37 years later.. and we are talking about Plumbers and the White House again...

[ReadTomPaine]

White House Plumbers

The White House Plumbers or simply the Plumbers is the popular name given to the covert White House Special Investigations Unit established July 24, 1971 during the presidency of Richard Nixon. Its job was to stop the leaking (hence "plumbers") of classified information to the news media during the Nixon administration. Its members branched into more nefarious projects working for the Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP, or CREEP), including the Watergate break-ins and the ensuing Watergate scandal.

The Plumbers were formed in response to the publication of The Pentagon Papers in The New York Times, beginning June 13, 1971. These documents detailed the history of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Initially, White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman downplayed the matter to Nixon, stating that the information mainly made the Kennedy and Johnson administrations look bad. However, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and special counsel Charles Colson advocated a severe response to the massive leak1 in the form of publicly discrediting the leaker of the papers, former State Department and Defense Department analyst Daniel Ellsberg.

On July 1, David Young joined the White House and together with Egil Krogh penned a memorandum to Nixon advisors Haldeman and John Ehrlichman advocating the formation of a White House Special Investigations Unit.2 Haldeman and Ehrlichman agreed to the plan and obtained the approval of Nixon. Young was put in charge of the unit and reported to Krogh. The nickname the "Plumbers" came to being when Young posted his name on his office door which read "David R. Young/Plumber".3

...

The Plumbers' first task was the burglary of the office of Daniel Ellsberg's Los Angeles psychiatrist, Lewis J. Fielding, in an effort to uncover evidence to discredit Ellsberg. The operation was reportedly unsuccessful in finding Ellsberg's file and was so reported to the White House. However, Fielding himself stated the file was in his office, he found it on the floor on the morning after the burglary and quite clearly someone had gone through it.6 In a September 1971 conversation, Ehrlichman advised Nixon, “We had one little operation. It’s been aborted out in Los Angeles which, I think, is better that you don’t know about." Eventually, the case against Ellsberg was dismissed due to government misconduct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_Plumbers

[ReadTomPaine]

1. Kick n/t

[yurbud]

2. that's why McCain was so worried about his welfare! When E. Howard Hunt was in jail...

he threatened Nixon with spilling the beans about the whole "Bay of Pigs" thing, possibly an oblique reference to the Kennedy assassination.

[ReadTomPaine]

3. All roads paved by the modern GOP lead back to that administration...

It was under his watch that the rot began in earnest. Donald Segretti found his legs in Nixon's administration and such colorful characters as Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney & Paul Wolfowitz got their first executive branch jobs with him. Moreover, it was Nixon's close ties to Prescott Bush that lead to Herbert's first associations with the White House and eventually to his job as head of the RNC around '72.

Bush used that position to continue the war his father started against Nelson Rockefeller and thanks largely to Nixon's assistance, he became a rising star in the GOP and remained there until his win in 1988. Needless to say, much of what's happening now is directly traceable to Herbert's presidency and thus to Nixon's tenure previous to that.

Of all his many character flaws (paranoia, anti-semitism, vindictiveness etc) who would have thought Nixon's most dangerous fault was his utter inability to judge the character of his appointments? That legacy has outlasted Vietnam, Watergate and everything else which occurred during that period.



Nixon getting some fashion advice from Prescott Bush

[ReadTomPaine]

4. McCain's own radical friend...

This seemed an appropriate addition given John McCain's statements during his appearance on Letterman.

From the Chicago Tribune:

With friends like these ...

McCain finds his own radical friend

Steve Chapman May 4, 2008

Can a presidential candidate justify a long and friendly relationship with someone who, back in the 1970s, extolled violence and committed crimes in the name of a radical ideology -- and who has never shown remorse or admitted error? When the candidate in question is Barack Obama, John McCain says no. But when the candidate in question is John McCain, he's not so sure.

...

Last November, McCain went on his radio show. Liddy greeted him as "an old friend," and McCain sounded like one. "I'm proud of you, I'm proud of your family," he gushed. "It's always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon, and congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great."

Which principles would those be? The ones that told Liddy it was fine to break into the office of the Democratic National Committee to plant bugs and photograph documents? The ones that made him propose to kidnap anti-war activists so they couldn't disrupt the 1972 Republican National Convention? The ones that inspired him to plan the murder (never carried out) of an unfriendly newspaper columnist?

...

Given Liddy's record, it's hard to see why McCain would touch him with a 10-foot pole. On the contrary, he should be returning his donations and shunning his show. Yet the senator shows no qualms about associating with Liddy -- or celebrating his service to their common cause.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-oped0504chapmanmay04,0,6061828.column

More on Liddy from Huffpo:

Liddy, on Vitenam:

"I wanted to bomb the Red River dykes . It would have drowned half the country and starved the other half. There would have been no way the Viet Cong could have operated if we had the will-power to do that."

Liddy, advising Branch Davidians how to defend themselves from ATF agents during a radio show:

"If the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms insists upon a firefight, give them a firefight. Just remember, they're wearing flak jackets and you're better off shooting for the head."

Liddy, on the impact Adolf Hitler had on him as a child:

When he listened to Hitler on the radio, it "made me feel a strength inside I had never known before," he explains. "Hitler's sheer animal confidence and power of will . He sent an electric current through my body."

From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/05/g-gordon-liddy-john-mccai_n_100134.html

[ReadTomPaine]

5. Kick - Liddy's back in the news. n/t