Cronkite

For the oldest of us, the Evening News died yesterday, the "most trusted man in America" who came into our living rooms every weekday night and told us about what was happening beyond our own senses, "And that's the way it is."

For two tumultuous decades, before 24/7 cable and the Internet, Walter Cronkite was the face of the news, mediating between millions of Americans and the raw chaos of events, ordering the flood of words and pictures into a hierarchy of importance and sending viewers off to live the other 23 and a half hours feeling well-informed.

It was an illusion, of course, but Cronkite was the ideal embodiment of reassurance that the turbulence of the 1960s and 1970s was not upending the world as they knew it.

In the days before O'Reilly, Olbermann et al, he presented violent scenes at home and abroad with a McLuhanesque cool that drained most of the threat from them, giving only rare glimpses of human emotion in his welling eyes and shaking voice as he reported JFK's death, the disorder of the 1968 Democratic Convention and the sight of a man walking on the moon.

But beyond that calm façade were good journalistic instincts about the failed war in Vietnam ("If I've lost Cronkite," LBJ said. "I've lost middle America") and the meaning of Watergate (along with Woodward and Bernstein, CBS News was following the break-in while the rest of the media slept).

In the flood of tributes that inevitably follow the death of such a figure, the one that undoubtedly would have meant the most to Walter Cronkite was that he was always a good reporter. That he certainly was.

Journalism 101: Whoring in Hard Times

"The Washington Post's ill-fated plan to sell sponsorships of off-the-record 'salons' was an ethical lapse of monumental proportions."

So says the paper's ombudsman, Andrew Alexander, in a long mea culpa this weekend, underscoring how economic pressures can bedevil even those whose main business asset is a reputation for probity.

The lowliest staff member could have told the top people that it was not a good idea to ask $25,000 a head to attend "intimate dinners to discuss public policy issues" at the publisher's home with reporters serving as discussion leaders for "an evening of spirited but civil dialogue" with lawmakers and Administration members but, organizations being what they are, nobody did.

"They were all," Alexander writes, "aboard a fast-moving vehicle that, over a period of months, roared through ethics stop signs and plowed into a brick wall."

When a flier seeking underwriters for the first dinner this month was made public, an uproar ensued: "The damage was predictable and extensive, with charges of hypocrisy against a newspaper that owes much of its fame to exposing influence peddlers and Washington's pay-to-play culture. The Post's reputation now carries a lasting stain."

It's painful to imagine what Kay Graham, who took the heat for the Woodward/Bernstein exposure of Watergate that led to Richard's Nixon downfall, would have made of her granddaughter's decision to give lobbyists and their masters access to top government officials as well as her editors and reporters to help offset falling ad revenues.

Publisher Katharine Weymouth now says, "I have learned a lesson. Everyone has learned a lesson...If anyone should have stopped it, it should have been me."

She might have spared herself all this grief if she had known how the composer Gian Carlo Menotti answered the question of selling out commercially to support a noble endeavor.

"Your family is hungry," he said, "so send your sister out on the streets for a while. But when she came back, she would never be the same."

The Washington Post stopped just in time to keep its reputation for virtue, if not good judgment, intact.

Bush Medal for Nixon Felon

In one of his last presidential acts, the Compassionate Conservative pinned a medal yesterday on Richard Nixon's Watergate hatchet man, Chuck Colson, for "sharing the message of God’s boundless love and mercy with prisoners, former prisoners, and their families."

In the season of Scrooge and redemption, it would be surly to see anything autobiographical in the gesture, but...

Just as Bush himself discovered God after half a lifetime of hell-raising, Colson in a jailhouse epiphany rehabilitated himself into Religious Right respectability after a career as Nixon's White House counsel, the brains behind the Watergate break-in and countless other assaults on the rule of law.

William F. Buckley, the now sainted conservative, summed up the general skepticism about Colson's conversion thus: "Those among us who consider themselves most worldly...treat [it] as a huge joke, as if W. C. Fields had come out for the Temperance Union. They are waiting for the second act, when the resolution comes, and W. C. Fields is toasting his rediscovery of booze, and Colson is back practicing calisthenics on his grandmother's grave."

But Bush is a True Believer in redemption for such as the holy man who rallied support for the war in Iraq, condemned the outed Deep Throat as a traitor to the FBI and recently signed a full-page ad backing Proposition 8 and accusing gays of "anti-religious bigotry."

Colson's rehabilitation is a family thing: In 2000, Jeb Bush as Florida Governor reinstated the rights taken away by Colson's felony conviction, including the right to vote.

In the award of the Presidential Citizens Medal, Colson is cited "for his good heart and his compassionate efforts to renew a spirit of purpose in the lives of countless individuals."

It's not hard to see why the Bushes would want to honor that.

John Edwards Channels Nixon

In his weekend of "confession," there are echoes of Richard Nixon's ploy of "modified limited hangout" during the Watergate crisis, a strategy of concealing crucial information while appearing to come clean.

It didn't save Nixon's presidency and, from early indications, John Edwards' political career won't survive either.

As the Senate Watergate Committee was closing in on the truth, Nixon ordered John Dean to prepare a report that would mix partial admissions with misinformation and resistance to further investigation, a parallel to the World War II tactic of Nazi subs sending debris to the surface to make Allied attackers think they had destroyed their target.

John Edwards' "limited hangout" Friday night consisted of a vague admission of adultery, coupled with denials and evasions about everything from the paternity of Rielle Hunter's child to the money his finance director has been giving her, coupled with his willingness to take a DNA test and have all the facts out in the open.

Now, Ms. Hunter is declining the test, and Edwards' generous friend is asserting the payments are a private matter.

"I have been stripped bare," Edwards said in his statement Friday. Not really, but we know as much as we need to know and the only thing left for him to do is go away--quietly. His tacky affair is no Watergate.

CBS' Respect-Free Zone for Journalists

The network has come a long way since Edward R. Murrow. From the time William S. Paley backed his newspeople in unmasking Sen. Joe McCarthy to the present day when its lawyers are insulting Dan Rather in court filings for trying to nail George W. Bush's lies about his National Guard service, CBS has been in a downward spiral as steep as the ratings plunge of its nightly news.

In the new issue of New York Magazine, Rather vents his dismay over being blamed for an error in a story that was essentially right and booted out of a job he held with distinction for 24 years after being the network's lead reporter in exposing Nixon and Watergate.

Although legend rightly immortalizes Woodward and Bernstein for their Washington Post coverage leading to Nixon's downfall, CBS News was the only other media outlet that stayed with the story during a time when others held back, and it was Rather who did most of the reporting.

When he recently brought suit to vindicate himself from what Ted Koppel called the "travesty" of his firing for "a story that was much more correct than incorrect," CBS lawyers filed a contemptuous response in court papers, citing it as "a regrettable attempt" by him "to remain in the public eye, and to settle old scores and perceived slights."

At the risk of looking like the loony anchorman in "Network" shouting, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more," Rather is ending his public life with the signoff he used for his broadcasts: "Courage."

He has always had more than his share of that and deserves the respect that a now whorish network is trying to take away from him.

Frankenstein's Fred

If he doesn’t make it to the White House, Fred Thompson would be a natural for the musical version of “Young Frankenstein,” the Mel Brooks 1974 classic that came out not long after the Watergate black comedy played out on live TV.

Just as Gene Wilder gave life to the hulking Peter Boyle in Transylvania, Sen. Howard Baker pushed forward his gangling former campaign manager as Minority Counsel in the Washington hearings and launched his dual career in politics and acting.

In yesterday’s debate, it was difficult not to picture Thompson as the Creature who came off the lab table stiffly but eventually warmed up enough to perform a creditable soft-shoe “Putting on the Ritz” for the nervous crowd that had been anticipating his debut.

The question now is whether Thompson’s handlers can continue to zap him with enough voltage to keep their big guy animated while holding off Giuliani’s angry Republican villagers who will be hounding him on the campaign trail.

If not, Mel Brooks will be waiting.

Media Mistrust: The Tipping Point

According to the latest Gallup Poll, Americans passed a milestone four years ago and have never looked back: More than half of us now have little or no confidence that mass media--newspapers, TV and radio--report the news fully, fairly and accurately.

Thirty years ago, only 26 percent felt that way. The gap then between Republicans and Democrats was only 10 percent. Today it is a chasm, with twice as many Republicans mistrustful of the news they are getting.

In the wake of Watergate, the public didn’t blame the messengers for delivering political bad news. In the post-9/11 world, they do and accuse them of distorting it.

Behind this change is the difference in the amount of news we get and how we get it. Before 24/7 cable and the Web, newspaper front pages and the evening news on ABC, CBS and NBC packaged our perception of the world and, for better or worse, there were few other sources of information to challenge what they gave us.

Walter Cronkite signed off every night, saying “That’s the way it is,” and most Americans had no way to doubt it.

Today, there are millions of Walter Cronkites on cable and the Web to decide for themselves the way it is and, although they still depend on MSM for most of the hard news, they decide for themselves what it means.

Mistrust and rancor are part of the price we pay for this privilege, but after the Bush-Cheney era gives way to a likely Democratic Administration, will partisan dissatisfaction with the news shift as well? Or do Republicans have the patent on media-bashing?

The Ghost Trial of Bush and Cheney

Sen. Patrick Leahy yesterday issued subpoenas to Karl Rove and his helper, Scott Jennings, to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee with what amounts to a prosecutor’s opening statement.

Whether or not the two Presidential aides take the stand, they will be tried as surrogates for the Bush-Cheney White House over the next months with the American public in the jury box.

Leahy, a former prosecutor, summed up the charges: “The veil of secrecy this Administration has pulled over the White House is unprecedented and damaging to the tradition of open government by and for the people that has been a hallmark of the Republic.”

Those who see the current Senate process as a counterpart of the 1970s Watergate hearings will find evidence in Leahy’s assertion, “Not since the darkest days of the Nixon Administration have we seen efforts to corrupt federal law enforcement for partisan political gain and such efforts to avoid accountability.”

Reviewing the case against Rove in the U.S. Attorney firings, Leahy claimed that “evidence points to his role and the role of those in his office in removing or trying to remove prosecutors not considered sufficiently loyal to Republican electoral prospects. Such manipulation shows corruption of federal law enforcement for partisan political purposes.”

To underscore Bush’s “stonewalling,” Leahy cited 74 instances of Presidential advisors testifying before Congress since World War II, adding that, during the Clinton years, White House aides were “routinely subpoenaed for documents or to appear before Congress.”

He broadened his case about the lawlessness of the current Administration by noting “political briefings at over 20 government agencies, including briefings attended by Justice Department officials” and the revelation this week that U.S. ambassadors were similarly drawn into domestic politics.

As Leahy launched the case against Bush and Cheney, the committee’s senior Republican, Arlen Specter, was hitching a ride on Air Force One and telling reporters that while he hoped “to reach an accommodation” with the White House on the subpoenas, “I don’t see it now.”

As in the time of Watergate, the American public will be listening and making up its mind about the innocence or guilt of its White House employees.

Fred Thompson's Conjugal Campaign

Does an unborn candidacy have a right to privacy? If so, Fred Thompson might complain about some of the recent unwelcome attention to his prepping for a run at the Presidency.

Even before announcing, there is news of high-level staff changes, some of which are attributed to the influence of his wife, Jeri.

In the Washington Post, Chris Cillizza reports the de-facto campaign manager has been “pushed aside due to clashes with Thompson's wife.”

Previously, another Post columnist, Mary Ann Akers, had written: “Her hands-on approach to her husband's political operation is rubbing some the wrong way.

"’She's running the campaign,’ grouses one veteran GOP political operative involved in the Draft Fred movement. ‘It's the No. 1 rule of politics: The wife can't be the campaign manager.’

“Playing a role is fine, says the unnamed operative, ‘but not calling all the day-to-day shots.’”

All this comes after gabble about Mrs. Thompson as a “trophy wife,” 24 years younger than the former Senator-actor. But, as a lawyer who worked in the Senate and at the Republican National Committee, Mrs. Thompson obviously intends to be more than ornamental.

When the Senator makes his long-awaited official entrance, Mrs. Thompson can pitch in and help him deal with mounting questions about his role as a lawyer during the Watergate hearings, his lobbying for an organization advocating abortion and all the other little housekeeping details that have accumulated during his non-candidacy.

Somewhere along the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton would undoubtedly be happy to advise the Thompsons about the pitfalls of a two-for-one presidency.

Bush's "Saturday Night Massacre"

The Nixon parallels keep coming. The latest Bush move to hide what happened in the firing of the U.S. Attorneys is a perfect match for the Watergate “Saturday Night Massacre.”

A New York Times editorial today notes “that if Congress holds White House officials in contempt for withholding important evidence in the United States attorney scandal, the Justice Department simply will not pursue the charges. This stance tears at the fabric of the Constitution and upends the rule of law.”

Just as Bush is now ready to hide his Administration’s wrongdoing with a misuse of the Justice Department, Nixon in 1973 attempted to fire the Special Prosecutor who was getting too close to the truth about Watergate.

On that memorable Saturday night, the Attorney General and his assistant refused and resigned. Nixon reached down to the third in line, Robert Bork, who did the bloody deed. (Bork’s eagerness later helped deny him confirmation for the Supreme Court.)

That was the beginning of the end for Nixon, whose lawlessness was laid bare for the entire country to see. Less than a year later, in the face of impeachment, he left office.

George Bush won’t have to fire faithful Alberto Gonzales, who will never refuse an order, but their political perversion of the Justice Department is becoming clearer with every move they make to hide it.

Bush won’t be impeached or resign, but he is certain to go down in history with the same stain of misusing Executive Power as his role model, Richard Nixon.

Reality Check for Nixon's Lying Library

Congressmen who are frustrated by current White House stonewalling may want to look at how long it has taken to get out the truth about our 37th President.

This Wednesday, the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum will re-open after being closed for months to tear out the Watergate Gallery, which for 17 years has been giving visitors a fictionalized version of events that led to his resignation--a “coup” led by his enemies with Woodward and Bernstein “offering bribes” to help distort their coverage.

In March, workers roped off the exhibits and began to destroy the cabinets and plexiglass-sandwiched documents with hammers, crowbars and electric saws.

In 1990, the Library had opened with ceremonies attended by three Republican presidents--Ford, Reagan and George H.W. Bush. What nobody seemed to notice was that Nixon had rewritten Watergate history, edited the crucial Oval Office tapes and omitted any mention of the dirty tricks, break-ins and other illegal activities that led to his impeachment and resignation.

This Alice-in-Wonderland version of Watergate was seen by almost three million visitors before the library, museum and Nixon’s birthplace in Yorba Linda, California were transferred to the National Archives this year, presumably for taxpayers to take over expenses that had previously been underwritten by private donors.

The new federal director ordered demolition of what one Nixon scholar called "another Southern California theme park" with “a level of reality only slightly better than Disneyland" and replace it with what he tactfully describes as less of “a shrine.”

The library will now have 78,000 pages of previously withheld papers and 800 hours of tapes as well as copies of “All the President’s Men” by Woodward and Bernstein in the book store.

One thing that won’t change is that the reproduced White House East Room will still be available “for weddings, bar mitzvahs and other events.”