Wallowing in Watergate

God bless David Brock and the folks at Media Matters for America for trudging through the swill of conservative garbage in search of the truth. Last week, W. Mark Felt (who, as we all know by now, recently came forward and identified himself as Deep Throat in the Watergate story) was criticized by Charles Colson and G. Gordon Liddy as unethical, dishonorable, "hypocritical," and "not a hero." Colson has reformed himself a bit, I must admit, but Liddy, in a manner befitting cockroaches, have morphed from a convicted criminal into a new strain of life form, and that of course would be a right-wing media barking head.

If you don’t like what Felt did, fine (personally, I think he’s a hero – I don’t care what his motives were). However, you shouldn’t include comments from Colson and Liddy without explaining their roles in the scandal and what happened to them. However, that is exactly what too many of our dear cousins in the dreaded “MSM” did, though fortunately, Media Matters called them on it.

Since the context on Colson wasn’t provided, here is some for your consideration:

Colson was a member of the Republican Party and in 1956 he became Administration Assistant to Senator Leverett Saltonstall. In 1961 Colson became a partner in the Gadsby and Hannah Law Firm.

In 1969 Colson was appointed to the White House staff as Counsel to President Richard Nixon. Colson also began involved (sic) in the activities of the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP). On 20th March, 1971, at a meeting of CREEP it was agreed to spend $250,000 "intelligence gathering" (sic) operation against the Democratic Party.

Colson and John Ehrlichman appointed E. Howard Hunt as a member of the White House Special Investigations Unit. On 15th May Arthur Bremer attempted to assassinate George Wallace. As a result Colson ordered Hunt to break into Bremer's apartment to see if he could find any information that the Democratic Party was involved in the assassination. However, some have claimed that Hunt's role was to remove incriminating documents from Bremer's home.

The site goes on to discuss the origins of Watergate and the break-in at the Democratic National Committee Headquarters (and that’s always been one of the big mysteries to me about Watergate. What on earth was so important about Larry O’Brien or what he may have had to justify the break-in?). The site also explains Colson’s conversion to Christianity in prison following his conviction and his work with Prison Fellowship Ministries.

The site also mentions another genius idea from Colson at that time when he worked for CREEP, and that was to firebomb the Brookings Institution. I wonder if that came up when he was interviewed recently about Felt by Faux News?

And (let us not forget), there is mention at the end of how Colson signed a letter in October 2002 explaining what he considered to be the theological justification of Iraq War II. The letter is pretty well thought out, and leads me to believe that, given the fact that the war is being waged in direct opposition to what he stated, he should be a leading protestor by now.

As for Liddy (from the same source as above)…

In 1971, Liddy joined the White House Staff. Working under Egil Krogh, Liddy became a member of the Special Investigations Group (SIG). The group was (informally known as "the Plumbers" because their job was to stop leaks from Nixon's administration)(sic).

Later that year the SIG became concerned about the activities of Daniel Ellsberg. He was a former member of the McNamara Study Group which had produced the classified History of Decision Making in Vietnam, 1945-1968. Ellsberg, disillusioned with the progress of the war, believed this document should be made available to the public. Ellsberg gave a copy of what later became known as the Pentagon Papers to Phil Geyelin of the Washington Post. Katharine Graham and Ben Bradlee decided against publishing the contents on (sic) the document.

The article goes on to discuss the break-in and Liddy’s conviction and sentencing in 1973 (to 20 years in prison, though he served four before then-President Jimmy Carter ordered his release).
I also found out about this little gem…

In 1992 John Dean began legal action against Liddy. Dean objected to information that appeared in books by Liddy (Will) and Len Colodny (Silent Coup) that claimed that Dean was the mastermind of the Watergate burglaries and the true target of the break-in was to destroy information implicating him and his wife in a prostitution ring. The case was dismissed by the U.S. District Court in Baltimore after jurors could not reach a verdict. The publisher of Silent Coup settled a similar suit by Dean and his wife for an unknown amount of money.

So the next time you hear Colson and Liddy describe someone as unethical, dishonorable, "hypocritical," and "not a hero,” please just consider the source.