Category Archives: Watergate

Fight Club

A biography of Lyndon B. Johnson, (by Robert A. Caro) presents an in-depth look at LBJ’s Senate career. Aptly titled “Master of the Senate,” Caro describes the future president’s considerable ability to push bills he championed through the US Senate.

Using his boundless energy to cajole, intimidate, and hound opponents, Senator Johnson proved remarkably effective. When candidate John F Kennedy selected LBJ to serve as his running mate, Johnson’s reputation as a political wheeler dealer sealed his selection. 

A look at the backgrounds of all 46 American Presidents, only one-third rose from Congress’s upper chamber. From 1900 to today only seven Chief Executives began in the Senate. Perhaps as candidates, these politicians carry controversial voting records, or personal foibles leaving too much baggage for a successful run. In spite of inherent liabilities, most modern Senators-turned-President, bring an effective array of skills to the White House.

For both Truman with his Fair Deal, and John F Kennedy’s New Frontier, legislative wins were scarce. Truman did enjoy a moment with passage of the Marshall Plan to rebuilt war-torn Europe, and Kennedy with the ratification of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963.

Following JFK’s murder Lyndon Johnson seized that tragic moment initiating his Great Society program, and then showed America how to get things done. Public Television, highway beautification, Medicare, Medicaid, and both the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Johnson’s achievements were many, and important. 

Richard Nixon served in the Senate, as well. Once President, Nixon promoted the Environmental Protection Agency, and the passage of Title IX for women in sports. It wasn’t all evil in that White House, the guy had skills.

In 2010, single-term Senator from Illinois, turned President, Barack Obama signed into law The Affordable Care Act. Standing near, watching was Obama’s Vice-President, Joe Biden, himself a 36 year veteran of the Senate. 

The thing is Mitch McConnell lobbed every counterpunch in the rules to stop Obamacare. But he failed in the face of three wily tacticians, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi in the House, and, of course, Joe Biden.

Now Joe has entered the White House in his own right.

The supposition that legislative cunning ensures a successful presidency is only an interesting thought. But Truman did see reelection, while LBJ collapsed under the weight of Vietnam, not his legislative magic. Nixon sabotaged himself, but the Biden presidency appears to be chugging along on a steady course. 

In the Senate since 1973, this 46th President cut his political teeth on Capitol Hill. Senate rules, cloture, floor privileges, and more are some of the lethal weapons in his political arsenal. For example, when Senator Manchin suddenly came on board with the Inflation Reduction Act, Mitch McConnell, another sly dog, staggered, blindsided.

The point remains. There is a lot more to Joe Biden than meets the eye. This is not a President to dismiss for superficial reasons, like his grandpa appearance, and folksy demeanor. If anything, Biden’s Senate career has forged him into a political shark. The Infrastructure package, Covid Relief, and College Debt Forgiveness have largely passed, allowing his opponents no time to breathe.

And Joe’s VP? She’s a former Senator, too.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both titles are on Kindle. Chumbley has written two historical plays, “Clay” regarding the life of Senator Henry Clay, and “Wolf By The Ears,” an exploration of American racism and slavery.

Animal House Meets the GOP

What do you get when you cross Animal House with the GOP? Roger Stone. He holds the dubious distinction of dragging Republican moral decay on, that first festered in the 1970’s. The product of Stone’s current efforts? The January 6th insurrection.

That young Stone cut his teeth orbiting around the Nixon disaster, and later lent a hand to the Reagan campaign, and even later aided the “Brooks Brother Riot” of 2000, his role as a covert agent of chaos lives on. “Conservative Values” a long running catch phrase is no more than an oxymoron, the national party undercut by a list of career dirty tricksters, including Stone.

Think Donald Segretti, of Watergate fame. Segretti hired a girl to run naked at a hotel shouting she was in love with Edmund Muskie, Nixon’s chief rival in 1972. In 1970, even Karl Rove interfered and sabotaged Democratic fund raising efforts by publishing false event information, ie . . . free beer, free food, girls, everyone welcome, etc. Rove’s work turned the event into a fiasco. Then there was Ken Clawson’s Canuck Letter. Clawson, a Nixon operative, published a fraudulent note dropping in phrases like “illegitimate babies,” and “homosexuality,” among Democratic leaders. (Homosexuality still a taboo.) And of course the most famous dirty trick of all, the burglary of the DNC at the Watergate Office Complex.

What this brief evidence has made clear is Republicans can’t win any other way, at least not nationally, without deception and disinformation campaigns. During the Reagan years, men like Oliver North, Admiral John Poindexter, and CIA Director William Casey privatized foreign policy in the Iran Contra Affair. Ronald Reagan haplessly confessed the crimes were real, though he didn’t understand how. The George W. Bush administration outed a CIA operative, Valerie Plame, via Scooter Libby, and Libby was convicted of his crime. But don’t cry for Scooter, Donald Trump pardoned him because it’s true, there is no honor among thieves.

Any pretense of “conservative values” is a myth, carefully advertised by party insiders, but hasn’t existed since President Dwight Eisenhower. 

Stone’s lies to Congress, and to the FBI reveals the state of the party. Any means to win.  Underhanded tactics indicate business as usual.

The harm? My vote doesn’t count, and neither does anyone else’s. The cry of States’ Rights echoing around the country is simply a cover to intensify efforts to deprive the people of good government. Stone, Trump, and the rest of the party has rejected an even playing field; they cannot win in an open, fair vote.  

This blog in no way implies that Dems are blameless, but short of Bill Clinton’s dalliances and others taking bribes, the crimes have hurt the individual, not the American people. Decent folks abandon the GOP daily because of such flagrant misuse of power. 

In a side note, Richard Nixon ran for Congress in 1946 smearing his opponent, Jerry Voorhees as “soft on Communism,” and in 1950 aimed for the Senate, insinuating his opponent, Helen Gahagan Douglas was “pink right down to her underwear.”

We all know who the patron saint of the modern GOP is, and Stone, not to forget Trump, are his most astute disciples.

Gail Chumbley is the author of “River of January,” and “River of January: Figure Eight.” Both titles available on Kindle. Chumbley has written two plays, “Clay,” exploring the life of Senator Henry Clay, and “Wolf By The Ears” regarding the establishment of American Slavery.

gailchumbley@gmail.com

A Special News Report

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I won’t kid you, I was scared. We, my girlfriends and I, were watching ABC’s Saturday Night Movie in their basement when stiff slanted letters intruded on the flickering screen. A Special News Report. “We interrupt this broadcast to bring this breaking news,” explained Harry Reasoner in his musical voice.

“FBI agents have sealed the office of the Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox.”

I sat up from my prone position on the couch, trying to orient myself to the images on that black and white picture tube. The information didn’t make sense, Cox was the guy ferreting out the facts behind the Watergate scandal, and he should have been left alone to do his job. A sense of bewildered loss of gravity made me uneasy as I watched agents string crime tape across an office door, and around file cabinets.

I needed to go home; this movie could wait.

At the backdoor of my house, I could hear the television blaring. My parents were watching the reports, too. Good. Rounding the corner, there again appeared Harry Reasoner, sounding as confused as I felt. But my Dad knew right away something very shady was underway. He never liked Nixon, buying into that “Tricky Dicky” moniker coined back in the Fifties. So, he assumed the worst—and that was good enough for me.

The crisis deteriorated further. By the next morning, a Sunday, with all of America viewing, we found out Nixon ordered Archibald Cox fired, pronto. But the Attorney General wouldn’t do it, so Nixon fired him, instead. The second at the Justice Department wouldn’t carry out Nixon’s bidding either, opting to resign. The third in line, Robert Bork did fire Cox, and obeyed his President’s rather stunning orders.

I thought America was in the middle of a coup. Again, I was pretty scared.

The rest of this tragic tale is well documented, common knowledge. The public freaked, and the Nixon people freaked, and then the Nixon house of cards came a tumbling down. By August, 1974, less than a year after the “Saturday Night Massacre,” President Nixon resigned, the first chief executive to do so in our history.

The thing is, we all knew there was something dark about Richard Nixon. He looked like he was up to no good, and those who denied this quality were turning themselves inside out to deny it. Nixon always said the right things, “tough on crime,” “support our troops,” bleeding-heart Liberals,” pressing the correct conservative buttons. But he betrayed the trust of conservatives, and it took a man of quality, Gerald Ford, Nixon’s Vice President, to restore some kind of equilibrium to the GOP.

Today, Tuesday, January 10, 2017, some shady business is transpiring on Capitol Hill. Another hurried process to fast track Trump nominees for cabinet positions. We’ve got to ask ourselves, what’s the hurry? To whose benefit is the rush job.

And Trump isn’t about a Hundred Day Congress to aid the lives of Americans. Like Nixon, there is a darkness, and a craving for power that serves only one man. This plutocrat is all about buttressing his position, and ramming through his will as fast as possible. That should send up red flags across both houses of Congress and across the expanse of America.

I’m scared again. Watergate left us all reeling, and trust in government has never really returned. I don’t think any one person should have to endure two rancid presidencies in one lifetime.

The only solution is vigilance and persistence. Don’t listen to a word any of these characters utter. Instead watch what they do. Despots on their way up say what they must to get what they want. Watch what Trump and company actually do. Get your Senator on the phone, and press them with “what’s the rush?” We all want good government; government for all Americans.

If there appears to be an almighty hurry, history tells us it’s time to slow down. The Trump people are up to something.

We, the people and the press, need to insist on answers, and demand explanations for the big fat rush. Again, who gains from this fast tracking? And America doesn’t need another secret government.

Senate Switchboard (202) 224-3121, ask for your Senators office.