon in ’72

  62. 62.

    raven

    @sapient: It’s not new:

    Now we know Nixon lied. A newfound cache of notes left by H. R. Haldeman, his closest aide, shows that Nixon directed his campaign’s efforts to scuttle the peace talks, which he feared could give his opponent, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, an edge in the 1968 election. On Oct. 22, 1968, he ordered Haldeman to “monkey wrench” the initiative.

  63. 63.

    tpherald

    @efgoldman: Lesson learned: mental illness w/shock therapy are not positives in the resume of a candidate.

    At least with Nixon, stealing DNC documents was enough to bring him down.

    Will Russian-sponsored hacking eventually find a smoking gun link back to Trump’s team the way that the Watergate scandal “followed the money”?

  68. 68.

    sapient

    @raven: Yeah, but it seems to be reported as though the documents are newly discovered, when I think they were cited in the book. Not a real issue – just was surprised to see it newly reported. Again, glad to see it in the news – people need to know.

  71. 71.

    ThresherK

    @p.a.: Yes, those were (Houston for Kelly), along with Rick Neuheisel (sp) in San Antonio. Reggie Collier in Orlando. Robie Porter at least some of the time in Memphis, and Bobby Hebert in Michigan.

    (Should I be worried that I remember this without Yahoogling?)

  72. 72.

    Anne Laurie

    @Baud:

    Why does farmersonly (dot) com advertise on HGTV?

    Because the ‘retreat to a sweet little homestead in the country where I can finally be happy’ is a major fantasy for the people who pay for HGTV? Not farmers, but the women who love the idea of a Trianon with all modern conveniences?

    (I only HGTV watch at the gym, in preference to CNN and/or sports. So maybe I am overestimating the percentage of its paid audience who buy the Rural Utopia, aka Jefferson’s Big Lie, fantasy — from episodes of Property Bros, Tiny House Hunters, Love It or Leave It, and Waco Jo & Chip.)

  73. 73.

    chris

    @sapient: Yeah. I remember someone that I really looked up to saying that he might vote for George Wallace because he would “bring order.” I was crushed by that for a long time .

  74. 74.

    sapient

    @efgoldman: Nixon was brought down by a Democratic Congress.

    Also, the New Yorker has an article on Daniel Ellsberg and Edward Snowden. Very much worth reading. The book I mentioned by Tim Weiner also discusses Ellsberg, and suggests that his revelation of the Pentagon Papers helped to reelect Nixon, because (commissioned by Robert McNamara in 1967) it focussed on blaming Johnson, and omitted Nixon’s role. Nixon was not unhappy with the revelations.

  75. 75.

    chris

    @efgoldman: Haha, thank you. I’d forgotten she was a Dem. In my memory all monsters were and are Republicans. Things were very different then.

  76. 76.

    Anne Laurie

    @efgoldman:

    Probably not by itself, without the cover ups.

    Yeah, it was like the ‘lock up the banksters’ mess in 2009. Nixon’s CREEPsters burglarizing the Watergate offices was wrong, but the re-elected Nixon’s attempts to hide his connection to that burglary were illegal.

    The Repubs learned the wrong lesson from Nixon’s resignation, too. So when they couldn’t impeach Bill Cllinton for adultery, they tried impeaching him for lying about adultery… which backfired on the GOP, bigly. Bill assumed — correctly — that if he stayed & fought, the voters would punish his attackers, not him.

    (We’ll never know whether Nixon could have fought his impeachment, because the old rat took the proffered pardon & ran. Probably because he assumed, correctly, that he’d become a liability for people in the GOP who had no compunction in disposing of ‘failed assets’ by any means necessary.)

  77. 77.

    sapient

    @chris: Yes, kind of amazing how many adults (thank goodness, not my own parents) were incredibly racist. I remember in high school, visiting a friend whose father said some incredibly horrible things to me (and that was when people routinely said less major horrible things). It’s frightening that we’re headed back there.

  79. 79.

    zhena gogolia

    @Betty Cracker:

    We missed the first half, but then after watching from the middle (the pool scene) for about 15 minutes, we turned it off because it was just too violent and not really Sherlock-y. The characters were all off. Wha happened?

  80. 80.

    frosty

    @Anne Laurie:

    I’m thinking of doing a ‘book club’ (re)reading of Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail in preparation for January 20th…

    This is one I’d re-read. I couldn’t face reliving Nixonland a couple of years back and had to quit in the first chapter.

  81. 81.

    Anne Laurie

    @efgoldman: No, it was not. But that’s how I remember the GOP ‘Freedom Caucus’, led by N. Gingrich, discussing Clinton’s impeachment — “Now we’ll pay those Demo-rats back for Watergate!”

    (Newt, at least, admitted that the burglary was an actual crime, but during Blowjobgate he insisted to the media that so was a married man committing adultery. While Newt himself was… well, IOKIYAR.)

  82. 82.

    chris

    @efgoldman: Now that some of the issues from that time are coming back it’s amusing to this old hippy that punching hippies never went out of style.

  86. 86.

    Chris T.

    @Bruuuuce: Pre-Murdoch, the WSJ news was fairly decent; it was their editorial pages that were laughable. Molly Ivins used to call them the editors who didn’t read their own newspaper.

  88. 88.

    Another Scott

    @Baud: My recollection is that he won because he wound down the draft, decreased the voting age to 18, and claimed to have a plan to end the war in Vietnam, and Democrats were in disarray on the national stage. His trip to China, his arms-control agreements with the USSR (SALT I), etc., etc.

    Nixon had real accomplishments to point to, along with all of the other horrible things he was doing and had done.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  90. 90.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @chris:

    My great-aunt moved to Atlanta in her 80s after a lifetime in Illinois and Wisconsin. First time she went out shopping, she came across an AA woman with a small baby. “Oh,” said Aunt Inez admiringly, “what a dear little pickaninny!”

    If you had suggested she was racist, she would have pushed back energetically and sincerely.

  92. 92.

    J R in WV

    @efgoldman:

    Actually, lots of reporters admired the WSJ’s actual reporting for years, as opposed to their completely wack job editorial pages. This has ended of course since the family sold their media properties to the Murdoch cartel.

    Even real liberal media reporters with edumacation and experience being lied to by Politicians. But that was then, and this is now.

  93. 93.

    lamh36

    @Betty Cracker: without getting into spoilers, what did u think?

    I enjoyed it. The ending def was unexpected and the solution of the case of the week was too,

    i believe there is only 3 “episodes” this season so if this one packed a wallop then the next 2 will be doozies!

  96. 96.

    Another Scott

    @lamh36: I’ve only seen a couple of these BC Sherlock shows. I dunno if I like them compared to the the Jeremy Brett version, but it’s at least turned down a little compared (to what I’ve seen in snippets of) the Robert Downey version.

    I’ts good he’s doing TV, but the show isn’t very easy for these eyes and ears to follow (at least not so far).

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  98. 98.

    Jeffro

    @Anne Laurie: Yeah maybe. I don’t doubt Fahrenthold’s integrity – his reporting was outstanding this past year. But “interesting”, when Politico’s suggesting that Trump’s going to somehow a) see through what Putin’s doing and b) call him out on it, and/or act on it?

    “Naive” is really what comes to mind. I get that in journalistic circles it might be tough to lower the boom on a colleague like that, but it’s so accurate re: what the Politico writer is up to, I hope Fahrenthold at least sent the writer a text or email that his/her zipper’s down.

  100. 100.

    lamh36

    @rikyrah: the reaction to it reminds me of what happened with the character of Lafayette in the True Blood books vs the to show…when you alter a character for public consumption by folks who are not familiar with the source material, then it makes it harder to stick to the source material esp in the case of the Sherlock stories which are classics of course

  101. 101.

    Davis X. Machina

    @efgoldman: Half of the Democratic party then would be Republicans now. In that era, Margaret Chase Smith sat next to Karl Mundt in the GOP caucus, but the young Ted Kennedy sat next to John Sparkman in the Democratic one.

  102. 102.

    lamh36

    @Another Scott: I’ve read the original book series and love them. (though it has been a while). i liked the idea of a “modernized” tale that takes from the books, of all the version available now, th BC one, IMHO comes closest in keeping with the “spirit” of the book characters, their adventures and their interactions

  103. 103.

    Suzanne

    @Jeffro: I read that Politico piece earlier today and had much the same reaction, Upon further reflection, I concluded that the writer wrote the piece not for the general reader, but for Trump himself, trying to tell him what to do here. Trying to say, “Putie-Poot IS NOT YOUR FRIEND HOLY SHIT BALLS. Here’s some nice things about you, Trump, so you feel assuaged and you don’t write me off. PUTIN = BAAAAAD.”

  104. 104.

    Suzanne

    Washed my finger wound today. It is looking much better. Still grisly AF, but clean and not infected. The pain is much better. I still have to keep it elevated a lot, but it is much more manageable.

    I need to get some of those dress pant yoga pants so I don’t have to mess around with zippers and buttons and the like. I had to have Mr. Suzanne help me with shaving my right underarm. I am going to wash my hair tomorrow. Scared.

  105. 105.

    Bruuuuce

    @Chris T.: @rikyrah: True. The decline across the board was predictable because reporters with integrity left after the purchase, knowing that there was going to be a push for propagandizing, rather than reporting, the news. Self-fulfilling prophesy? Maybe, but that’s what happened IMNSHO.

  106. 106.

    TriassicSands

    @efgoldman:
    I referenced the 40s and 50s and you referenced the 60s.

    The leaders of the Republican Party in the 40s and 50s frequently supported McCarthy and used the worst, most dishonest red-bating strategies in elections. Eisenhower, who now, looking back, seems like a kindly, grandfatherly type, named Nixon to be his running mate, and even if he was more reluctant than Nixon to descend into the gutter, he did in order to win elections — that’s the hallmark of the Modern Republican Party, i.e., anything to win elections.

    The voting for the Civil Rights and Voting Rights bills were split more along North-South lines rather than party lines. Racist Southern Democratic Senators and Representatives voted against. That’s what racists do, and in the 60s there were still a lot of Southern Democrats flying the Confederate flag. They’re all Republicans now.

    Afterthought: Truman is now widely considered to have been a fine president (regularly ranked in the top ten by historians 6th or 7th), but the Republicans Taft and Eisenhower painted Truman as the second coming of Neville Chamberlain who was giving the world away to the communists without a fight. Despicable.

  107. 107.

    Mnemosyne

    @Suzanne:

    The dress pant yoga pants from Betabrand are pretty awesome. Two caveats: they run a little small, so go one size up, and they have NO pockets, which I hate. Only fake pockets. Who the fuck decided that women don’t really need pockets?

  110. 110.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Another Scott:

    You need to watch them in order, and you need to let go of the idea that they are “faithful” adaptations of the traditional Holmes stories on some continuum between Jeremy Brett and Robert Downey Jr. They are sui generis, a hall-of-mirrors version of the canon that is true to the spirit but not to the letter.

  111. 111.

    James Powell

    @Another Scott:

    and claimed to have a plan to end the war in Vietnam,

    Nixon’s claim that he had a plan was ’68. In ’72 he had wound down the war, reduced troop levels from their ’68 peak of over 500K to under 50K, and substantially reduced the draft.

  115. 115.

    jl

    I had a suggestion for Jed York on who he should fire to improve the Niners, but didn’t get it to him in time.
    Anyway, there is one self-righteous incompetent hypocritical two-faced little schnook who really needs to go.
    Maybe York will make the move tomorrow.

  116. 116.

    James Powell

    @SFBayAreaGal:

    Don’t forget, the Supreme Court ordered Nixon to turn over his tapes to the Watergate Committee

    Not exactly. The court ordered Nixon to produce the tapes in response to a subpoena by special prosecutor Leon Jaworski. Nixon objected on the basis of executive privilege. Judge John Sirica rejected that argument and ordered the president to produced the tapes. The case went to the supreme court which ordered him to produce the tapes.

    The decision was 8-0. Rehnquist recused himself.

    If a case like this were to get to the current supreme court, the (soon to be) five Republican justices would side with whatever the Republican president said, if they even bothered to hear the case. No one would recuse himself.

  117. 117.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @efgoldman: Look at their take-aways over the last six games. They are scary. OTOH, they may have reached their limit given their injuries. Tonight, I shall be happy.

  118. 118.

    Another Scott

    @Omnes Omnibus: :-) I appreciate all the variations out there these days, but I don’t have that much interest in TV any more. The guy on Elementary really gets into the role, but it’s hard for me to understand his mumbling much of the time… :-/ Lucy Liu is an excellent actress – it would be nice if she had more of a script to work with, but Watson has always been little more than a Tonto in these TV stories.

    Didn’t the BC version have SH doing some time traveling or something last year?? :-/ It’s stuff like that that make me go, “Why?” But, as I say, it doesn’t really matter too much to me – I just glance up at the TV occasionally while J watches…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  120. 120.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Another Scott: I’ve read the stories again and again. I also watched the new BC versions. They are doing modern variations on the originals. I was given The Complete Sherlock Holmes as a X-mas present when I was 11.

    If you don’t actually give a shit. why comment?

  123. 123.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @trollhattan: Nixon only scooped them up because Wallace was put in a wheelchair by an assassination attempt. Nixon was far more worried about Wallace getting the Dem nomination than either Muskie or McGovern. Wallace would poach his “Southern Strategy” turf.

    What is amazing about Nixon is his own paranoia brought him down…the “Plumbers” were originally formed to find out where the “leaks” were in the White House. Once Muskie and Wallace were both out of the way, Nixon probably had the general won in ’72. There was no need to burglarize the DNC at the Watergate, but they did it anyway, and the dominoes started falling.

    What assured Nixon’s conviction in an impeachment trial was the “smoking gun” tape where only days after the break in he was ordering the CIA to tell the FBI to back off due to “National Security” concerns of its investigation of the burglary. This is one of the things that pissed of Mark Felt and turned him into “Deep Throat”.

  124. 124.

    Anne Laurie

    @Suzanne:

    I still have to keep it elevated a lot, but it is much more manageable.

    Told you to use a sling! — but I’m glad things are healing well.

    If you can fit one over the dressing, get a box of those cheap disposable ‘latex’ gloves. I spent several weeks carefully peeling a new one on/off every time I needed to use my (dominant) hand, for stuff like zippers & showering. The surgeon who treated the puncture wound in my palm was pleased with how clean & sterile I kept his dressings, when I went back for after-care.

  125. 125.

    Anne Laurie

    @Another Scott:

    The guy on Elementary really gets into the role, but it’s hard for me to understand his mumbling much of the time…

    That’s why the Spousal Unit & I are enjoying Elementary on disc — with subtitles.

    You might be able to get the same effect on the current episode by using the closed-captioning function on your tv/monitor?

  126. 126.

    Anne Laurie

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Nixon was far more worried about Wallace getting the Dem nomination than either Muskie or McGovern. Wallace would poach his “Southern Strategy” turf.

    True, that. Gore Vidal had a (half-playful, IMO) argument that H.R. Haldeman, who’d published a couple of paperback thrillers, was responsible for Wallace-shooter Arthur Bremer’s “assassination diaries”.

  127. 127.

    liberal

    @raven: every time I see a Vietnam War memorial, I always take note of the fraction of deaths that are on Nixon’s hands.

  130. 130.

    Fred

    Nixon was lucky to be allowed to resign for unspecified crimes. He should have been tried for treason.
    I know the word treason gets bandied about a lot lately but Nixon commited the actual crime. He was a truly abominable humanbeing. Sadly it seems not the most abominable of his brethren.

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