Third Monday Random: Watergate, Lewinsky, NSA

Why do people care the least about what may affect them the most?

By motomynd

In 1974, Richard Nixon became the only U.S. President to resign while in office. As you probably know, this was because he and some of his staff were caught trying to cover up their involvement in a break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate office complex. The bungled attempt at obtaining information to help Nixon’s re-election was as ridiculous as it was incompetent. Nixon had a sizeable lead in the polls over Democratic contender George McGovern, and he went on to win the election in a landslide.
    In the years since, there has been much ado about “what Watergate did to the country” and “how it affected people.” Frankly, it didn’t affect most of us at all. A paranoid politician went overboard trying to make sure he won an election, and he lied about it after he was caught. So? Confirming that another politician was driven by something we didn’t understand but instinctively knew we couldn’t trust was not exactly a shock. And given the previous drama in Nixon’s political career, we already knew he was more off-kilter than most.
    As for McGovern, did it hurt his political career or resuscitate it? He barely survived a laughable primary process and a mangled convention, and was likely going to lose badly to the immensely popular Nixon anyway, so Watergate gave him an out. Instead of being remembered as the guy who ran a lackluster campaign and lost by more than 20 points, he is the guy who had an excuse—even though he didn’t. Watergate didn’t cost McGovern the election; Nixon’s very successful first term and McGovern’s pallid, disorganized campaign cost him the election
    As for all the “healing” that was needed “to bring the country back together” after Watergate, polls show that at the time of his resignation, 80% of the people thought Nixon should go—either by resignation or impeachment. When 80% of the people are in agreement, how much healing does it take to bring everyone together? If you weren’t immediately involved and you let Watergate negatively impact even the tiniest aspect of your life, you have issues to sort out. This was not a bunch of innocent writers and actors being dragged before the McCarthy “red scare” hearings. This was a very few directly involved people being caught and punished. If you weren’t one of those people, and you let Watergate get to you, that does not bode well for your ability to deal with real issues that do directly affect you.
    On December 19, 1998, President Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives. He was convicted on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice basically because he had an affair with intern Monica Lewinsky, and he got caught lying about it and trying to cover it up. He was acquitted by the Senate so he stayed in office. People across the country, especially Republicans, were in an uproar, but frankly, it didn’t affect most people at all. A man had an affair and lied about it. So? I’m not excusing the behavior, but most men have affairs, as do a lot of women, and they all lie about it if they think they have the slimmest chance of getting away with it. Ask people without sin to cast the first stone on that one and you barely touch the gravel pit. In this case, Hillary Clinton in particular is not a woman to be trifled with. I have met Hillary Clinton: If I was in charge of watering her flowers, and somehow killed one of them, I would lie.
    Did Bill Clinton’s dishonesty in having the affair, or lying about it, affect you or anyone else not immediately involved? No. Did it hamper his ability to be an effective president? Apparently not, based on all he accomplished, including keeping Al Qaeda at bay, the balanced budget he created, and the federal surplus he turned over to George W. Bush when the latter took office. Remember that? Yes, the federal budget was in the black when Bush took office, and it was trillions in the red a very few years later.
    Clinton’s affair certainly didn’t affect the general public as much as 9/11 and the deficit did a few years later, but polls show 30% of voters thought he should have been impeached by the Senate and kicked out of the White House. Yet they weren’t upset enough to vote Bush out of office after his first term, despite the 9/11 attack on his watch and the budget deficit he manufactured mainly by giving huge tax breaks to people and businesses that didn’t need them. Why is that?

That last question is stupefyingly relevant to what is currently going on with Edward Snowden and his revelations about the NSA (National Security Agency) and its domestic surveillance program. Until recent years the NSA existed in such obscurity it was dubbed “No Such Agency” by informed insiders who knew it was there, but were unsure of exactly what it did. Like most “intelligence agencies” its noted failures revolving around 9/11 showed it sucked up a lot of tax dollars but otherwise did very little, apparently.
    What a difference a decade makes.
    Unless you have been in a cave the past 11 years, or perhaps an innocent prisoner stuck in detention at Guantanamo Bay, you by now know the NSA is possibly the one-and-only place for a computer dweeb to get a six-figure job if they are a high-school and community college dropout who managed to break both legs in U.S. Army training. If you want to live in Hawaii with an “acrobat” girlfriend who likes to spend her spare time doing soft-core porn photos of herself barely dressed in lingerie—or in cupcakes, with lit candles—the NSA may be awaiting your resume.
    Not to distract from what most people apparently consider the most important aspects of the story, but the NSA also has a budget upwards of $10 billion. According to a year-old article on Wired ["The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)"], at that time the NSA was building a huge project of “immense secrecy” in Bluffdale, Utah, in the heart of old-school, multiple-wives Mormon country, barely 20 miles due south of Salt Lake City, in the shadow of the imposing and ruggedly scenic Wasatch Mountains. Take I-15 south from Salt Lake City, turn right (west) on Route 154, and you can’t miss the cleverly under-named Utah Data Center. You can’t actually get to the center, but if you are a hiker or trail runner you can kill some time on some of the best mountain trails in the country while you are in the area.
    Billions of dollars are apparently about as effective at buying “immense secrecy” as they are at preventing a bunch of Saudi Arabians from hijacking four different planes and flying three of them into noteworthy buildings, and in formulating an effective response against the guilty parties rather than the innocent country next door. On the bright side, those days of embarrassing miscalculations are gone and when the staff at the $2 billion Bluffdale complex is up and running, the NSA will surely protect the U.S. in the future. No longer will paying passengers have to undertake their own suicide mission to keep their plane from being crashed into the White House or the Capitol Building. No more “shoe” or “underwear” bombers being taken down by fellow airplane passengers, or Times Square terrorists being stopped by hot-dog vendors. With the NSA fully up to speed, you no longer have to count on the fat guy across the aisle winning a round of hand-to-hand combat to save the plane.
    Most importantly, the NSA will keep everyone safe without employing any of the Bush-era tactics that took away so many hard-earned civil liberties. Neither the Bluffdale complex in particular, nor the NSA in general, monitors domestic communications.
    How do we know this?
    By law, NSA’s intelligence gathering is limited to spying on only foreign communications. The NSA has long maintained that it only keeps tabs on the stateside embassies and missions of foreign countries; it relies on the FBI to handle domestic investigation of individuals—a fact that National Intelligence Director James Clapper recently reiterated when testifying before Congress.
    Yet according to an article on the NPR website (“Clapper Apologizes For Answer On NSA's Data Collection”), Clapper’s statements on the NSA’s abilities and practices played a key role in motivating the now infamous Snowden to turn whistleblower, reveal reams of allegedly classified information, tear himself away from his seemingly alluring girlfriend, and wind up (at this time) stuck in the transition area of a Russian airport.
Snowden said:

It was seeing a continuing litany of lies from senior officials to Congress—and therefore the American people—and the realization that that Congress, specifically the Gang of Eight, wholly supported the lies that compelled me to act. Seeing someone in the position of James Clapper—the Director of National Intelligence—baldly lying to the public without repercussion is the evidence of a subverted democracy. The consent of the governed is not consent if it is not informed.

    On July 2, Clapper issued an apology to Congress, saying his previous statement was “clearly erroneous” and acknowledging that Snowden’s allegations are correct: the NSA has been conducting wide-ranging domestic surveillance, in direct contradiction to the laws that define and limit its actions.
    “The consent of the governed is not consent if it is not informed.” That line should get the attention of grandparents who were so concerned about Watergate, parents who spent months caught up in the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, and today’s digital generation, which have been largely supportive of President Obama. So far, however, very few people seem all that upset.
    For those of us over 50, the most shocking response to what are arguably the three greatest governmental scandals of our lifetime, is this public yawn about the NSA actions—and about the Obama administration’s possible involvement.
    Why were people so concerned about Watergate and the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, but have so far had so little interest in a government agency’s illegal actions that may directly affect them? If people wanted a president impeached for spying on a political rival, why aren’t they screaming for the same when the spying was on the people themselves?
    If you are reading this, and especially if you have ever gone online and searched for “pita bread” or “jihad” or “hummus” then you may have been caught in the very wide casting of the NSA net. So what do you think about that? Do you have big concerns, or do you think it is much ado over nothing—that whatever the government has to do to stop terrorism is fine, even if it means your private communications may not be private?
    Please do share your thoughts....
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Copyright © 2013 by motomynd

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