Don Jeffries

Greg Parker warned others here not to open perfectly fine links, provided by Jim Hargrove. When some of us, including Jim, questioned this, Greg responded in predictably indignant fashion, and attempted to make it look as if he, as always, was being wronged. A reasonable person would have simply said, "I'm sorry, Jim, I didn't mean to infer that you were being dishonest- I just reacted to what my software was telling me."

There are three primary reasons I continue to be drawn back to this topic. One, Greg Parker just keeps cavalierly accusing Jack White of fraud, without even using the "alleged" thing that the msm never uses on Oswald and other patsies. Two, his obsession with dismantling the Harvey & Lee theory has caused him to discount all the strong indications that Oswald was being impersonated in the weeks leading up to the assassination. And now three, he accused Jim Hargrove of posting dangerous links, was found to be in error about this, and not only doesn't apologize, he plays the victim and acts as if Jim was wrong to question it. If others would simply call him out on his behavior and the way he presents speculation as fact, then I could find time for hundreds of more important things than posting here.

I know that the vast majority of the research community, including most who have posted and still post here, have always found Sylvia Odio, for example, to be entirely credible. As such, her encounter with a seeming Oswald impersonator represents strong evidence of an attempt to frame him in advance for the assassination. But no one beyond myself and a few others have confronted Greg here about his contentions. Why is that? Most of you certainly have confrontational personalities.

I personally resent all this a lot more than Jim Hargrove's misunderstanding about how the p.m. system works here.

Mark,

I don't recall what thread featured that- I'm sure you must remember. Greg Burnham doesn't post here that often, I would imagine he can recall. I think it was hidden pretty quickly.

I'm not baiting anyone. You swallow Greg Parker's logic- that he can attack people and their ideas with reckless abandon, utilizing dubious theories about Asbergers and tonsil regrowth, among other things, then play the innocent victim when people fight back. I really wanted to leave this subject to others, but someone has to point out that the emperor is wearing no clothes.

The links Jim Hargrove left are perfectly fine- I tried them. Did you? When someone makes a reckless charge like that, and there appears to be no legitimate reason for doing so, then don't you think he should be confronted? I'm sorry, but someone who is so zealous to discredit John Armstrong's theory that he dismisses all the very solid evidence that Oswald was being impersonated in the weeks leading up to the assassination is not helping the cause of truth.

You're right- I'm contributing to the food fight, and I apologize for that. I'm not a disciple of Armstrong. For me, the official story is impossible, whether Harvey and Lee is valid or not. You and Bernie seem to feel that Greg has destroyed Harvey and Lee. I disagree completely, and feel that he has been reaching for straws in a desperate attempt to discredit one particular theory. David Josephs, on the other hand, in my view has argued his case extremely well.

Bernie,

James Gordon has been more than patient with Greg Parker, and had in fact taken away David Josephs' posting privileges not that long ago. On the other hand, those in Parker's camp have been far more aggressive and offensive than David Josephs, Steven Gaal or Jim Hargrove. For instance, Mark Valenti told David bluntly, "F....You, David," and advised Greg Burnham, on another thread, to "Shove it up your a...." Thomas Graves was allowed to taunt all his opponents with childish nicknames.

And now, what will happen to Greg Parker, after he warned people not to click on the links Jim Hargrove posted on the Frankenstein picture thread? These were harmless, legitimate links, provided by Jim in order to further the debate. Maybe Greg'a computer is different from all others, and strangely susceptible to viruses that don't exist. The alternative is that Greg was falsely labeling Jm's links as dangerous, when clearly they weren't. Imagine how Greg would respond to someone saying that about any links that he provided. I can hear the demands for a public apology now. Maybe he'd even start one of those dramatic "countdowns" he tried to use once with me. Regardless, you will never see an apology from Greg on this or any other forum.

Greg Parker is the one doing the baiting here, not David or those who support him. He attempted to bait me at least twice since I promised myself that I'd ignore these threads (once by writing, "P.S., Hello, Don" for some inexplicable reason, and in another intimating that I was protecting David Josephs). Greg has also, of course, defamed the good name of deceased researcher Jack White, and declared, with only his opinion as "evidence," that he willfully forged the Oswald photo in question. And in my view, no one here outside of myself has really taken him to task for that. No matter what you think of Jack White, or what your suspicions may be, it is far more irresponsible than the most extreme "conspiracy theorist" ever dared to be to just accuse someone who can't defend himself of forgery.

We continue to see middle-aged men, on this forum and others, unable to express themselves without resorting to childish tactics, and pointing fingers at others with the timeless childhood claims of "But it's his fault! Why don't you do something to him?" The more time I spend on these forums, the more I realize how counterproductive they've become. Most of you simply enjoy engaging in these figurative food fights.

I would hope that David and Jim Hargrove can do a better job than I can of explaining the photo in question. I got the newspaper to send me a pdf of the version that first appeared in their paper in 1959. That's about all I can do.

Jack White's relationship with Kudlaty doesn't change the fact that the FBI asked for Oswald's Stripling school records the day after the assassination. The official narrative maintains that Oswald never attended Stripling. Is it that inconceivable that Jack White would have known some of the people involved in all this, given that he lived in Texas? Kudlaty's story should be viewed apart from the fact he knew Jack White, no matter how close they were.

My main issue with this picture are the allegations that White knowingly altered it. That's a serious charge, and I can't believe no one else on this forum is defending him. Does your silence suggest that you believe Jack White was capable of such chicanery?

Greg,

You've made serious allegations against a researcher who spent decades studying the photographic record of this case. I can't believe I'm the only one on this forum who is outraged by your efforts to besmirch his reputation, especially when he is no longer able to defend himself. I contacted the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and they provided me with the image that is in their archives. I find the photograph to be of dubious quality, and I think it looks "Frankenstein" enough without any additional doctoring.

I don't expect you to admit that you're wrong. If I had to venture a guess, I would say that Armstrong used a lower quality copy of the photograph, which may have caused even further distortion in the image. You claim not to like conspiracy theories; that's a far simpler explanation than speculating that Jack White amateurishly butchered the photo to support someone else's research.

I'll let the rest of you debate this; as I said, I find most discussions of photographic interpretation to be pointless. But I do hope that someone else here will speak up for Jack White. I can't be the only one on this forum who respects his memory and resents these scurrilous allegations against him.

Thanks, Brian.

I had some difficulty with this, but here's a link where you can view the front page that is in the newspaper's archives: http://postimg.org/image/vfthluhxd/

Gary Mack also sent me a link to the Armstrong version, which came from what Gary said was a different edition, but should still be considered an official page of record.

I freely admit to not being an "expert," however one qualifies as such, in photo interpretation. However, it is my uneducated opinion that this photo of Oswald was, from the beginning, very muddy and "Frankenstein" like in appearance. I don't know why the newspaper wouldn't have requested, and used, the best possible image in all cases, but it looks like the picture was of the same dubious quality long before either Jack White or John Armstrong got their hands on it.

I contacted an editor of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He sent me a scan of the front page of the November 1, 1959 issue, where Oswald's picture first appeared. I would like to share it here, so everyone can judge for themselves. However, it is a pdf and I can't figure out how to paste it here, or to paste the pdf file that can be clicked and opened. In my view, it looks like pretty much of a "Frankenstein" image, but I'm sure opinions may differ.

If anyone can help me figure out how to share this, I'd be grateful. Thanks.

Greg,

I'm not trying to bait you or anyone. I'm pointing out the flaws in your own theory that the Oswald impersonations were not tied to conspiratorial efforts, pre-assassination, to frame him. As for Thomas Graves, nearly every one of his short, sarcastic replies can be interpreted as baiting.

You're right- I do tend to respond to your posts more than I do to anyone else's. It's just your cocksure attitude when you post what I consider to be unreasonable speculation, and the fact that only a few others on this forum will confront you. But you are figuratively following John Armstrong all over this and other forums, to "chastise" his research. I've never met or communicated with Armstrong, and have no dog in this hunt, so there is no knee-jerk reason for me to irrationally defend him or his theory. I do admit to reacting emotionally when you continue to theorize that Jack White knowingly forged a photograph and presented it to the research community as genuine. I still consider Jack White to have been one of the most important posters on this or any other forum.

I don't post much on the forums about this case because my views are pretty well known, unless I have something new to offer. For the record, I don't blame you for plugging your book whenever you can (I certainly do), and whatever you do for a living has no bearing on the discussions here. I agree with you that all work has value.

Greg,

I don't have a "story" to coordinate with anyone. I'm not desperate to either prove or disprove any theory.

John Armstrong has never posted on a forum, to my knowledge. My contention is, however, that he couldn't possibly be more passionate about defending his theory than you are in trying to discredit it.

I think we do agree that whoever he was, Lee Harvey Oswald didn't assassinate President Kennedy.

Greg,

So now you mimic John Armstrong's theory by referring to it as "Hardly Lee.nut?" That's some argument.

Be careful- Thomas Graves is very sensitive to this kind of thing. This may cause him to reconsider his recent theory that others here are baiting you.

Greg,

You're the one who's grasping at straws here, not Armstrong or his defenders. Your dismissal of Armstrong includes the most unlikeliest of conjectures. For instance, Oswald's tonsils growing back. As a baby boomer, I knew lots of kids who had their tonsils out. Never heard of a single case of them growing back later. That had to be an extremely rare thing.

You were eagerly claiming to have "solved" the Albert Bogard incident a while back, and posted a lot of information about the man you believed had been mistaken for Oswald, someone named Oswalt. Not long after that, you just as eagerly announced that you had resolved the issue again, and that the man Bogard encountered was the real Lee Harvey Oswald. Your "evidence" amounted to declaring that Oswald decided he needed a car for his driver's test. And you think others are wildly speculating?

If you want to focus on the holes in Armstrong's theory, go after his support of the official narrative of Oswald's post-assassination movements; the bus ride, cab ride, and especially the killing of Tippit. I'm with you on that. But what are the odds that the anomaly in the records about Oswald's tonsils are the result of a rare occurrence of them growing back and most of the encounters with an apparent phony Oswald were the result of separate, distinct mental issues on the part of those reporting them? Given all the "coincidences" and "mistaken" witnesses we have been asked to accept for over 50 years, in order to swallow the official fairy tale, I can't help feeling that you're asking researchers to do the same thing.

It's your cavalier dismissal of all those unconnected witnesses who reported an encounter with a seeming Oswald impersonator that I take such strong objection to. When you claim they were all mentally ill, you are not only relying on a truly remarkable coincidence (all those disparate people sharing a common experience just happening to each have mental issues), you are introducing the kind of "evidence" that Warren Commission apologists have always relied on.

Mark,

You mistake my reference to "professional" reporters as indicative of dismissing those on forums as being non-professionals. On the contrary, I have little regard for "professional" reporters or historians. We would know nothing about this case without all the citizen critics, none of them "professional."

And I certainly don't want to infer that I am proclaiming myself to be a "professional."

The notion that there is a "simple" explanation for anything related to Oswald flies in the face of 50 years of research by independent citizens. It does, however, echo the views of "professional" journalists and historians. Everything about Lee Harvey Oswald is confusing and open to question. To state otherwise is to ignore much of the information available to us, not to mention all that's been destroyed, lost or remains classified.

If there were merely a few anomalies about Oswald's height or something, that would probably be easy to explain. But Oswald was a supposed minimum-wage loser that attracted the much older, upper-crust, intelligence-connected George DeMohrenschildt as a best friend. He can be connected to pro-Castro and anti-Castro activists and to American intelligence. He was called "Private Oswaldovicth" according to the similarly intriguing Kerry Thornley, but all the rest of his Marine colleagues remembered him differently. It was recalled, for instance, that he was proud to have been named after the great Robert E. Lee. How does an affinity for Robert E. Lee jibe with a die hard leftist so enamored of the communist ideology that he defected to the Soviet Union?

Excusing all the unconnected instances of someone seemingly impersonating Oswald in the period just before the assassination is something that the authorities and "professional" journalists would do. If Oswald was being set up to be the patsy, whether through Armstrong's theory or otherwise, those incidents represent some of the strongest evidence we have of conspiratorial behavior. None of these encounters has been demonstrated to be less than credible, no matter how many Oswalts and alleged mental issues can be injected into the discussion. Again, that is the sort of thing that mainstream reporters would do, or government authorities "investigating" the case would have done, and did in fact do.

There are huge discrepancies regarding Oswald's height, the schools he attended, etc. Yelling that this isn't so doesn't contradict the data, or cause reasonable people to turn off their skepticism. Jack White's ground-breaking work on the photographic record regarding Oswald remains important, no matter how many times posters on a forum say otherwise.

I am aware of the problems with Armstrong's theory. I don't agree with it all, particularly in his reliance upon what I think is dubious evidence of Oswald's post-assassination movements. But I value his effort, and the fact that he added a new element to the database, much as David Lifton did (and again, I can recognize Lifton's importance without buying the entire body alteration theory).

"Harvey and Lee" is just a theory. It makes no sense to be as devoted to condemning it as John Armstrong is to promulgating it. Regardless of the theory, no one can deny that Armstrong did a great deal of work and unearthed a lot of valuable information. That information certainly doesn't bolster the official fairy tale, with or without the theory. The theory doesn't detract from "serious" research or researchers, and in fact adds to our understanding of the case.

Paul,

Yes, I'm a huge fan of Dave McGowan, who wrote Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon. Much of the book, along with a lot of other extremely controversial "extremist" stuff, can be found on his web site http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/ I'm sure many here will think him way too "far out" for public consumption.

I believe you have read my book (and I thank you for that). For others who may be interested, my thoughts on these subjects are detailed there far more clearly than I can do on a forum. http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-History-Conspiracies-Cover-Ups-American/dp/1629144843

Mark,

Linda Tripp received a legal settlement because the government violated the Privacy Act by releasing personal information about her to the always compliant mainstream media. She had originally been fired, in a final act of vengeance, on the final day of the Clinton administration. This included the explosive information that she'd been arrested for shoplifting at age 19. This was, of course, "investigative" journalism at its finest.

Tripp never published a book, and her original agreement to do so with Gallagher was motivated by a desire to expose what she felt were the wrongdoings of the Clinton administration. You prefer to see her as someone who was "out to get" Clinton. I'm sure anyone who watched a lot of television at the time would agree with you.

I apologize for helping to deter this thread into areas that really have no connection to Nixon. I simply believe that the media behaved far differently during Watergate than they have when reporting on any other scandal.

Mark,

Linda Tripp DID NOT write a "tell all," or any book at all. She was careful to point that out to me, in the official statement she prepared for my book. That is just one of the lies that have been told about her. Monica Lewinsky, on the other hand, has profited from her tainted celebrity.

The "attacks" on Bill Clinton, whether via SNL, Family Guy or wherever, were always done in such a way as to portray him as a lovably irresponsible juvenile playboy, a really "cool" guy. That is certainly never been the way Nixon has been portrayed. And Mayor Quimby, for instance, on The Simpsons, clearly a composite Kennedy figure, has never been portrayed as "cool." He is pictured as corrupt.

It's been a common practice for a very long time to call inconvenient witnesses to official misconduct "insane." Even if Marge Schoedinger was (which I have no reason to believe), she died unnaturally after claiming to have been threatened. Surely, that should have warranted some kind of media interest? The same goes for Palfrey. Maybe she was insane, too.

I agree with you that Nixon and the press hated each other. But I don't think Woodward and Bernstein conducted the investigation they did without approval of Ben Bradlee and the establishment in general. That's my point, Mark- the press in this country was lame and submissive to authority prior to Watergate, and afterwards they returned to their general lethargy. That doesn't mean Nixon was good, but it does say something about how he was forced from office.

Mark,

I spoke to Linda Tripp personally. She had no agenda- she was a liberal democrat. She described how those who worked in the White House all knew about Clinton's scandals, especially the body count. She was never Monica Lewinsky's "pal"- she was old enough to be her mother. She did what she had to do in order to protect herself. The treatment she was accorded by "journalists" was a travesty. Her family was devastated by the attacks upon her. SNL certainly never attacked Bill Clinton.

Marge Schoedinger died mysteriously, after claiming she'd been threatened. That's kind of like how Deborah Jean Palfrey- the "D.C. Madam," allegedly killed herself after passionately assuring Alex Jones that she would never do such a thing. Where were the Woodward and Bernsteins for that story?

The coverage you describe regarding any of these stories is always either cursory, without any skepticism towards the officials allegedly involved, or slanted to ridicule those who are accusing officials of some kind of wrongdoing. It was no surprise to see how Manning and Snowden were treated- this is the official policy of our leaders; punish the whistleblowers, not the wrongdoers.

The only curiosity and skepticism shown by mainstream journalists is always directed at the naysayers, the whistleblowers, the "conspiracy theorists." Except during Watergate, of course. That's very difficult to innocently explain.

Mark,

I'm obviously not content just to post on forums. My book has become a best-seller, albeit without much support from the JFK assassination research community. I've done interviews with Infowars, Coast to Coast, Black Op Radio and several other shows. Those are the platforms I have. I have other books in the works, which I hope will be published.

The Bush rape story was completely ignored by the mainstream media; as I note, the only reference I could find was in a small UK newspaper. The rape accusation against Reagan was so obscure that Meria Heller said she'd never heard about it when she interviewed me a while back. Others have said the same thing. NBC interviewed Juanita Broderick about her rape accusations against Clinton, and then sat on the story for quite some time. They purposefully chose to do this during the impeachment proceedings. Their "coverage" of the few serious Clinton scandals they even mentioned were exemplified by John Goodman's portrayal of Linda Tripp and James Carville's bitter dismissal of Paula Jones as "trailer park trash." There were never any Woodward and Bernsteins tracking the serious scandals of either Bush, Clinton and Obama.

Alex Jones has millions of listeners every day. Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow are lucky to get 200,000 viewers. Coast to Coast has even more listeners. The Drudge Report is, I believe, the most popular web site on the internet. The mainstream media has become insignificant in terms of news coverage. Fewer and fewer people buy the propaganda. I personally don't need their validation. I can think for myself, and assess historical events without their influence.

Recently, Congress held hearings, during which reporter Liz Wahl compared bloggers to terrorists, and bemoaned the fact that the internet gave "these people" a place to get together. That is the prevailing view in the establishment regarding true freedom of expression. They would like very much to let the Bob Woodwards of the world interpret events and write our history for us. In their paradigm, Nixon is a "bad guy' in a class by himself. I think that's inaccurate and superficial.

Thanks for posting that Steven. Jim DiEugenio's "Posthumous Assassination of JFK" greatly influenced much of what I wrote about the Kennedys in Hidden History. The ongoing campaign to slander their legacy continues.

I will have a lot to say about the assassination of Huey Long in my next book. He was unquestionably targeted by the establishment, and openly spoke of the plots to assassinate him, from the floor of the U.S. Senate.

Mark,

I cover everything you talk about extensively in my book. I don't think favorably of any president since JFK (well, I don't really blast Carter, who I think was less dangerous than the others, or Ford, who wasn't in office long enough to do much damage).

The mainstream media's criticism of high profile political figures is always distorted. For instance, Clinton was only blasted by the far right, until the ridiculous Lewinsky affair. His scandals were legendary, and only covered by the likes of Jerry Falwell and early internet web sites until Monica came along. Bush was made fun of for his absurd grammatical errors and social awkwardness. Where was the mainstream media's coverage of the black woman who accused him of rape, claimed her life was threatened, and then died mysteriously? I had to find the story in a small black newspaper from the UK. Obama's criticism comes mainly from conservatives, who make fun of his Muslim-sounding middle name, infer he is a Muslim, and blast him for not being "tough" enough when he's bombed more Muslims than any other president.

Mainstream journalists too often are figurative prostitutes for the state. Nina Burleigh defended Bill Clinton by advising all American women to get down on their "presidential knee pads" and emulate her willingness to orally service him for keeping abortion legal. I guess all that sexual harassment and even rape (Juanita Broderick, whom NBC kept waiting as they sat on her story during the impeachment charade) didn't bother her.

Your view of recent history is a conventional leftist one. I don't really care what the mainstream media thinks about "conspiracy theorists," or worry about who and what is considered too "far out" or "extreme." As I told David Lifton on this forum, you aren't ever going to convince professional journalists that any conspiracies exist. They are basically Pravda-like script readers at this point. The dinosaur media is dying, and more people are realizing it every day. The major television networks and print media are less credible today than The National Enquirer ever was.

Establishment historians will continue to assign a special guilt to Nixon. You'll notice that this guilt was never transmitted to Henry Kissinger, his closest adviser. Kissinger was a real insider, while Nixon never was. They still talk about Nixon's pathetic, short "enemies list." Obama has a kill list. Gerald Ford, of all people, was pressured into signing an executive order banning America from assassinating foreign leaders. Obama assassinated an American citizen who was never even charged with a crime, then killed his sixteen year old son the next month. And he bragged about it, as did other Democratic party leaders. The Republicans hardly are against this; they would instead claim Obama and co. are being too "soft" on the "terrorists."

Sorry to rant, but Nixon's corruption really was nothing compared to both Bushes, Clinton and Obama. Not to mention LBJ. They all had extensive body counts. Reagan, Clinton, and George W. Bush were all accused of actual rape. And yet the coverage of all these truly monstrous scandals were all but ignored by the same media that excoriated Nixon over Watergate.

Mark,

Mae Brussell and Paul Krassner were hardly leaders of the counter-culture. They weren't the figures quoted and reported on by the television networks, major newspapers and magazines, etc. You misunderstand me if you think I'm saying the anti-war movement was fake. It was just controlled, as most opposition to power has been for a very long time. I'm sure the majority of those opposing the war were doing so for obvious, justifiable reasons. That doesn't mean their leadership was.

Sure, David Crosby ranted about the Warren Report once at a concert, and we know that both Lennon and McCartney knew the Warren Report was a joke. But where were the public references to it by Lennon or McCartney? As I recount in my book, Barbara Garson, author of the seemingly radical play MacBird, later made some ridiculous comments where she seemed almost to see the Kennedys in a worse light than LBJ, and hardly blamed him for anything related to the assassination.

Yes, Nixon prolonged the war unnecessarily, but Hubert Humphrey would have done the same thing. And I didn't trust McCarthy. His campaign had an uncomfortably large number of ex-CIA officials join it in prominent roles. He also used to have lunch regularly with Ben Bradlee's childhood chum Richard Helms. RFK was the one they feared, and once he was assassinated, the plan to continue on in Vietnam was assured.

I realize that many radicals from the sixties continue to think of Nixon as evil incarnate, a uniquely corrupt politician. Look at how Matt Groening ridiculed him on Futurama, for instance. If you look at all the recent presidents honestly, you'll see that Nixon's crimes pale in comparison with any of them. And while the media covered up for LBJ, and all those recent presidents, they went after Nixon, and only Nixon, in the manner that real journalists should be trained to do.

Mark, as I point out in my book, the leaders of the so-called counter-culture were largely controlled opposition. Jerry Rubin later morphed nicely into a Wall Street investor, for example. Gloria Steinem and Timothy Leary were both later shown to be affiliated with the CIA. Malcolm X's bodyguard was an undercover FBI agent. So was Fred Hampton's. One of the four "KKK" members who fired the shots that killed Viola Liuzzo was an FBI informant. The list goes on.

why didn't any of those anti-war protesters bring up the JFK assassination? Why didn't they criticize the Warren Report?

Nixon never "fit in" with the crowd that goes to Bohemian Grove, as can be seen by his colorful comments regarding that. That doesn't mean he wasn't corrupt.

The mainstream press covered Watergate far differently than any other scandal. Ben Bradlee-close childhood friends with Richard Helms- and his newspaper never covered the JFK assassination honestly, or the MLK assassination, or the RFK assassination, or Oklahoma City, or 9/11, or any other significant political issue. But they certainly went after Nixon, didn't they? I believe Nixon was orchestrated out of office, for whatever reason.

Thanks for sharing that, Douglas. Really important stuff.

JFK really was different from most presidents, and most politicians, for that matter. The campaign to assassinate his character has transformed his historical image into one of a reckless, pragmatic politician who really didn't care about peace, civil rights, the poor, etc. That simply isn't accurate, and is connected, in my view, to the ongoing cover up of this death. After all, if they can distort the truth about his life, why should anyone care about who assassinated him?

It's extremely naive to doubt the words of FDR himself, who said, "If something happens in politics, you can bet it was planned that way." We have been ruled by primarily corrupt leaders since well before the assassination of JFK. However, things really went into overdrive at that point. When an American president was gunned down in the streets, the inadequate explanation really did crush political idealism, and paved the way for the chaotic remainder of the decade.

People scoff and say, "not everything is a conspiracy." Well, actually, if you're ruled by a succession of corrupt and incompetent leaders, who perpetuate themselves in power with promotions of like-minded individuals, then all political events should logically become suspect. It's really akin to organized crime, although I would define it as organized corruption. Which is really an alternate way of defining conspiracy.

One of the most obvious indicators that Watergate was decidedly "different" from other scandals is the fact that mainstream journalists actually acted like mainstream journalists should act in uncovering it. As a teenager, I was thrilled by the heroics of Woodward and Bernstein, and even Dan Rather's tough questions of Nixon at press conferences. It was only after I started researching the JFK assassination, RFK assassination and later events, that I realized just how odd this was. Surely, I thought, if a "second-rate burglary" warranted this kind of media scrutiny, then there must be scores of intrepid Lois Lanes out there, just salivating over the implausibilities of the Warren Report. But these same "investigative" reporters remained uninterested in the impossible single-bullet theory, the holes in JFK's clothing or anything else related to the assassination of a U.S. president.

As we know, these professional journalists, like the politicians, are supplanted by like-minded journalists who are just as unwilling to ask the hard questions, and just as satisfied with each new official government sound-bite "explaining" each significant political event. As I stated, I don't think Nixon was a good man. He was corrupt, like most other politicians. But he was hounded out of office over comparative trivialities, when one considers the scandals tied to other presidents.

I echo Brian's sentiments in regards to appreciating Roger Stone's comments here, and Douglas' willingness to post them.

While researching Hidden History, one of most surprising things I discovered was just how much Nixon's corruption paled in comparison to LBJ's, Reagan's, both Bushes, Clinton and Obama. He actually looks good in comparison to most of our pathetic recent presidents. This is not to sound like a Nixon fan; he was a typical spineless, crass politician. But I could find no real body count tied to his administration, for example. In contrast, it was easy to count the bodies tied to those other administrations.

There was, of course, a slew of strange deaths tied in some way to Watergate. But I tend to view Watergate in a revisionist light now. Certainly, as a political crime, it was child's play in comparison to the Gulf of Tonkin lie, or the cover-ups of events like the Oklahoma City Bombing, 9/11, Waco, etc. Nixon didn't pass a Patriot Act, or support an NDAA. Not to say that he wouldn't have; he was a hack party politician at heart, and probably wouldn't have opposed any of the recent restrictions on our civil liberties.

The very word "Nixon" was anathema in our house when I was growing up, and I cheered with so many others when he resigned the presidency. But he simply wasn't tied to as much corruption as most other recent presidents have been. This is not due to his integrity, or the fact he was principled or noble in any way. It's just that all the presidents after him, with the exception of Carter, were simply even more corrupt, or had a greater negative impact on the country.