this is the 40th anniversary of the "Saturday Night Massacre"

[gopiscrap]

anybody remember what that was in Oct or 1973?

[MannyGoldstein]

1. I was a very little guy

But I remember some of the TV coverage.

Crazy stuff.

[ailsagirl]

2. Link of interest

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-saturday-night-massacre-watergate-20131018,0,2994950.story

[gopiscrap]

4. you gave it away!

[ailsagirl]

5. It had slipped my mind so I looked it up

I can edit my post, if you like, and remove the link

[gopiscrap]

7. I was just kidding

[ailsagirl]

8. OK

[Lionel Mandrake]

40. Here's the whole cartoon.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-ol-the-saturday-night-massacre-20131018-dto,0,6576558.htmlstory

[GP6971]

3. Watergate

firing of Special Prosector Cox and others

[gopiscrap]

6. yup

and wasn't it Robert Bork that finally fired the Special Prosecutor

[okaawhatever]

12. Yes. Supposedly he was promised a SCOTUS seat if he did but the two who resigned wanted

him to do it because they were worried about the Constitution holding. He was the last in line as Solicitor General. If he refused we'd have been in constitutional no mans land.

[gopiscrap]

16. Exactly

[struggle4progress]

15. "Bork is a Cox-Sacker" made the rounds later when Reagan nominated him for SCOTUS

[gopiscrap]

17. yeah and I forgot

did they pull that nomination or did the Senate refuse to confirm him?

[struggle4progress]

19. Lost in committee. Demanded full Senate vote. Lost again. Truth and Light won!

[gopiscrap]

28. How many SCOTUS nominees actually lost a Senate vote?

does anyone know?

[struggle4progress]

38. The Senate has a webpage on that:

http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/reference/nominations/Nominations.htm

The Senate has outright rejected:

Washington's 1795 nomination of Rutledge
Madison's 1811 nomination of Wolcott
Tyler's 1844 nomination of Spencer
Polk's 1845 nomination of Woodward
Buchanan's 1861 nomination of Black
Grant's 1869 nomination of Hoar
Cleveland's 1893 nomination of Hornblower
Cleveland's 1894 nomination of Peckham
Hoover's 1930 nomination of Parker
Nixon's 1969 nomination of Haynsworth
Nixon's 1970 nomination of Carswell
Reagan's 1987 nomination of Bork

A further 12 nominations were withdrawn (2 resubmitted and confirmed, 1 resubmitted and no action taken)

The Senate postponed or took no action on 8 nominations (1 withdrawn after resubmission, 3 confirmed after resubmission, 1 rejected after resubmission)

A further 7 nominees declined the nomination

[gopiscrap]

39. thank you that's great!

If I remember Abe Fortas resigned from the Supreme Court (he was Johnson's appointment)

[MADem]

18. Well before that, the firing was blamed on Nixon.

I had an "Impeach the Cox Sacker" bumpersticker on my car...!

[struggle4progress]

20. I should have known that! But for a few years, I lived miles from civilization, in a small community

without TV or radio. I just happened to be visiting someone somewhere else when the Saturday Night Massacre, so briefly had access to TV news for a few weeks. Sadly, I simply never experienced much of US culture during Nixon's second term -- such as the streaking craze

[MADem]

26. I know what you mean---I missed large chunks of 'culture' owing to living overseas

before the Age Of Internet--but I was in USA for Nixon!

[Suich]

9. I really wish we had computers in those days!

[gopiscrap]

10. me too

[Liberal_in_LA]

11. nope

[Freddie]

13. Yes vaguely

I was a senior in HS and had been hearing so much about Watergate in the news it went in one ear and out the other.

[struggle4progress]

14. Yep. I was appalled and sat glued to the news

[NBachers]

21. Yes- I remember the newscasters in their white "Newscaster" trench coats in front of the White House

I felt America lurching into a wrong turn. It was hideously wrong.

Reading the article, I was reminded of another political nemesis: Alexander Haig

I remember the day Reagan was shot, Haig took over the government:

"Constitutionally, gentlemen, you have the President, the Vice President, and the Secretary of State in that order, and should the President decide he wants to transfer the helm to the Vice President, he will do so. He has not done that. As of now, I am in control here, in the White House, pending return of the Vice President and in close touch with him. If something came up, I would check with him, of course."

What's wrong with this statement?

[gopiscrap]

30. What's wrong with that statement

first of all Haig is a war criminal, secondly it is the Speaker of the US House of Representatives and then the President Pro Tem of the Senate and then the Cabinet officers in the order their departments were created as to the order of presidential succession.

[RobertEarl]

22. Yep

All that lead to Nixon resigning. When he did, Ford was made president.

Ford, as we recall, was a key person in the Warren Commission coverup of the Kennedy assassination. Ford was defeated in the election by Jimmy Carter.

Ford's most memorable accomplishments were to give Nixon a pardon, and for his WIN buttons. WIN: Whip Inflation Now.

[gopiscrap]

32. Yup exactly and it just goes to show

how deeply ingrained crookedness and corruption is in the repuke party!

[JustAnotherGen]

23. No

But its interesting. I was about 8 months old . . .

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

24. and Saint Ronnie decided to reward Bork for his crookedness with a Supreme Court nomination

Republicans were never sorry for Watergate. They were just sorry they got caught.

[PCIntern]

25. College. Big date. Tv coverage.

She was political too and we talked about it way into the night. We found we had a lot in common and although it didn't work out too well for THAT Cox, it worked out pretty well for this one...

[Le Taz Hot]

27. Yep.

I was GLUED to the TV during the entire Watergate Hearing. I graduated high school in 1973 and the Hearings were happening in the spring. This was back when people in politics still had integrity (Nixon and his henchmen excluded, of course) and the Congress and Supreme Court actually did what they were supposed to do. His AG and next in line, iirc, resigned before they would fire the Special Prosecutor and tada! along comes Robert Bork to do the job. But it was the beginning of the end for Nixon and I, for one, CELEBRATED when that son of a bitch resigned. Mr. "peace is at hand" who continued the war for another 3 years JUST so he could be re-elected. And Henry Kissinger . . . don't bet me started. That bastid should be sitting in the Hague, rotting away.

Yeah, I remember.

[gopiscrap]

33. I was a junior in high school

and having just come and immigrated 3 years prior, I found it fascinating. They never talked about this stuff in my citizenship class. In fact there was not a question about impeachment on the US Citizenship test.

[oldhippie]

29. I was in a small village on the Mekong River ......

On the border between Thailand and Laos. Even up there, I listened to it on Armed Forces radio SEA on my battery powered Panasonic World Boy short wave radio. Those were interesting times.

[csziggy]

31. Yes - 1972 was the first time I could vote in a national election

And I thought the election was being stolen even with no proof. Even in the middle of the Conservative South, most people didn't like Nixon, so seeing his re-election with such high numbers was shocking.

Then the information about Watergate started coming out, the Saturday Night Massacre, and all the other crap and I KNEW the election HAD been stolen. The night Nixon resigned, friends and I threw a party.

Since then, I have not been surprised that every time a big Republican scandal is exposed, so person from the Nixon White House is at the root of it.

[gopiscrap]

34. I didn't know there were

questions about his re election (the vote itself) not the Watergate issues.

[csziggy]

36. The group of college students I hung out with had doubts

There were rumors about Republican dirty tricks before the election - some of which were confirmed afterwards.

This is all my memory from those days - no links and I haven't researched to see if that information was broadly mentioned in the mainstream media. I just remember hearing the talk here in the Florida capital city.

Democrats had recently voted out the first Florida post-reconstructionist Republican governor, Claude Kirk, and we were hoping that the national election would reflect that trend. I was just a volunteer then - not old enough to vote - and the most momentous part of the 1970 election was the beach party we threw with a bonfire made of Kirk campaign signs we collected from all over St. Petersburg, LOL!

By 1972 I had transferred colleges to Tallahassee and campus was full of stories about Tricky Dick's evil deeds.

[gopiscrap]

37. Interesting

I never knew that. I was just turning fourteen after the 72 election and just emigrated from Germany and didn't have a great grasp of the English language so I missed a bit of stuff.

[Brother Buzz]

35. I was in the military dealing with a Defcon III In Oct, '73

My CIC was mentally unhinged and ordered us to prepare for a Saturday Night Fish Fry, and the oil got mighty hot. Yum, Kipper.

[NBachers]

43. Yup, I remember the headlines - That was scary, and we knew a madman was at the helm.

[Brother Buzz]

44. Decades later, I read unverified accounts his "Nuclear Football" was essentially neutered

White House and the Pentagon was disturbed by his odd behavior during the crisis and initiated additional yet unauthorized NRAS safeguards. It made be just a story, but by all other accounts I've read, he was, indeed, a madman at that point.

[Lionel Mandrake]

41. Archibald Cox was magnificent.

After being fired as Special Prosecutor, Archibald Cox held a mesmerizing press conference, which led many outraged citizens (including me) to write letters to Congress, demanding that Nixon be impeached. Six months later, Nixon was gone.

[gopiscrap]

42. I totally agree!

[Hekate]

46. Yes he was nt

[Hekate]

45. God, I hated Nixon. He really started unraveling then, didn't he?

It was a wonderful thing to see members of his own administration start to stand up to him and say "No," and to have the media (or some of them) really take notice that the Commander in Chief was -- how shall I put this? -- Not Normal Anymore.

[Lionel Mandrake]

47. Let's not forget Peter Rodino.

I remember watching Rodino on TV explaining the deliberations of the House Judiciary Committee. He was quite eloquent. I doubt that the impeachment hearings would have come to a successful conclusion without Rodino's leadership.

Wikipedia says ...

Rodino became chairman of the house judiciary committee in January 1973 ... During the Nixon impeachment hearings from May to July 1974, Rodino was generally considered to be a fair moderator of what, at times, were very partisan hearings. Key difficulties included ensuring that enough Republican committee members would vote for impeachment in order to defend against possible Nixon administration charges of Democratic partisanship. In the end, as further evidence emerged and Nixon admitted wrongdoing, several initially reluctant Republican members switched their votes, making the committee vote for impeachment unanimous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_W._Rodino