The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Big Ben's Finest Hours

6.6.05 @ 12:02AM

(Page 2 of 7)

Has Ben Stein gone bonkers? His brief screed on Mark Felt was tasteless and totally devoid of any trace of thought or logic. Tell him to take an aspirin and lie down.
-- Sam Sherman

Ben Stein is a truly great American and very correct regarding the betrayal of this country by Mark Felt.

Richard Nixon was hounded out of office by an uncontrolled U.S. media and I don't mean the press alone.

The culture war continues.
-- B.T. Davenport

I was seven when the Watergate scandal hit the news and eight when Nixon resigned -- rightfully so, but he was sabotaged into doing it, too, I believe.

I didn't know then all that I know now, and then, like now, the media tried to paint Woodward and Bernstein as the "heroes that took out a Presidency." No, they did not; they were mere opportunists looking to make it big in their real world journalism jobs. Just look at the response to W. Mark Felt's family looking to cash in on his "Deep Throat" fame. And Bob and Carl's coffers looking to be filled before Felt gets all the gold at the end of the Potomac rainbow. As it happens, according to G. Gordon Liddy, Felt felt slighted for not having been picked to head the CIA when Hoover passed on, that the DNC actually had a call-girl ring in the hotel across form Watergate, and that many other allegations of election tampering were about to be exposed by the FBI, much to Nixon's credit, but getting too nuts over it, he panicked and the rest is history. Felt's Deep Throat status may have been perfect retaliation against Nixon, and many on the Left who schemed -- as they do now -- to keep a steadfast conservative Republican out of the Oval Office. Interestingly enough, why it is the Left is forever vilifying this man for a crime he didn't need to be demonized for, yet Bill Clinton's record spans decades and the Left to this day still say he wasn't really impeached or the rogue we right-wing loonies call Bill to be.

As Ben Stein wrote, Nixon did everything the Left championed as their cause, yet never followed through with it. Nixon created the EEOC, the EPA, opened relations with China, ended the war in Vietnam, brought home the POW's, ended the war in the Mideast, started the first nuclear weapons reduction treaty and saved Eretz Israel's life. What, exactly, did Nixon do that was so horrible?

Oops, wait. He lied. Incredible. So did Bill Clinton (remember Monica, Juanita, Gennifer, Paula, Danny Williams, where Bill was born and omitting his middle name oh-so-'Blythe-ly'?), yet the Left did everything to spin this out of the conservatives' collective memories into anything but the fact that Bill Clinton lied. Pathologically.

Ben, you're so right on the mark. Thanks for giving me a great history lesson, to go with the memory of playing freeze tag and Silly Putty while Nixon stated, rightly so, that he wasn't a crook. Paranoid? Perhaps. A sleazeball like the DNC, the mainstream media and the Left wish to portend Nixon was? No way.
-- Helyne "Missye" Klauck
Brooklyn, New York

So Ben Stein is a "writer, actor, economist, and lawyer in Beverly Hills." With all of these activities he clearly must be a busy man, too busy to even to do the reading to acquire even the most superficial understanding of U.S. history during the Nixon Administration, and the reasons that led major political figures in both parties to call for Nixon's resignation. In case Mr. Stein received his law degree off the back of a match book, and has forgotten, Nixon was engaged in obstruction of justice, requiring a formal pardon by Gerald Ford. Perhaps Ford was kidding. You could look it up.
-- Christopher Francklyn
Burlington, Vermont

Ben Stein asks, "Can anyone even remember now what Nixon did that was so terrible?"

Uh, yeah. Let's see, Mr. Stein, it was a smidge more than telling a fib.

The first article of impeachment alleged that he had used his presidential powers to obstruct justice. A criminal indictment was prepared in which Nixon was named as an unindicted co-conspirator. Conspiracy to obstruct justice. The evidence on the tapes was that Nixon had involved himself in blackmail to obstruct justice, using the issue of "national security" to attempt to get the CIA to obstruct the investigation by the FBI, destroying evidence to obstruct justice, bribery to obstruct justice, conducting political espionage, illegal wiretapping of citizens, and breaking the law by firing the special prosecutor to obstruct justice and protect his own hide.

I'm sure Elliot Richardson and Archibald Cox could remember before they died what Nixon did that was so terrible. And all the people who went to jail should be able to remember, too.
-- John W. Baker

So Ben Stein thinks all Nixon did was tell a fib? Please set the record straight.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Foreign Policy, Trade, Bill Clinton, Mainstream Media, Law, Military, Iraq, Israel, Africa, Communism, Fascism, Nuclear Weapons, Oil