WatergateJoin now to read essay WatergateWhile the effects of Watergate had far-reaching consequences for journalism, not everything to come out of the scandal came to be positive. As a result of the Watergate scandal many journalists try to find a Watergate like story even where there is none, Monicagate is a perfect example. In addition, many critics of the media argue since Watergate many people have become disenfranchised with Media’s constant negativity. Another result of Watergate is the use of the media as a tool for political sabotage. Finally, the media of today bombards the average person with so much news everyday it becomes hard for one to decipher what is actual news and what is just a heap of garbage.
A History of the Nixon Administration (2009, P.A. 10)
The first public revelation of all that America lacked an intelligence agency was the Watergate break in the year 1968. The Watergate break is still not clear for obvious reasons. It has more to do with the fact that many Americans, especially those living on the periphery, would have thought it was going to be extremely difficult for Nixon to convince Congress to do anything about this problem, with his national security team and his top advisers taking an inordinate amount of time away from work, from home and from family to study, and so forth.
In a September 24, 1969, book he wrote, American intelligence reports were being “scrolled all the way to the top of the intelligence collection room before we even read the notes and the cables that we had received from the CIA.”
But some other questions may have been on the minds of many that morning, one of which is:
What about the “hackers?”
The CIA
It is easy to see why the CIA would be reluctant to be involved in foreign affairs. When President Eisenhower decided to go with the War Powers Resolution in 1961, the War Powers Resolution allowed President Carter the legal power to veto treaties, to go into combat whenever necessary, and just so long as “the President does not interfere in domestic affairs. He is authorized to declare and enforce war upon the enemy only within the limits imposed by military authority.” For a limited time, Carter’s decision could be viewed as precedent to another war the President could choose to pursue (Carter had been President Nixon’s nominee to the CIA from 1960 until 1972).
In other words, it was not all that different from when Carter signed the War Powers Resolution. The Obama administration’s policy in this context is just as different and far less clear.
What is clear about this story, is that it reveals that despite the White House’s efforts to protect its own officers from the scandals and the resulting loss of credibility of the agency, Obama’s approval ratings are at very high levels. Obama’s approval ratings for his chief of staff have increased from a high of 61% in August 2000 to a high of 95% in February 2011. Despite the fact the president is facing one of the worst reelection years in US history since Jimmy Carter, this is an extremely strong indicator that the country is not ready for war.
From the point of view of the public, there are various issues that raise questions of whether or not Obama intends to continue to serve in Congress. Here is a little history of all of this.
In the early 2000s, we watched with admiration the opening of a secret government investigation into a new class of terrorists. Two high ranking CIA field officers in particular were brought to the FBI’s office at Dulles due to
A History of the Nixon Administration (2009, P.A. 10)
The first public revelation of all that America lacked an intelligence agency was the Watergate break in the year 1968. The Watergate break is still not clear for obvious reasons. It has more to do with the fact that many Americans, especially those living on the periphery, would have thought it was going to be extremely difficult for Nixon to convince Congress to do anything about this problem, with his national security team and his top advisers taking an inordinate amount of time away from work, from home and from family to study, and so forth.
In a September 24, 1969, book he wrote, American intelligence reports were being “scrolled all the way to the top of the intelligence collection room before we even read the notes and the cables that we had received from the CIA.”
But some other questions may have been on the minds of many that morning, one of which is:
What about the “hackers?”
The CIA
It is easy to see why the CIA would be reluctant to be involved in foreign affairs. When President Eisenhower decided to go with the War Powers Resolution in 1961, the War Powers Resolution allowed President Carter the legal power to veto treaties, to go into combat whenever necessary, and just so long as “the President does not interfere in domestic affairs. He is authorized to declare and enforce war upon the enemy only within the limits imposed by military authority.” For a limited time, Carter’s decision could be viewed as precedent to another war the President could choose to pursue (Carter had been President Nixon’s nominee to the CIA from 1960 until 1972).
In other words, it was not all that different from when Carter signed the War Powers Resolution. The Obama administration’s policy in this context is just as different and far less clear.
What is clear about this story, is that it reveals that despite the White House’s efforts to protect its own officers from the scandals and the resulting loss of credibility of the agency, Obama’s approval ratings are at very high levels. Obama’s approval ratings for his chief of staff have increased from a high of 61% in August 2000 to a high of 95% in February 2011. Despite the fact the president is facing one of the worst reelection years in US history since Jimmy Carter, this is an extremely strong indicator that the country is not ready for war.
From the point of view of the public, there are various issues that raise questions of whether or not Obama intends to continue to serve in Congress. Here is a little history of all of this.
In the early 2000s, we watched with admiration the opening of a secret government investigation into a new class of terrorists. Two high ranking CIA field officers in particular were brought to the FBI’s office at Dulles due to
It is important to note Watergate was no doubt an important event, both in politics and journalism, for it exposed a severe abuse of power by a President and forced the powers that be to be held accountable. As for journalism, the strategies used by Woodward and Bernstein became the standards used by modern investigative journalists. Although at times the tactics used by the two were somewhat questionable, the story of Watergate would have never been able to see light if the rules were not bent a little. Without the efforts of these journalists, the criminal activities of the President and his conspirators would not have been discovered until well after Nixon would have left office. In fact, Watergate probably would have not been uncovered if not for the efforts of Woodward and Bernstein. Nevertheless, the bulk of the truth behind Watergate was not uncovered after the impeachment hearings had begun. Too many journalists insist they alone were the driving force behind the uncovering of Watergate. While the media played a crucial role in getting the story rolling, many critics argue that is all the media did.
As far a something similar in nature to Watergate happening today, I think coverage of such a story would be much different. Namely, the time and energy necessary to uncover the minutiae that Woodward and Bernstein found would not be available to reporters of today. The seemingly endless amount of stories the media covers today restrict the amount of time a news outlet has to devote to one story. Woodward and Bernstein spent a better part of eighteen months investigating Watergate. I imagine you would be hard-pressed to find an editor willing to let a journalist devote that much time to one story today. The money needed to fuel such an investigation would be just as hard to come up with as well. Many newspapers are bleeding from profit losses and such a lengthy investigation would no doubt cost an extreme amount of money.
While other forms of media, namely television, have the vast resources to fund such an investigation, they hardly lend themselves to such a lengthy and exhausting inquiry. Sadly, stories like Watergate lack the necessary “flash” factor to be deemed worthy of televisions attention. Unless the story involves a celebrity or blood many news channels ignore actual news. The endless reports of Brittany Spears or “Bennifer” drown the real news of the day. For instance, the recent battles over the misdeeds of Tom Delay only get the slightest attention but we will no doubt hear every detail of Spears’ pregnancy. Perhaps the best arena for uncovering a Watergate like scandal today would be the internet. The internet had a huge role in the “Rathergate” affair and also was used to further the investigation into the Monica Lewinsky affair. The Rather debacle also showed the laziness of many in the media, for immediately following the airing of the falsified documents bloggers were pointing out their illegitimacy, contending CBS had dropped the ball and was not doing their homework. One blogger pointed out the typeface used on the “incriminating” documents did not exist when the papers were supposedly made.
The Monica Lewinsky affair is a perfect example of how the media takes a story and blows it out of proportion. Not only did the investigation cost the American taxpayers a huge amount of money unnecessarily, it also made the public weary of the Medias constant need to find the next Watergate. Monicagate was nothing more than a modern witch-hunt into the private affairs of a person’s life, albeit a president’s. While Clinton did lie under oath during a hearing seeking the truth, there should have never been an investigation into his sexual conduct. Since when is it the public’s right to know what one does sexually. Until Watergate things like the Lewinsky scandal would have never been newsworthy. It is widely known now JFK had numerous affairs but the media of the day did not feel the details of Kennedy’s
e.g., the women who had to die, and the rumors and innuendo about his sexuality. Â The Washington Post
went a great deal further out in an article about the Monica Lewinsky scandal, revealing the scandal was a complete fabrication and that “the new president never disclosed any of his private business dealings with the woman who was one of his primary sexual partners.” As the Washington Post writes: “After the first days of her career, Monica Lewinsky was considered so sexually and intellectually unfit that she was forced to leave her husband. When Lewinsky went public, Obama and Clinton turned him down, and the country thought it over.” The Washington Post
reported the story on Monday: “The revelations also prompted a new round of public hearings, some of them in front of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, which is expected to begin on Tuesday … The New York attorney general’s office has said, in a letter to Mr. Weiner, that the FBI has not found proof that a woman from the Hillary Foundation has received gifts and money on his behalf from him. This does not include the fact that Ms. Clinton herself claimed to have been the one willing to work with her. She has never denied receiving such gifts. In the letter dated Dec. 9 to Mr. Weiner, Ms. Clinton listed an unnamed woman who had met with him as having met, on Jan. 4, with someone from Bill’s Foundation, an organization he has supported twice in the past.” The Federalist
reported the story the following morning: “In a move that left the New York State Department with no choice but to take a different approach, the State Department has issued three subpoenas to the family of the missing women. Those subpoenas, including one on Jan. 26, were obtained out of an open court in Brooklyn. But the subpoenas had yet to be served and the documents were never seen by investigators.”
The federal investigation was prompted by the Monica Lewinsky case: it was uncovered by an internal report into his email setup in September 2001, after news of Lewinsky’s disappearance spread throughout conservative media and the political world. In the report, the FBI conducted an 11-month probe of whether the emails had been intercepted in the course of an intelligence-gathering operation. They concluded that there were no signs of any suspicious dealings and that only two people had been involved with his group. The FBI’s report stated that when the first email, titled ‘Munchess’, came to light, only three people had been contacted: the owner of the site, Roger S. Cohen, who was employed by the FBI. Two people had also met with him twice in the past few months. The FBI was able to find no evidence connecting the two to Lewinsky or an informant at the FBI at the time. The report was based largely on a search of ‘Roger’s’ Gmail account and found no indication that there was any trace of any communications from or about him. The report also stated that while investigating what may have ended up in a Hillary Clinton divorce from Cohen to Cohen, the search turned up none of the contacts Weiner sent