A Day That Will Long Live in Infamy - Pt. 2

Johnathan Bernstein takes us back to Aug 5, 1971.  A day later  . . .

[President Nixon] went over to greet the Girls Nation group in the State Dining Room. He did a superb job with them, speaking on the role of women in government, and so forth, but then emphasizing that the real role of women is as wives and mothers, and he gave a very eloquent pitch for considering the importance of that role, too, as contrasted to women's lib.

Insightful, to be sure, but damned small potatoes compared to what happened the previous day.

The quotations are from grand jury testimony from Plumbers Krogh and Young. So just to be clear...we have a guy who leaked info to the press, and has been indicted and will be tried in the courts. However, in order to influence public opinion (OK) and the jury (not okay), the White House has decided to basically do massive opposition research on the guy (legal as far as it goes, but would you want a massive WH operation looking into Julian Assange in order to smear him in the press?), including possibly breaking into his shrink's office to steal his file (not even remotely close to being legal). All this but the last bit is going on at the repeated insistence of the President of the United States, and the #2 guy in the White House has been briefed on all of it.

Nixon was a rat, and a deeply disturbed sociopath.   Unlike the next Rethug President, though, he was not a dolt.

Part 1.
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