Conventional wisdom about Watergate is a joke (just as the conventional wisdom about the Vietnam War is as well) — too bad our side sucks at fighting the information war. Here is Geoff Shepard writing at The Federalist:
The producer assured me that CNN was committed to presenting a balanced view in its recent series on Richard Nixon, but she never even called back, and I think I know why.
CNN completed its four-part series on President Nixon last Sunday evening with a panel discussion between John Dean, Richard Ben-Veniste, Carl Bernstein, and Tim Naftali, led by Anderson Cooper. Last month, one of their producers had reached out to me, seeking someone to participate who would represent Nixon’s point of view.
The producer and I discussed the 39 documentaries, co-sponsored by the National Archives, that I’d helped to produce since 2010 on President Nixon’s various public policy initiatives, as well as my extensive research, writing, books, and lectures on the inside story of the Watergate scandal, where I served as deputy counsel during the last 10 months of the Nixon administration.
The producer assured me that CNN was committed to presenting a balanced view, but she never even called back, and I think I know why: I would have presented a dramatically different and disruptive point of view from the other pre-packaged panelists.
For example, I would have asked Dean, a convicted felon who was sentenced to 1-4 years in prison and disbarred from practicing law for his key role in the Watergate cover-up, why he was freed immediately after the cover-up trial (where he’d been the prosecutor’s lead witness) and had never actually spent a single night in jail.
While seldom mentioned, Dean’s leadership role in the cover-up included, in addition to obstruction of justice, rehearsing Jeb Magruder in advance of his perjured testimony in two grand jury appearances, embezzling some $4,000 of campaign funds from his office safe to pay for his honeymoon, destroying key evidence taken from Howard Hunt’s office safe, and improperly disclosing investigatory information to Watergate defense counsel.
Read more: The Federalist
Image credit: www.thefederalist.com.
