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naraburns  nihil supernum  3yr ago (text post)   33690 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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I know this is the motte and that I'm the weird outlier here being the middle-aged republican but I'm genuinely kind of surprised and baffled to see people discussing what I thought was the mainstream normie consensus as though it were some sort of obscure/forbidden knowledge.

Was anyone here genuinely unfamiliar with the theory that Watergate was a palace coup?

I have my issues with Oliver Stone (given his claimed background he should know an exit wound from an entry wound) but I don't think anyone would accuse him of being biased towards republicans, and even he was acknowledging this possibility back in 95.

Did anyone here seriously believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone? I'm not talking about some hypothetical second shooter on the grassy knoll here, I'm asking whether anyone here actually thought the erstwhile "lone assassin" getting assassinated by the mob the day he got arrested was "just a coincidence" rather than part of a plan.

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Was anyone here genuinely unfamiliar with the theory that Watergate was a palace coup?

Yes. I have literally never heard that theory before this thread.

Did anyone here seriously believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone?

I suppose so. I haven't given it any real thought, but what I learned in school was basically that he was acting alone and I never had reason to question that.

Nixon was simultaneously quite popular, winning over 60% of the popular vote in the 72 election, and wildly disliked by what we would now call the PMC and "Deep State". See Pauline Kael's infamous observation in the New Yorker. The perception of Nixon amongst a lot of modern Republicans is that he didn't actually do anything that men like Like FDR and LBJ hadn't already gotten away with, or that men like Bush Clinton and Obama later would. Thus there is an impression that he was essentially thrown under the bus by a Washington DC establishment that was eager to be rid of him. Poor bastard wasn't paranoid, he wasn't paranoid enough.

Regarding the assassination of JFK: there are two popular conspiracy theories that seem to be broadly left and right coded. The first is the multiple gunmen/"Grassy Knoll" theory that seems to be more popular amongst the left. In general I think that this theory is fed largely by a lack of familiarity with GSWs amongst the general population, and a desire amongst many on the left to blame Kennedy's death on enemies to "the right" rather than acknowledge that it was a marxist radical who ultimately pulled the trigger.

The second theory, which to me seems to be the popular consensus, is that the Mob (or somebody acting through them) had JKF killed. This is based on the assumption that Oswald's death at the hands of a nightclub owner with ties to the Chicago Mob was someone "tying up loose ends". That Ruby would die of lung cancer less than 5 years later further reinforces this impression, the assumption being that he was chosen for the Oswald job specifically because he wasn't long for this world and thus there was little risk of him spilling the beans.

I was aware of the "Watergate as a palace coup" theory, but this is only because I have done indepth and extensive reading of various conspiracy theory claims. I mean, not being an American is an additional complicating factor, but even the local conspiracy theorists often spend their days poring over American theories (Americanization...) and I don't remember this being discussed.

It's only a year of two ago that I learned of this particular theory - the only theories I had seen before it had been related to Watergate break-in being about trying to obtain call-girl information to implicate the Dems or general theories about Nixon being an even bigger crook than conventional wisdom would allow, but I think the first time I learned of this theory was actually perusing Oglesby's Yankee and Cowboy War, which was a fairly recent thing for me.

Not being an American would certainly be a complicating factor, I probably should've been a bit more specific in my question.

Using "was trusted enough to handle nuclear codes!" as evidence that someone was some sort of deeply embedded apparatchnik is not the only thing that discredits your narrative, in my eyes, but it's a huge tell.

Top Secret security clearances are... actually not that uncommon. Many thousands of people have them. Many more thousands of people had one while they were in the military or federal service (they become inactive as soon as you leave). This includes basically anyone assigned to a nuclear vessel; not just the officers but the lower enlisted. Having a clearance is not some special badge of extraordinary fealty that proves you are absolutely loyal to the state; it means you've been thoroughly investigated and, so far as could be determined, have no criminal background, no drug habits, no shady financial dealings, and no suspicious foreign contacts. That's it.

Even "trusted enough to handle nuclear codes" is gilding it a bit, since you're trying to make it sound like he was so high up that he actually had button-pushing authority, when in fact, he was just an officer stationed on an aircraft carrier that was part of the US's Continuity of Operations Plan. He had authority to transfer codes in an emergency (he'd basically be the guy taking them off the wire and handing them to the captain), but wouldn't have actually had a whole lot of authority, since he was only a Lieutenant.

So, Woodward was a trusted Naval officer who reached a significant level of responsibility, but hardly the big deal you are making of it. In any other context this would lead most people to say "He was probably pretty patriotic (even if he did go on to become a journalist)" but since we're spinning fables about how Nixon was framed, now it's just evidence that he was some kind of anti-democratic agent of the Deep State?

None of this disproves your theory that Bob Woodward was some sort of operative doing a hit job on Nixon at the behest of his Deep State puppet masters, but "OMG he had a Top Secret security clearance!" is not any kind of evidence for it.

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Trusted enough to handle comms for an admiral is something else from 'trusted enough to maintain aircraft and read top secret manuals'.

That's just a function of his rank. "Delivering messages to admirals" is about the job you'd expect to be assigned to a Lieutenant. You're saying "He was a mid-level officer doing mid-level officer things, with a security clearance. This is evidence that he was a minion of the Deep State even after leaving the military."

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I get that you're playing Devil's Advocate, but you're not being very convincing tbh.

Devil's Advocate implies I am advocating a position I don't really believe for the sake of argument. This is false. I am stating things I know to be correct because while you apparently know no more about military service and security clearances than what you've skimmed off Wikipedia, I actually know what I am talking about.

I'm not trying to convince you, because you didn't actually arrive at your conclusion by evidentiary means. You are not the target audience.

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You're still here, saying 'nothing to see here' in regards to a inexplicably hired rookie journalist with no relevant experience

Why is it inexplicable that a former Naval officer would go into journalism?

Mhmm. And how impartial may you then be? I'm starting to think you are under orders to be obtuse, because any other explanation is so uncharitable it'd probably break the rules were I to write it out.

I'm honestly fascinated to hear what your theory is. Either I am an operative moderating a tiny niche forum under orders from the Deep State, or.... what? Please tell me it's something more interesting than "Or you're just too stupid to grasp the truth of my arguments."

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The rdrama codebase has something like polls, but they're probably disabled here atm. You can always use sites like strawpoll.

If you want ... another eight hour podcast about how nixon did nothing wrong, kantbot did an episode on it. Haven't listened to it!

The Nixon clip claims that ... it's suspicious that people loved nixon, then he "committed crimes", then people disliked him, that nixon's disliking the "deep state" implies they took him out, that nixon ... knew who shot JFK, and that the CIA was involved, and lots of other stuff. This belongs on abovetopsecret, not themotte. The bland claims (woodward having a security clearance) are verifiable, the less bland claims less so!

It's sickening and shocking that Tucker would endorse this, and shows the moral bankruptcy of the republi... not really, it's par for the course for TV news, there've been rumors about secret society assassination plots for thousands of years (a few of which were true), but that doesn't make it not dumb.

If she made it up, it's a great performance, if she hasn't, it's not very surprising

If one hopes to do something with political knowledge - whether that be stop the supposed all-powerful conspiracy that rules the world, or merely avoid its malicious influence, little details like "is this all made up" are very important. Historians, researchers, even new york times writers fact-check stories of moderate import, because when one's ideas matter beyond thinking 'whoa, the elites sure are mean', it matters!

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I don’t think you understand how a security clearance works.

At some point, Bob Woodward was assigned a post that required handling something nuke-adjacent. He was investigated and, finding nothing disqualifying, the feds issued him a clearance. That doesn’t involve inducting him into an alphabet agency, it doesn’t mean granting license to kill. He probably didn’t even get to read the moon landing dossier.

If Nixon were set up, how’d he get caught on tape planning the coverup?

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The set up wasn't the cover-up. The set up was the break in. That put him in a bind and he had to try to cover it up. What was he supposed to do ?

So the conspirators orchestrated a set up and knew that Nixon would try to corruptly cover it up? That's interesting, how did they know that?

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Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding you, but your claim is that although it's a common thing for US Presidents to spy on the campaigns of their opponents, Nixon had to be set-up on the Watergate break-in, but the real trap is that the people who set him up expected Nixon to try to cover up the break-in. Am I understanding correctly?

I mean, wasn't Trump campaign bugged over some BS made up pretext ?

What is your evidence for this?

Back in 2019, Trump walked back his claims about his campaign being wiretapped, claiming he didn't mean that literally. He said "I used the word ‘wiretap,’ and I put in quotes, meaning surveillance, spying you can sort of say whatever you want" and also that his allegation wasn't really based on any actual evidence but more on "a little bit of a hunch". His DOJ confirmed in a court filing they had no evidence of Obama wiretapping Trump's campaign.

If you are not aware of any evidence to support the assertion that Trump's campaign was bugged, do you have any insight into why you held this belief? Do you suspect or worry that your media diet and the sources that you pay attention to might prompt you to hold verifiably erroneous beliefs? Would that prompt you to reexamine any other beliefs you may hold?

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Your evidence for the claim that the Trump campaign was wiretapped is that the FBI/CIA has not denied asking the British to wiretap the Trump campaign? It's totally possible I'm misreading you, but if not...what?

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They put him in a position where any move was a losing one.

Cover it up, get him on the cover-up and then it becomes (stupid) conventional wisdom - "the cover-up is what gets you" (which doesn't apply when you're (for example) Sandy Berger who only got two years probation for removing and destroying classified material from the National Archives). If he doesn't cover-up then they get him on the crime and never mention this floating hypothesis that "the cover-up is the real crime".

If he doesn't cover-up then they get him on the crime

Which crime?

To sum it up, the claim is that Watergate was a palace coup, where the secret services overthrew the US government, and have kept it under control ever since through influence operations.

Maybe this is already answered by the proponents of this theory, but why didn't Nixon say anything?

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So Nixon agreed to not publicize evidence of a coup, agreed not to provide evidence of his innocence regarding his involvement with the Watergate break-in, agreed to resign in disgrace with a forever burnt reputation, etc etc because he assumed that the press would not believe anything he had to say. He further agreed to keep quiet for the next 20 years of his life and he did not confide his knowledge to anyone to publish after his death. Is this a fair summary of your position? If not, which part would you disagree with?

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because he assumed that the press would not believe anything he had to say

"Believe"? The theory is that they're part of the conspiracy.

Ok, is that the only disagreement you have with my summary? If so, do you believe "Nixon resigned in disgrace after trying and failing to cover up his link to a burglary at the DNC headquarters" is too implausible an explanation?

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That would have seemed outlandish to me too before the 2020 elections. Then I seem to recall it being the height of stupidity to talk about shit you know is happening and is subverting the democratic process but don't have evidence for. It was beyond stupid, it was poor gamesmanship and pathetic and made you look sad and stupid and like a tantrum throwing child.

Those are the options here. There was no path to the future for Nixon which didn't result in disgrace and forever being tied to corruption, the only choice was did he want to do it while making an enemy of real power, or come out relatively unharmed?

  1. "Nixon resigned in disgrace after trying and failing to cover up his link to a burglary at the DNC headquarters."

  2. "Nixon was the victim of a palace coup for [insert reasons]. He agreed to not publicize evidence of this coup, agreed not to provide evidence of his innocence regarding his involvement with the Watergate break-in, agreed to resign in disgrace with a forever burnt reputation, etc etc because he assumed that the press would not believe anything he had to say. He further agreed to keep quiet for the next 20 years of his life and he did not confide his knowledge to anyone to publish after his death."

Do you believe the second is the more plausible explanation of the two? If so, why?

Is my opinion not clear? You're so hyper focused on getting everyone to use the language you prefer that you are missing the answers they are giving. It actually feels like you are trying to put people in boxes so you can dismiss their opinion without attempting to understand it.

Is my opinion not clear?

No. I read your post I'm responding to multiple times and didn't really understand it (e.g. "it being the height of stupidity to talk about shit you know is happening and is subverting the democratic process"). Hence why I asked clarifying questions instead of just respond with "what?"

Ok, although I don't see how the question you asked clarifies the bit you don't understand. I do not believe the second is the more plausible of the two, I would be very surprised if anyone did since the first one has been the prevailing opinion of the zeitgeist for 30 years and is also the more parsimonious explanation. Nevertheless the second explanation is more plausible to me today than it used to be.

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I'm not that familiar with the whole Watergate scandal, but you've never seen anyone in a situation where even telling the truth would end up looking like they're refusing to stop digging their own hole?

What would he say, and why would anyone believe him?

What's an example of a scenario where someone telling the truth looked (at least at the time) like they were digging their own hole?

Ages ago, during some twitter spat, an NYT journalist sent a screenshot because he was trying to prove something. Unfortunately for him, that screenshot included a browser tab of a hentai website, which lots of people started commenting on. He defended himself by saying he was just trying to prove to his wife that tentacle porn exists, because she found the idea so bizarre. He even ended up sending screenshots of the conversation with her.

Now, imagine the conversation took place only verbally, and face to face, and there were no screenshots to send. Wouldn't "I swear, I wasn't fapping to it, I just wanted to show it to my wife!", sound like the dumbest excuse someone invented on the spot?

To bring it back to Nixon, curious_straight_ca's recommendation of "Wait! I know who shot JFK! The same people are after me!" would have the same result, unless his evidence was bulletproof.

The best I can piece together is that Kurt Eichenwald claimed to have received an anti-semitic flyer. Someone doubted his story and he tried to "prove" it by posting a photo of it. If the suspicion is that he faked the flyer, I don't know what posting a photo of a flyer proves (color printers exist after all). The Hentai tab is not relevant to the authenticity of the flyer.

If the phenomena you're describing ("be careful about exposing the truth because you might end up digging a deeper hole for yourself") is so widespread as to serve as a generalizable cautionary tale, I would assume there would be plenty of examples. Is Eichenwald's story the best one you can think of?

The Hentai tab is not relevant to the authenticity of the flyer.

The flyer is not relevant to the hentai tab, which was the example I was giving. Why are you trying to change it?

is so widespread as to serve as a generalizable cautionary tale.

I never said it's widespread. In fact, I think it's pretty rare, but it happens so it shouldn't be discounted.

I would assume there would be plenty of examples.

Why? The scenario we're discussing is when someone would end up looking bad by saying the truth, which means there's a lot of evidence that ends up being misleading. However often that happens, in order to show you an example of that, I'd need to find a sub-group of that scenario, where originally the evidence was strongly pointing one way, but it later was proven to be misleading, which is even more rare.

Which is why I asked you have you never been in that position? Has no one ever lied to others about you, and you were at least temporarily unable to prove they were lying?

Is Eichenwald's story the best one you can think of?

I could come up with one or two more if I jogged my memory, but before I do I want to make sure there's a point to that. Originally I thought you asked for an example because you didn't understand the type of scenario I'm talking about. This question makes it look like your questions are rhetorical. That you're not curious, but trying to win an argument.

I interpreted your response to my "why didn't Nixon say anything?" question to posit the theory that Nixon decided to stay quiet because he was concerned that his attempt to tell the truth would make it look like he's just digging his own hole further. My assumption is that he would only have this concern if there was a generalizable cautionary tale establishing it as a viable danger, otherwise why else would he preemptively decide to stay quiet?

Did I misunderstand your response?

Did I misunderstand your response?

I don't know. Your responses seem almost tailor-made to maximize misunderstanding, and I don't want to get into the weeds of what does you mean by "generalizable" or "viable".

Can we start with my original question, have you ever been in a situation like the one I described, or at least knew anyone that was? If not, do you see how in the Eichenwald example I gave telling the truth could make him look worse, if he didn't have supporting evidence?

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This example was interesting as it involves Kurt Eichenwald, a notorious and well-documented pathological liar and fantasist.

Edited to add: as well as having a documented history as a pedophile, or as he would have it, a financial contributor to a major internet hub of pedophilic activity ("research").

What would he say,

He'd say who shot JFK, which the tucker clip claims he knew (??)?

why would anyone believe him

Lots of people would believe him without checking too much (tucker is without him saying anything!), and more competent people might be able to independently verify parts of it.

He'd say who shot JFK, which the tucker clip claims he knew (??)?

That's exactly the kind of thing I think would only make him look desperate and sad.

Assuming Nixon is a rational human being, he would have evidence for his belief. What prevented Nixon from presenting this evidence?

Not having access to it. Or part of the evidence being testimony from people no longer aligned with him.

  1. "Nixon did not have any special knowledge about who killed JFK"

  2. "Nixon knew who killed JFK, but didn't have access to this evidence or everyone he knew who could corroborate his knowledge refused to testify and he didn't tell this to the public/press because he was worried he would look crazy and he didn't confide to anyone to release after his death."

Do you believe that the second scenario is more plausible than the first? If so, what argument would you use to convince someone who disagrees?

Not saying it's more plausible, just that it shouldn't be dismissed.

If so, what argument would you use to convince someone who disagrees?

More evidence would have to come out in order for me to be able to make an argument like that.

If you were pulling a coup of this sort, would you make one of the protagonists a retired naval officer with this kind of background?

Yes. He seems like a very central example of the category ‘sort of people who headline coups’.

Can you give any other examples of people within this category?

Why yes, I did know that Watergate was a partisan hitjob and Nixon did nothing wrong.

It was a coup, the second within a decade, and I have to hand it to the deep state, at least this time they didn't murder him in broad daylight.

While we're bringing up conspiracies, I'll just remind everyone that Allen Dulles conspired to assassinate JFK, and conspired with Lyndon Johnson and John Hoover to cover it up. Johnson got to be president, and Dulles and Hoover got to continue running their respective spook spaces.

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Payback for getting fired over the Bay of Pigs. Also securing control of the deep state/MIC in the hands of favorable leadership instead of someone who wanted to break it into a thousand pieces and scatter those pieces to the winds.

Are there any books or videos you would recommend to learn more about this stuff?

https://spartacus-educational.com/spartacus-blogURL141.htm

Here's a rundown, with a list of sources at the end. It's not specifically about Nixon, but Russ Baker's Family of Secrets has long been one of my favorite books on the general deep state. Since most of my reading has been specifically about the Kennedy assassination, not Watergate, most of my recommendations would lead that direction.

I’d be very skeptical of any of these claims.

You should be skeptical of the claim that Lee Harvey Oswald was solely responsible for John Kennedy's assassination, and that Jacob Leon Rubenstein acted alone in killing him before he could defend himself or tell his side of the story.

Why do you call him Jacob Leon Rubenstein instead of Jack Ruby as he’s universally known?

For the same reason why I used John Kennedy, and John Hoover elsewhere. I like to refer to people differently than their commonly known moniker.

Same here, but I find it fascinating regardless of the veracity. Things don't have to be true to provide insight, and I often find that conspiracy theories, because they are based around one big outlandish claim, often put a lot of effort into getting other more mundane details correct - because it implies the big claim is correct too. You still have to verify the facts you've learned, but I find I get a lot of leads on interesting topics through conspiracies, if not the actual conspiracies themselves.

That said, and maybe it's just because I have seen some very seriously crazy conspiracy theories or maybe it's because I lean right, but I don't find those claims particularly outlandish. The public presentation of Nixon has always had an air of the 2 minute hate to me, even when I was left wing I didn't really understand it. Even with all the movies about Watergate and him, a lot of people seem to have no idea what he did wrong, only that he was bad. And while the idea that he was innocent is ludicrous, the idea that he was operating on a standard level of corruption for the environment isn't. Which is a roundabout way of saying I don't care about Nixon, but I do care about unelected and unaccountable officials meddling in the affairs of state to promote their own agendas.

Recently I listened to a very interesting podcast with Geoff Shepard. Here is part 1 and part 2. Shepard was a very young, junior staffer in the Nixon White House who in the past years has done a great deal of archival research and wrote a few books on Watergate. His take is that Nixon was basically innocent of any real crimes, and got railroaded by a gang of prosecutors and judges who ran roughshod over normal due process and distorted every shred of evidence to make Nixon look bad. You can listen to the podcast for more, or read his book "The Nixon Conspiracy." After paying very close attention to the Trump-Russia investigation, his description of what happened to Nixon sounds very familiar...

I'm not sure I'd call it a deep state conspiracy, which makes it sound like a Hollywood-style thing where the Deep State is doing something that the mainstream press would find criminal. It was a Deep State conspiracy plus a press pile-on of every establishment-type who hated Nixon, from the journalists to the judges.

I'm not sure if it is significant if Woodward was actually a CIA agent at the time. The Washington Post has long been know to basically be the stenographers for the security state, whether or not the journalist is actually on the payroll, or has simply made a bunch of friends in order to get fed stories, may not make much a difference.

It does seem significant that just a few years later Woodward's partner, Bernstein, published a long piece on the CIA infiltration of the media -- https://www.carlbernstein.com/the-cia-and-the-media-rolling-stone-10-20-1977 -- was he trying to get something off of his conscience?

So I watched the Carlson segment and I don't understand what the segment has to do with what was corrupt about Watergate and what was corrupt about Nixon's actions, specifically. As best I can tell the reason people think Nixon's actions with respect to Watergate were corrupt is because he tried to obstruct a federal investigation into a break in at the DNC headquarters when it became clear that investigation was going to implicate high level members of his administration (including his Attorney General John Mitchell) in the crime. This culminated with Nixon firing his second Attorney General (Elliot Richardson) and Deputy Attorney General (William Ruckelshaus) when they refused to fire the Special Prosecutor (Archibald Cox) who was investigating the Watergate break in, in what came to be known as the Saturday Night Massacre.

So, how is Bob Woodward's status as former Naval intelligence relevant? What does Nixon's meeting with Helms have to do with anything? Nixon's meeting with Helms happened months after the break in. Why does it matter that Woodward's source was the Deputy Director of the FBI?

Carlson's monologue is big on free association (CIA! JFK! FBI! COINTELPRO!) but pretty light on actually connecting any of these facts to any of the facts of Watergate.

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Ok, granting that the correct narrative of Watergate is one of relatively more corrupt executive branch employees exposing the corruption of a relatively less corrupt President it seems to me the correct conclusion is "more people should have been prosecuted for corruption" not "Nixon wasn't corrupt."

Granting that the "deep state" specifically wanted to get rid of Nixon because they thought he was going to do something they wouldn't like to them, why does this make Nixon's corruption acceptable? Is your argument that Nixon should have been allowed to corruptly abuse his office because other Presidents had gotten away with corruptly abusing the office?

I'm curious what is your opinion of the CIA?

Generally negative. But this hardly means the CIA is incapable of doing good things.

So, how is Bob Woodward's status as former Naval intelligence relevant? What does Nixon's meeting with Helms have to do with anything? Nixon's meeting with Helms happened months after the break in. Why does it matter that Woodward's source was the Deputy Director of the FBI?

The thrust of the current Republican revisitation of Watergate, at least as Jack Posobiec describes it, is to frame the whole thing, including the break-in itself, as an intel op to take down a President. The second topmost man at the FBI provides info to hand-picked reporters, one of whom is familiar with intel methods, and they publish everything in the most damning light possible.

What are the odds Deep Throat was working alone? One side will say “righteous whistleblower spurred by conscience” and the other is starting to say “conniving partisan engineering public opinion”.

Even granting the original conspiracy to break in was an intelligence community operation (a notion I find highly implausible compared to alternate explanations) I still don't see how that exonerates Nixon. "The intelligence community orchestrated a criminal conspiracy among high level Republicans and cabinet members therefore Nixon had to use the powers of the presidency to corruptly obstruct that investigation!" Uhh, no he didn't. Indeed, as far as I know there is very little to tie Nixon himself to the break in. Most of his involvement was in the post-break-in cover up.

"The intelligence community orchestrated a criminal conspiracy among high level Republicans and cabinet members therefore Nixon had to use the powers of the presidency to corruptly obstruct that investigation!"

Via Geoff Shepard, think of the problem from Nixon's point of view. He was in a total bind. He actually had no prior knowledge of the break-in, and he actually wanted those responsible for the break-in investigated and prosecuted. But the special prosecutor, Cox, was giving a sweetheart plea deal to the guy more responsible (Dean) who was spinning myths in order to falsely implicate Nixon. So Cox was not doing his job properly. Furthermore, Cox's team is full of partisan attack dog prosecutors champing at the bit to take down Nixon. So from Nixon's point-of-view, it is the special prosecutor who has gone rogue, and as the head of DoJ, Nixon is constitutionally responsible for removing the rogue prosecutor and putting the investigation in the hands of a more fair-minded person.

I am not sure why I should care about Nixon's state of mind. I am sure lots of people who corruptly obstructed federal investigations thought they were doing the right thing. What matters is what was actually the case. Had Cox actually gone rogue? What, specifically, were the "myths" in Dean's testimony? As far as I can tell Nixon's replacement pick for Special Prosecutor (Leon Jaworski) picked up exactly where Cox left off, subpoenaing Nixon for his taped conversations in the Oval Office.

I think that Shepard makes a pretty strong case that Cox had gone rogue, and he talks about Dean's falsehoods, you can read his book for yourself if you are interested -- http://library.lol/main/D7EDF03090D53D36483E1CC991D23836

And how does the segment deal with the tapes, especially the "smoking gun" tape, in which Nixon is heard endorsing the coverup. Here is what Wikipedia says about it:

Once the "Smoking Gun" transcript was made public, Nixon's political support practically vanished. The ten Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee who had voted against impeachment in committee announced that they would now vote for impeachment once the matter reached the House floor. He lacked substantial support in the Senate as well; Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott estimated that no more than 15 senators were willing to even consider acquittal. Facing certain impeachment in the House of Representatives and equally certain conviction in the Senate, Nixon announced his resignation on the evening of Thursday, August 8, 1974, effective as of noon the next day.

And, to be clear, the theory is that a bunch of Nixon's closest aides -- H.R. Haldeman (WH Chief of Staff), John Ehrlichman (Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs), John Dean (White House counsel), Jeb Magruder (chair of the Committee to Reelect the President), John Mitchell (Attorney General) --conspired against him, and exposed themselves to criminal liability (all served time, and the lawyers among them were disbarred), for the purpose of what, exactly?

And, by the way, I haven't seen the segment, but "he tried to keep the government subordinate to its notional head" strikes me as very possibly spin on pushback to a guy who claimed, "If the President does it, it isn't illegal."

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I'm not sure that "we later found out that LBJ did it, too" is much of a defense, but regardless, it wasn't just the surveillance; it was the coverup. That was the basis for Article I of the Articles of Impeachment, and that was the article to which the "smoking gun" tape was relevant; after it was released, the ten Republicans on the Judiciary Committee who voted no on the articles of impeachment said that they would vote yes on Article 1 on the House floor.

And how does the segment deal with the tapes, especially the "smoking gun" tape, in which Nixon is heard endorsing the coverup.

I was listening to a podcast with Geoff Shepard and reading some of his book. Shepard was a very young, junior staffer in the Nixon White House who in the past years has done a great deal of archival research and released a revisionist book on Watergate in 2021. He is also the one who originally internally transcribed the "smoking gun" tape and coined that phrase when he listened to it, even though he was so junior he didn't actually know at the time what it was referring to. After doing his most recent research he says that the tape has been grossly misunderstood. What people think the "smoking gun" statement means is that Nixon knew about the break-in and was trying to order government officials to stop the investigation. What it actually was, was that the FBI was going to interview two specific people were linked with soliciting campaign donations from prominent Democrats, and Nixon and his staff were trying to protect the secrecy of those donations (because a Democrat would be bad for the Democrats reputation if it was known they had donated to Nixon). The two people ended up getting interviewed anyways two weeks later and were not found to have any criminally involvement. The "smoking gun" does not show that Nixon knew about Watergate or that he was trying to stop the entire investigation.

and exposed themselves to criminal liability (all served time, and the lawyers among them were disbarred), for the purpose of what, exactly?

Shepard's take is that some of those who were actually more responsible for the break-in decided to side with the prosecutors and media establishment in taking down Nixon in order to get a better deal/reduced sentence.

The "smoking gun" does not show that Nixon knew about Watergate or that he was trying to stop the entire investigation.

Then why did Republicans who actually heard the tape think that it did? Why does the Nixon Foundation webpage say: " The release on August 5, 1974, of the June 23, 1972, tape (which was termed the “Smoking Gun”), appeared to undermine Nixon’s contention that he was not involved in the Watergate cover-up. The reaction to the tape caused Nixon’s remaining political support in Congress to collapse. Three days later, on August 8, 1974, he announced his resignation as president, effective at noon the next day."?

And, the claim is not that Nixon "knew about Watergate" beforehand; it is that he covered it up afterwards. And he certainly knew generally about the dirty tricks campaign.

Then why did Republicans who actually heard the tape think that it did? Why does the Nixon Foundation webpage say: " The release on August 5, 1974, of the June 23, 1972, tape (which was termed the “Smoking Gun”), appeared to undermine Nixon’s contention that he was not involved in the Watergate cover-up.

It did "appear" to if you just take the quote out of its entire context and have it spun by hostile press and prosecutors. And that the time, even Republican Senators were more trusting in the establishment press, so that was enough to finally pull support for Nixon. Shepard's research on the full context of the quote is new research, not something that was known at the time.

It did "appear" to if you just take the quote out of its entire context and have it spun by hostile press and prosecutors. And that the time, even Republican Senators were more trusting in the establishment press

The Republicans in question almost certainly listened to the actual tapes, or read the transcripts, which were publicly released

I haven’t watched the tape but the idea that Nixon was implicated in a political scandal and a palace coup are not mutually exclusive. It’s possible there are many such incidents that never see the light of day but did here.

No, they are not mutually exclusive. But, given the amount of evidence of actual wrongdoing -- evidence that members of his own party felt merited removal from office -- the idea that his resignation was caused by a coup rather than by his own misconduct seems to be a rather heavy lift.

Unless you can provide some evidence or some concrete description of how this deep state operates and exerts such omnipresent power, it just turns into a deus ex machina trope which can justify literally any theory you can think of. I doubt that you would be consistent with this idea.

I apologize, I misread your comment.

I think to a certain extent it was a sign of the times. Watergate seems like child’s play compared to the scandals of the last twenty years

Edit: I have zero real thoughts here. Just pointing out they need not be mutually exclusive. Never really looked into this particular line of inquiry.

I don't know about child's play, given the burglaries (including the burglary of the office of Daniel Ellsberg's (who leaked the Pentagon Papers) psychiatrist, and of course the DNC headquarters) , and the fact that the wife of the former Attorney General is essentially kidnapped to prevent her from talking to the press.

There's this incredible segment by Tucker Carlson that basically lays out a theory Nixon was not as big a crook as we think, and that he was set up because he tried to keep the government subordinate to its notional head.

This is honestly fascinating. It demands further research.

I see that a certain Geoff Shepard's written a few relevant books.

The best short thing I found: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/06/20/watergate_at_50_revelations_from_newly_declassified_evidence_147766.html

Here's the tape recording of Nixon saying he knows who shot Kennedy: https://rogerstone.substack.com/p/nixon-threatened-to-reveal-the-cias

But so much of it seems like pure paranoia e.g. here Nixon claims everyone was out to get just him: https://nypost.com/2022/06/16/watergate-gave-rise-to-the-culture-war/ besides how aggressively partisan they are, not digging into the actual topic, but primarily using it as a quick thing to besmirch various actors, to influence current perception. Stuff like:

Sound familiar? Those same dark forces will continue to wage ruthless war on anyone else who challenges their unaccountable power and corrupt status quo.

really weakens a piece and narrative.

...

There was some such overlap during WW2, but I imagined they somewhat purged themselves for obvious reasons after the break with USSR?

Why would you think that instead of the opposite?

There were communists in the OSS and CIA when the US was supposedly in a conflict with the USSR - IOW, when there would have been pressure on them to hide that fact.

After the collapse of the USSR there's been a CIA director who voted for CPUSA - any pressure to hide radical left wing affiliations is long gone.

...

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