Sam saves the nation
What I learned from Watergate
In June of 1972, five burglars broke into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee located in the Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C. They planted listening devices and stole documents. Their plan was to spy on the Democrats to help Richard Nixon win re-election. The burglars were caught and convicted.
If you can name one of these burglars without looking it up, congratulations. Your memory is better than mine.
I can, however, remember the names of the men who directed them to burgle the DNC. These men populated high positions in the Nixon administration: John Mitchel, the Attorney General, John Erhlichman, Assistant to the President, John Dean, Whitehouse Counsel, Howard Hunt, CIA operative, and H.R. Haldeman, Whitehouse Chief of Staff.
Did you know Haldeman’s first name was Harry? I had to look that one up.
In 1973, Congress created a bipartisan committee to investigate the break-in, which became known as the Watergate scandal. Sam Ervin, a Democratic Senator from North Carolina, co-chaired the committee with his colleague Howard Baker, a Republican senator from Tennessee.
When investigators for the committee first questioned John Dean, he told some fibs. He was not alone. All the President’s men lied about their roles in the break-in. But Mr. Dean eventually concluded it was better to tell the truth. He testified that, when the President found out about the break-in, he agreed to cover up the role his administration played in carrying out the crimes.
When asked why anyone should believe Mr. Dean’s testimony, Senator Ervin replied, “Because sometimes liars tell the truth.”
A Brief History of Senator Ervin
When I listened to the PBS broadcast of the Committee’s proceedings in 1973 and I heard Senator Ervin’s words, I thought, “That’s right. Nobody lies all the time, and this testimony is an admission of Dean’s own guilt.”
Senator Ervin immediately became a hero in my youthful mind, a wise and fair-minded man in a position of power. Just what the country seemed to need to my way of thinking.
He also had a folksy charm that struck me as gloriously American. You’d like to get to know him if you had the chance.
But Sam Ervin was a Dixie-Crat. In those days, the South still had a few Democrats in the Senate and the House. They supported labor rights but vigorously opposed desegregation. In 1954, when Congress was loaded up with southern Democrats, he helped bring down Senator Joseph McCarthy but defended Jim Crow. He organized resistance to Brown v. Board of Education and believed the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution only applied to white people.
Our heroes are far from sainthood. In a typical American rationalization, Senator Ervin proclaimed that Americans were entitled to “their prejudices as well as their allergies.”
It may surprise you, but I have some sympathy for this view. My sympathy developed naturally. Americans cherish thinking for themselves, making up their own minds about things. If you want an American to think X, just tell him or her that the government (or anyone) requires them to think Z. As the great American Groucho Marx once said, “Whatever it is, I’m against it!”
Unfortunately, this attitude planted deep in the American psyche does not promote rational thinking. It underpins reactionary thinking, which is to say, no thinking at all.
So, when Sam gave bigots permission to be bigots, he was not doing America a favor. Rather, he excused his politics. He would never have risen to the rank of Senator from North Carolina in 1954 if he had been an advocate for desegregation.
Still, America was lucky to have him around in 1973 to co-chair the Watergate Committee. Without him, America might never have gotten to the truth about Richard Nixon.
The New Lies
These days mainstream media is accused of being “Fake News;” i.e., liars. But back in the Watergate days, the mainstream media was the only news media. My recollection of it was not so much that it was fake. Rather, it simply omitted many embarrassing details.
Mainstream media still does that today. But the so-called non-mainstream media does not just omit details. It promotes outright lies. Further, it is no longer not so non-mainstream. Fox News has tens of millions of viewers. Newsmax is growing its audience every day.
These “non-mainstream news” broadcasters are still talking about the 2020 election as stolen despite having exactly zero credible material evidence of election tampering. By material, I mean evidence that could be construed possibly to change the outcome.
They celebrate the invaders of the Capitol on January 6th as patriots and peaceful protesters. They applaud President Trump for pardoning them.
More recently, they excuse every dumb and/or wicked idea that substitutes for national policy. Here are a few examples:
Tariffs are not taxes and will bring down inflation.
Ukraine started the war with Russia.
The good part of the economy is Trump’s; the bad part is Biden’s.
The price of eggs has come way down.
DOGE only cut waste, fraud, and abuse.
The Trump administration will not cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid.
Really, the complete list is too long, and it is pointless to reiterate everything on it here.
The President has already signed one-hundred forty-seven executive orders. Many if not most of them are unconstitutional. Over fifty federal court orders have already been issued to restrain the impacts of these EOs. See Litigation Tracker: Legal Challenges to Trump Administration Actions
If you recognize just one of these lies, that ought to be enough to impeach the credibility of the source in your own mind.
The exasperation of the people who have made this recognition is severe. For them, like for me, the lies are not driving America into the ground. They are hurtling America over a cliff. The volume of them has generated enough inertia to make changing course seem impossible.
But isn’t that the plan?
When Can You Believe What a Liar Says?
In 2016, we were told that the first Trump administration would have “only the best people.” The President “hired” Mike Pence as his Vice-President. He hired John Kelly, a four-star general, as Secretary of Homeland Security and as his Chief of Staff. He hired Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo (another general) as his Secretaries of State. James Mattis (another general) as Secretary of Defense. Jeff Sessions and William Barr as Attorneys General.
None of these people have even been considered for a cabinet position this time. None of them serve the government in any capacity today. If the President’s judgment is so great as claimed on Fox News, why not?
Because, like John Dean, in the 2024 election cycle, they did not cover up the scandal that was the first Trump administration.
William Barr categorically stated there was no material election fraud.
Rex Tillerson said Donald Trump was a moron.
John Kelly said, “[Trump’s] certainly the only president that has all but rejected what America is all about, and what makes America, America.”
Mike Pence said, “President Trump was wrong” about the 2020 election.
I think anyone who has ever worked for Donald Trump has at one time or another had to lie for him. But sometimes these employees wake up and have a change of heart. Or maybe sometimes they no longer can stomach what their employment asks of them.
Perhaps it was wise to doubt the authenticity of their remarks while they served under Donald Trump. Now that they are free to speak their minds, I think it is safe to believe what they say. Sometimes liars tell the truth.