I have come to refer to people of my age group, 50 to 55, as the Watergate generation. To young to have been a serious part of the Viet Nam generation, either those that fought in it or seriously opposed it and to old to be a part of the Disco generation, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Regardless the most significant political event of our late teen years was Watergate.
Most of us were very much into it, watching the replay of the hearings in the evening, utterly fascinated by the characters and the events as they unfolded. If you are too young to have experienced this shared social event perhaps you may remember the OJ trial and the country’s utter fascination with the unfolding events, this was a similar phenomena. The Clinton impeachment hearings did not even come close, simply because most people, myself included, did not see it as a serious issue and it was far too much about patrician politics and too little about a constitutional crisis. Not so Watergate.
Watergate was the final blow to the age of political innocence. The actual crime was minor, a break in for political espionage, kind of silly really being as there was no way that Richard Nixon was going to loose to George McGovern in the election. But Nixon, for all his considerable political skill, which history would have applauded if not for Watergate had several serious flaws. He was both arrogant and paranoid, not a good combination in a politician in a democratic society. He was also fully willing to use his considerable power not just for political gain, but also for petty vindictiveness to deal with enemies real and imagined, political and personal.
For the Watergate Generation there were two great lessons from Watergate. First was that our political leaders, even the President of the United States can be corrupted. This seems a bit simplistic now, but this fact was a bit inside baseball back then, we tended to trust our politicians even when we did not agree with them. Back then a corrupt politician had more to do with graft in the publics mind rather than power for powers sake. Money was the corrupting factor, not power, Nixon changed that I believe. The other major lesson was even more important, that despite the corruption, the system worked.
The system of checks and balances in our constitution and as important the systems of a free press. The so called Fourth Estate to watch out to make sure that things didn’t conveniently slip behind closed doors and not see the light of day. Way back then, there was little doubt that the investigations being held in congress were being conducted for the good of the country and to ascertain the truth. There was no doubt that despite the competing parties involved in the process, partisanship was secondary. Nobody who watched Senator Sam Ervin a Democrat lead the hearings felt that he was “out to get” Nixon or that Howard Baker the senior Republican on the committee was not trying to get at the facts. Both men by their words actions and deeds showed nothing but a patriotic duty to uncover the truth.
The press was not only vigilant it was reasonably fair. It had standards of reporting that in today’s world seem almost foreign. Anyone who has ever watched the movie All the Presidents Men can probably remember the countless discussions that Redford and Hoffman (Woodward and Bernstein) had about sources and collaborative sources. How when they accidentally reported something wrong they went nuts trying to track down their mistake. But in their relentless pursuit of the truth they ultimately prevailed and brought down the most powerful man in the world.
Despite the terrible scandal that was Watergate, it actually may have been one of America’s finest hours. It proved that the system worked. It worked simply because the people involved did what American citizens expect them to do, look out after the public trust. The politicians in congress and in the courts and as important the media, all these parties came together, not to get Richard Nixon, but to protect the people’s government from abuse.
Much has happened since Watergate, there have been political scandals as always, but something far more fundamental has changed. The change is two fold, first we are far more partisan and America usually takes a back seat to party or ideological loyalty. Only in extreme national crisis, such as 9-11 do we really pull together other than that it is constant bickering and blame game with little regard to what is best for all. The other is far more frightening the press has lost all sense of balance and fairness. The mainstream media has taken a position not only to the left, that is normal, but actually advocating for a particular candidate and I fear it is going to seriously hurt our country.
Putting all political beliefs aside, ask yourself who is John McCain? He is a retired veteran of the Viet Nam war who served our country with honor and distinction. He is a US Senator who, unlike most, has reached across party lines to craft bi-partisan legislation, even at the expense of his reputation within his own party. There is little doubt that these two items alone would merit a great deal of respect and show a man of both political and personal courage. Whether or not you agree with his policies, there is nothing in John McCain’s record that does not portray him as a patriotic and devoted servant to his country.
Who is Sarah Palin? Again putting political policies aside who is she? She is an ordinary American woman who through her own self-motivation sought to improve the community she lives in. A PTA mom who ran for and won local office eventually becoming the mayor of her town while establishing a family grounded in her mainstream Christian religious beliefs. Eventually she attained the office of Governor of her state by rooting out corruption within her own party making her the most popular governor in America. Nothing in her record shows anything but an ordinary person who has lived an exemplary life of service to community and family.
Both John McCain and Sarah Palin are the type of persons that the people and press of this country used to put up as the absolute best of the American ideal. They represent the best of America, courage, humility, service, self-sacrifice, they are in fact the very epitome of public servants.
What has America become when such people can be so easily trashed and vilified by the media in order to promote a candidate for the presidency that nobody even knows? America has entered into Wonderland, where good is bad and bad is good. Where truth is made lies and lies are made truth. Where a good story and a good line not to mention a slick persona and stage presence are more valued than actual accomplishments, personal integrity and public service.
It has gotten so bad that even the mention of a negative aspect of Barack Obama is portrayed as either racist or smear mongering, whereas anything goes when it will hurt the two candidates of actual merit in this election. Have you even heard the countless gaffs and misstatements of Joe Biden? They are poo-pooed , oh well that’s just Joe. Joe the chronic plagiarizer.
Barack Obama is the first candidate since Watergate to not take public financing for the general election despite a pledge, in writing, to do so. I daresay that no other candidate would have been able to even get away with this without being totally excoriated in the media. But not only has Obama done it with hardly a peep of criticism, he has done it with virtually no media oversight or exposure of potential abuses. The evidence of these abuses and possible fraud grow by the day, yet is it a story on 60 minutes? A New York Times column? A front page on the Washington Post? A small article in TIME magazine? A blurb on your local news? Hardly a word from the institutions that brought down a corrupt President which precipitated the need for public financing of Presidential lections in the first place, shameful.
A candidate is raising literally hundreds of millions of dollars, swamping his opponent with advertising and other political advantages such as local offices and paid operatives. All this and much more that money can buy and nobody in the mainstream media even questions how it is possible that a person can donate to Obama’s web site with a credit card and not even use their real name or their correct address or even what country they are from. The Obama campaign has removed all fraud safe guards from their web site so that even the most rudimentary checks of credit card contributions are not verified. Forget the three numbers on the back of the card that most of us are used to entering when making a purchase on line or over the phone, if you enter a false name and address if it is a valid credit card it is approved by the Obama campaign and the money is accepted.
What does this mean? It means that since the Obama campaign does not have to report the names of anyone that contributes less than $200 to the Federal Election Commission, anyone can donate as much as they want as along as they donate less than $200 under any one name. By using different false names and false addresses for each transaction it allows unlimited use of the same credit card, nobody will ever know. Of course this also means wealthy supporters can far exceed the $2300 maximum individual contribution. So any contributor, foreign or domestic without oversight can contribute endless streams of money into the Obama coffers without anyone knowing, and they are. To be able to do this, the campaign must have knowingly disabled these credit card security safe guards that are common practice to all businesses and campaigns, you can not give a false name contribution to the McCain campaign, it will not accept it. This practice could only be set up for one reason, to facilitate fraudulent campaign contributions. This is in keeping with a host of shady financial and voter fraud allegations and proven practices by the Obama campaign that are scarcely reported, while any slight miscue by the McCain campaign is herlded on all networks and in the press.
Where are the Redfords and Hoffmans of the current crop of investigative journalist? Perhaps they are too busy uncovering the details Sarah Palin’s shoe purchases at Nieman Marcus. There is just so much corruption going on both politically and in the media it makes a thinking man ill. Unfortunately for our country the thinking men and women have been brainwashed by an American Idol mentality, which has replaced style for substance. I fear we are about to enter into an era of unprecedented political manipulation that will replace what is real and important in life especially political life with a shadow image that has no resemblance to not only what America was but the promise of what it should be for our children. Why?
We are about to elect a President whose entire adult life has been as part of a culture that sees America, not as a beacon of hope in the world, but as the cause of all it’s problems. Despite his cute little commercials and his pretty little speeches, depending on the audience, Barack Obama is nothing more than a thug. If I did not believe that with my inner most being, I would not be writing this. I believe this not out of any personal animosity towards Obama, but by thoroughly studying his background, both his political alliances, his votes, and most important his lying nature. Nobody can blatantly lie the way that this man does without having serious character deficiencies, even for a politician.
Another of the countless untold stories of Barack Obama’s assent to the unbelievable heights into the political stratosphere is how he got here at all. Other than his primary battles with Hillary, for what they were, every one of his successful political campaigns was the result of destroying his opponents through personal revelations or by disqualifying them through technicalities. During the primaries when Bill Clinton in a moment of candor said that he could not believe that people were buying into this “fairytale” he knew exactly what he was saying.
What is truly frightening is that if elected, which he most probably will be, unlike Watergate, there will be no opposing party in control of congress to keep a wary eye on him. There certainly will be no Sam Ervin or Peter Rodino who you trusted to put country over party if push comes to shove, instead we have people like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi who have shown that when it comes to important issues, political agendas trump the common good.
Worse yet we have no press that will study Obama’s performance with an objective less alone a skeptic attitude, they are so vested in his success that only the most blatant of failures and corruption will be brought to a less and less informed public’s attention. How do we know this? The record, the record of how the press has covered Obama as a candidate and how they have vilified his opponents leads to only one conclusion, they will continue to do it. Just as Obama’s political and associations record should be used to judge how he will govern, so should the media’s record on how they portray and cover Obama be used to ascertain how they will cover his presidency. Hillary Clinton was virtually forced out of the nomination while she continued to win election after election, showing herself to be the stronger candidate in most key states and an ever increasing popular vote equal to his. Yet long before a normal election under these circumstances would have been considered over, the media decided that Hillary was standing in the way of an Obama candidacy and began a concentrated effort to force her out of the race. No Hillary fan here, I felt sorry for her and was extremely disturbed by the blatant favoritism. This has only reached more extreme levels in the general election campaign against the Republican ticket, which has now reached a point of absolute absurdity.
So now here we are with an inexperienced, obviously arrogant, candidate with a history of Anti-American shady associations and unscrupulous political practices being cheered on by the so-called watchdogs of American society. While candidates with stellar American backgrounds and unquestioned patriotism are having there character and backgrounds twisted and maligned by these same guardians of “America’s right to know.” Regardless of your political beliefs, regardless of your political differences, this is dangerous, this is sick, this is not what America stands for and if Barack Obama is elected I personally will be ashamed of my country for being so obviously fooled. A public that seemingly has lost sight of what is real and what is not. The once proud Democratic Party has been taken over by elitist and net roots. The once proud Republican Party is a frail caricature of what it has been, but Americans should always remember who they are and what they stand for.
Don’t get me wrong America has made many mistakes and has many things that we can improve on, but we are still the last best hope in the world, if we are willing to do the hard work to reestablish our roots. We need leaders that believe in America, not in themselves. We are great not because we are special but because the system given to us by some very inspired men in the beginning of our country is special and when followed it inspires greatness and freedom for others. Our problems are not the result of our basic systems of governance and economics; our problems are in the misuse and manipulation of them. We have lost sight of what makes America great, but what makes it great is still there, we just have to adhere to it not destroy it. I hope everyone will stay informed and study our founding documents and the history of our country. More importantly I hope everyone will seek out and support those who seek leadership roles who believe in America, not those that will attempt to undermine it through policies of entitlement and class warfare. An American wants the best for all Americans, not at the expense of others but through the effort of all.
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