Information As Power

G. Gordon Liddy has died at 90. His bungling of Watergate break-in triggered a crisis that led to President Nixon's resignation. https://t.co/UM81k5hv5v

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 30, 2021

And the world is a slightly better, more honest place tonight. Liddy was an inspiration to every cheapjack would-be tough-guy rightwing politicial grifter of the last several decades, from Oliver North to the latest anti-vaxxer gymrat with a podcast and a grievance. He never repented, he never got smarter — as far as I can tell, he gloried in being a paranoid little ratfvcker who never did a decent thing in his long life. From the Washington Post:

… With his intense stare, cannonball head, bristling mustache and machine-gun style of speaking, Mr. Liddy looked like the archetypal bad guys he later depicted in television shows including “Miami Vice.” His friend and fellow Watergate conspirator E. Howard Hunt described him as “a wired, wisecracking extrovert who seemed as if he might be a candidate for decaffeinated coffee.”…

He also developed an early fascination with Nazi Germany, saying that he felt an “electric current” surge through his body when he listened to Adolf Hitler on the radio. To the young Liddy, Hitler embodied the “power of will.”

Although Mr. Liddy frequently boasted of his impeccable tradecraft, he made elementary mistakes that allowed his former FBI colleagues to connect the break-in to the White House and ultimately to a small circle of Nixon aides…

The director of the nonprofit National Security Archive, Tom Blanton, said Mr. Liddy “brought out the worst” in Nixon and his aides, “raising the testosterone level in the White House and ratcheting them up to even more extreme action.”…

By his own account, the Liddy of the Watergate break-in was a product of the culture wars of the 1960s. “The nation was at war not only externally in Vietnam but internally,” he said in his 1980 autobiography “Will,” which sold more than 1 million copies. “I had learned long ago the maxims of Cicero that ‘laws are inoperative in war’ and that ‘the good of the people is the chief law.’ ”…

After his release from prison, Mr. Liddy finally broke his silence about his role in Watergate with the publication of “Will,” which was well-received by many of his former antagonists. Washington Post investigative reporter Bob Woodward described the book as the “self-portrait of a zealot,” but he also noted that it contained “an embarrassment of riches” growing out of “his blustery conceit and his freedom from any guilt about what he did. . . . His story rings true,” Woodward wrote in his review…

The best thing one might say about Liddy is that he didn’t whine and try to shift blame for his crimes, like so many of today’s right-wing zealots. And even then, he was accused of taking way more credit than he earned for those crimes.

Liddy was part of a small group of operatives known as the "White House plumbers," whose mission was to identify anyone who had leaked information that made the Nixon administration look bad. https://t.co/JftBHqfH5w

— NPR (@NPR) March 31, 2021

No take on G. Gordon Liddy will ever top Richard Nixon's assessment of the man on the "smoking gun" tapehttps://t.co/IRwXsr7Vwa pic.twitter.com/JRuMMFOP0z

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) March 31, 2021

The juxtaposition of the Matt Gaetz story with the death of G. Gordon Liddy story reminds us yet again that the lunatic, criminal loyalists around Donald Trump are of a much lower caliber than were the lunatic, criminal loyalists around Richard Nixon.

— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) March 30, 2021

Late Night Horrorshow Open Thread: Last of the Watergate Gang?Post + Comments (52)