G. Gordon Liddy – author of Will and famous as much for his appearances on Miami Vice back in the ’80s as for his role in the Watergate affair – has died at 90. I knew the “G Man,” as he liked to be called when he hosted a radio show in the ’90s – and have a signed picture of him.
What’s interesting, though, is how his death – from old age – has been framed. One article styled it thusly:
“Liddy’s death was confirmed by his son, Thomas, to The Washington Post on Tuesday, noting that he passed away at his daughter’s home in Virginia. While he did not offer a specific cause, he said the death was not related to Covid-19.”
No!
Really?
A 90-year-old man dies . . . and it isn’t Because ‘Rona? Isn’t it the “case” that everyone who dies, died Because ‘Rona?
And they ask me why I drink . . .
Liddy once described an arrest of Tim Leary.
When they opened the door, Leary was standing there.
Nude.
Whoa!
Liddy authored one of my favorite observations:
“A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to society, which debt he proposes to pay with your money”.
There is something to be said for having a pair and being willing to put them on the line. Use them or you will lose them.
Hi Ugg,
Liddy, whom I knew, calls to mind an episode of Star Trek, Bread and Circuses. In it, Kirk – sentenced to die in the arena by the Proconsul – is given a last night of freedom, with a grand meal and a woman. Because, as the Pronconsul says, Kirk is man – and thus, deserves respect.
You know if that was written today, they’d have given him just a meal as they couldn’t assume Kirk’s gender.
We are losing a generation of great men too soon. Wes Pruden- Editor in chief of the Washington Times, Professor Walter Williams, Rush Limbaugh and now the G-Man. Boy, how badly these voices are needed now! Liddy was entertaining and enlightening while he was on radio.
BTW Eric, did you ever obtain any of the G-Man’s “Stacked & Packed” calendars? I have several years of them safely tucked away in the linen closet that I wisely held on to.
Too soon? 90 Years old? Perhaps our current doddering old man of a president is actually a spry young pup?
Most people recognize their decline after 65-70 and take appropriate action. The “baby boom” generation still thinks they’re ready to hit the disco for a night of coke and whores. Mass delusion. Watching my aging parents faculties decline before my eyes is pretty disturbing. When I see parallels amongst the entire ruling class… words fail me.
Liddy was the epitome of the long ago American lawman. A man’s man and a respecter of higher laws and not so much of rules set by would be masters.
I read Will 30 years ago and came away much impressed by the man’s insights and entertained by his stories of “Hoovermobiles” and old school FBI training. Back when they (The Feebs) had good people in them even though they were from the very inception an unconstitutional and evil political secret police.
I do wish I’d met the man and have come to believe that the only thing Nixon really did wrong was to murder the feeble but still existing gold standard. We need men like Liddy now- I’ve always aspired to be that kind.
Amen, Ernie –
I can vouch for all of that. I used to swing by the radio station in Fairfax where he worked and we’d gabble about my editorials in The Washington Times and life in general. He was a helluva guy. Sad that he’s gone.
I find that to be an interesting comment.
I of course remember him from Watergate, but other than that I didn’t know much about him, so I looked up his Wikipedia page (for whatever that is worth). Seems that he was a shameless self-promoter, a Fed with questionable tactics, and a whore for the Deep State who concocted a number of ethically-questionable “dirty tricks,” including the Watergate burglary for which he went to prison.
I’m sure he was in interesting guy to talk to, but that resume sounds somewhat at odds with your well-known and well-articulated views on cops, the government, and politicians, Eric.
Care to comment further?
A Fed with “questionable tactics” in Wikipedia? That means the PTB did not “like ” him. If Wikipedia says bad things about someone, I question that. I now go to the Encyclopedia Britannica site rather than Wikipedia. https://www.britannica.com/
Hi X,
I didn’t agree with him politically – he was an extreme conservative and I am a Libertarian. But I respected the guy, because he was a man. This is a guy who would not squeal on others to escape prison – and was put into serious prison, with serious criminals. And he did not become anyone’s “prag” (Oz reference). I don’t have to agree with – or even like – a guy to respect a guy as a man.
What I cannot abide is weak men – and women. Mewling, cringing, back-stabbing little ferrets. Like John Dean, for instance.
Godspeed, Gordon.
OK, I get that, and agree — to an extent.
But I’m sure that there are a number of cops and SWAT door-kickers who are very manly and loyal to their “thin blue line” brothers as well.
I’m sure that Lon Horiuchi, the FBI sniper who shot Randy Weaver’s wife in the head, was a manly dude — West Point grad, member of the elite FBI sniping team.
Liddy is quoted as saying he would have killed the journalist Jack Anderson in a moment if commanded to do so.
So the issue I am raising is that while it is true that manliness is an admirable trait in and of itself, it does in fact matter to what ends that trait is employed. Heinz Guderian was a very admirable guy — the German version of George Patton, except that he was probably classier and less vulgar and a better commander than Patton. But few people today would admit to admiring Guderian, while many admire Patton’s toughness and manliness.
I agree with the issues you raise. I was surprised to see this obit here (apparently Eric knew him personally so…) but even more surprised to see the same kind of thing over at LRC. All things & people Nixon related seem to bring up mixed feelings in people, even libertarians. Especially middle class white folks. Why does Alex Jones have such a close relationship with Roger Stone? Growing up, despite all the media and societal recriminations, I remember my family having some positive things to say about Nixon and his crew. I think the actual Watergate crime was essentially a nothing burger, probably as Rothbard said a bout of Rockefeller intrigue over being crossed on a policy or two, but Nixon (and by proxy his crew) did do a lot of evil things. It’s weird to see one of them rehabilitated to some extent here.
Hi Zek,
The main point in re my little blurb about Liddy was that he died of old age rather than the ‘Rona. Of course, the media had to mention the ‘Rona, in order to suggest (again) that the death of a 90-year-old is somehow suspect. As far as the rest, I never endorsed Nixon (quite the opposite) nor Liddy’s actions in that regard. I simply stated that I knew him, that I respected him as a man.
Hey Eric & Zek,
One thing I’ll give Nixon, and some of his associates: Despite the evils they actually enabled, I think that they sincerely cared about the American people and this country. Unfortunately, their belief in government and it’s institutions, and ultimately their compromising on morality negated any good intentions they may’ve had.
One thing that gave me some respect for them, was hearing some of the covertly recorded conversations of one of their private meetings. While very “politically-incorrect”, it became evident that they were indeed at least committed to protecting traditional America, and Western values and the standard of living we had here in those glorious days.
Their way of achieving those ends though was often questionable or downright wrong- but I do think that they at least legitimately cared and had good intentions- more so than any other admin of my lifetime.
Nixon was very likeable- until one thinks about the legacy of some of the things he did- but I do believe that he likely didn’t realize nor intend many of the things he did to morph into what they would become- such as The War On Drugs.
And in reality [Just using the War On Drugs as one example] it really wasn’t till the mid 80’s- more than a decade after Nixon’s departure- that that “war” really started getting any teeth on an everyday level, thanks largely to what his successors built upon the program. Although he started it and enabled it….I doubt he intended it to become what it morphed into- He legitimately intended it as something ‘good’- and just didn’t realize that such should not be the province of government, nor what the ramifications of such a thing would be.
I hate a lot of the things he did (O-K…almost all of the things…] but I tend to think of Nixon as my favorite president of my lifetime (I was just a kid at the time…)-Which isn’t saying much though- as it’s like saying “This is the least stinky turd in the bowl”. Would that Trump would have even tried to pull a Watergate!
I’d say Nixon probably stepped on the wrong toes… If they assassinated or disgraced…they’ve stepped on the wrong toes.
Nixon – Kennedy televised debate is where reality and perception parted ways. It clearly showed what the average American valued.
The radio debates, Nixon rated much higher than JFK. The TV ones, JFK much higher than Nixon. The power of TV presence.
Americans made it clear, they wanted style not substance, looks not ability, pleasant bullshit over hard truth.
The real rulers took note.
Probably shouldn’t say ” the only thing Nixon really did wrong was to murder the feeble but still existing gold standard” around Cambodians – millions were murdered as a direct result of Nixon’s “Operation Menu” and “Operation Freedom Deal”. These ushered in the era of the Khmer Rouge.
Had to look those operations up.
Those millions were murdered, of course, by Communists. As I’m sure they will be doing here soon if we allow them. I don’t see blaming Nixon for that as valid but I do get the connection.
Don’t forget Nixon’s other war- “The War On [Some] Drugs”- which murdered more Americans, and more American liberty than anything….
Morning, Nunz!
Yup. I despise the Dick that was Nixon. He not only created the “war” on (some) drugs – which was designed as a war on blacks, for those not hip – but also laid the foundation stone for Obamacare, in collusion with Kaiser Permanente. Nixon was a creep and a bastard. He should have been given an Chilean Helicopter Ride….
I’m guessing that the “Chilean Helicopter ride” you reference would be some kind of karmic payback to Nixon for Operation Condor and the CIA backed installation of Pinochet after Nixon & Kissinger decided that the Chilean democracy was defective for electing the socialist Allende. Some libertarians like Jacob Hornberger really object to that whole episode and the absolutely inhumane torture and death that followed. Some others, maybe less doctrinaire in their orientation towards liberty, perhaps even some commenters here, see it as the only way to deal with communists. A complicated issue, especially in light of events in the US today.
Hey, Nunz, nobody is perfect! I’d take Tricky Dick Nixon in a heartbeat over a Clinton, Bush, or Obama. The war on some drugs has been a century long own goal. But I wish Trump had a fraction of Nixon’s gutter snipe street fighter ethos.
Nixon inherited Vietnam from Johnson, a man so evil he glowed in the dark like something under a log in a swamp. The war on drugs was an aspect of the cold war, where global opponents were pushing some fairly nasty drugs into a country which had no idea how to handle it. In context it was an understandable mistake. It “seemed like the right thing to do at the time”…
Once you’ve held office, you will realize that some mistakes can be mitigated, and some have to be lived with. All a decent man can do is try to be honest and have integrity, and realize that your opponents are usually not so constrained.
Too bad Republicans aren’t smart enough to get off the drug war and copsucking bandwagons. They’d be surprised how much their brand would improve.
“The war on drugs was an aspect of the cold war, where global opponents were pushing some fairly nasty drugs into a country which had no idea how to handle it. In context it was an understandable mistake. It “seemed like the right thing to do at the time”…
False.
– former Nixon aide John Ehrlichman:
“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
You know who loved Nixon? Archie Bunker. Apparently, Nixon hated this Hollywood portrayal of a supporter of his. Also, liberals of the time loved All in the Family exactly for this portrayal and what they saw as the show’s promotion of producer Norman Lear’s liberal values.
Been reading Chuck Colson’s “Born Again”. Perhaps his was the last generation who felt remorse for wrongdoing.
Personally, I think the “crimes” of Watergate are no different and in fact quite mild compared to an average day in the Obama pResidency, and certainly in these times.
It’s the media’s new “motorcycle helmet” comment. Every time a rider dies in an accident, the media ALWAYS adds the comment at the end of the story “the rider was/was not wearing a helmet”. Pisses me off.
Now we have to hear with every death whether or not the person died of the rona. It’s infantile behavior by the media.
I actually read of a guy who died in a motorcycle accident being classified as dying from corona because he tested “positive” at autopsy. I’m sure he wasn’t the only one.
They just had to work in a reference to ‘rona…
Wikipedia:
[Liddy] was hired by District Attorney Raymond Baratta as a prosecutor in Dutchess County, New York. He was reprimanded for firing a revolver at the ceiling in a courtroom.
Liddy was filmed at home while sitting in front of his sizeable collection of firearms, coolly handling a pistol and describing “how he had been ready, if ordered, to go straight out and kill Jack Anderson, the Washington D.C. columnist.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._Gordon_Liddy
Definitely an excitable boy.
But you gotta admire his no-nonsense approach to judges and journos. 🙂