Time for Woodward and Bernstein

It’s time for a Woodward and Bernstein team – or for a team like Woodward and Bernstein.
by Charlie Leck

I can’t tell you how many hours I spent in front of the telly in the early seventies – ’73, to be exact – when I should have been out, productively working. I caught the Watergate disease and became fascinated with the extraordinarily colorful Senator Same Erving. On those days when I had to beat the streets, making my calls, I tried to have dinner in front of the television so I could watch the public television replays of the day's hearings, when the Senate committee chaired by Erving delved into the whole murky Watergate affair.

I don’t think many of you who remember the times will disagree with me when I give credit to those two young, energetic reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Berstein, for breaking open the entire mess and bringing down the President and all his men. I don’t know where the whole investigation might have gone had it not for those two tenacious guys.

Woodward and Bernstein set out to find out what the President knew about the whole, rotten business and when he knew it. I’ve read their book, All the President’s Men, a number of times and I’m always fascinated by it. It would take us nearly 35 years to find out who Deep Throat was! Remember?

Enough reminiscing about those days! I’ve written about them here before. Now I just want to say we need another Woodward and Bernstein – or perhaps they need to team up again and find out for us just what has happened in the whole IRS vs the Tea Party Scandal.

I’m here to admit that it is messy and that it was wrong! However, I’m not yet ready to admit the President had a hand in it. If he did, the nation needs to know just how and how much he was involved.

No one has supported or cheered for the President more than I; yet I must know, beyond question, that he is innocent and unstained by the shameful actions of the Internal Revenue Service. It isn’t that the validity of their applications for non-profit status should not have been investigated; it is just that Tea Party organizations should not have been investigated while such organizations in the center and left of the political spectrum were ignored while doing the same thing. Is that what really happened? We must know! Was the President aware? We must have the answer! If so, when was he aware and what did he do about it? Every American needs to know – every American of all political persuasions!

We must not allow Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and her type to make these damning accusations if they are not true. She has no idea whether they are or not! She is merely a dunce! The U.S. Senate must find out the truth and report it clearly to the American people; and they need a leader as tenacious and honest as was Sam Irving. (You children don’t know about him, but we old geezers will never forget him. Nor will we ever forget Woodward and Bernstein! Bring them on again!)

I should only add that I am not afraid of the truth on this one.
There is a world of difference between Richard Nixon and Barack Obama!

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I Blogged My Heart Out Yesterday

I am avoiding this scandal in Washington, when I ought to be confronting it and writing about it. I wrote, instead, a strange blog yesterday, meaning to post it today. It was far too intimate and personal and revealed some of the little problems my aging has brought along. Who cares? That is what I finally asked and then I set aside the blog, putting it instead in my daily journal. I must write about this stink in our nation’s capitol! Why am I avoiding it?
by Charlie Leck

“Sit! Write,” I told myself!

There are politicians comparing it to Watergate? Watergate! Do you remember Watergate and the slime of it?... how it brought down the President and labeled him a criminal forever after?

I am like the proverbial ostrich! I do not want to face this – not the slightest possibility that my president could be involved in anything so awful. He is not! I am certain! He could not sink so low as Richard Nixon did!

Yet, of course, Republicans are running around, happily, and comparing this current dust-up to Watergate!

I do not believe it for a second! I realize something went terribly wrong, but I do not believe it was orchestrated from or by the White House – though all the motive in the world seems there for this administration to do such a thing. The constant frustration brought on by the Tea Party types. Those inside the White House must have asked myriad times about whether the far right might be raising funds illegally to oppose the President’s actions. Why not loose the FBI and the IRS on them – the dirty bastards? Yet, I cannot believe this president – this man – could be capable of such a misuse of power. However, the Republicans will make it seem so! They have an important mid-term election coming up in 2014. What a body blow it would be to the Democrats if the nation suspects them of such foul play. Just the hint of a stink – or the unlikeliest suspicion – would be enough for the Republicans to win back both houses by a wide margin.

As I think about it, is this not motive enough to cause scoundrels to create such images of a president gone bad. Oh, Lord, not Obama! I cannot believe it of him. I will not!

Who knew what and when?
Of course, President Obama must act with immediate efficiency to lay bare all that went wrong. What was happening at the IRS? We must know every detail and how such things began – who knew what and when did they know it? Remember than constant tune from the Watergate scandal?

There can be nothing hidden! Everything must be open to the inspection of the American people as well as the Congress.

I will write a number of times in the next few days about the scandal in Washington and who is behind it. Full disclosure!

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If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it! If you don’t want to post comments on the blog, but would like to communicate with me about it, send me an email if you’d like.