Posted on 07/13/2017 2:32:27 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
As official Washington grapples with the prospect of living through Watergate 2.0, some of the city's most post powerful Republicans gathered on Wednesday night to hear the words of a man who came away famously unscathed from Watergate 1.0: Henry Kissinger.
The former secretary of state to Richard Nixon and honorary chairman of the Center for the National Interest spoke before an enraptured audience at the glamorous Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown in a speech that touched on the “extraordinary division” of the Vietnam era to the hyperpolarization of the Donald J. Trump era.
The purpose of the event was to offer a lifetime achievement award to former AIG chairman Maurice “Hank” Greenberg. But the recent misadventures of Don Trump Jr offered an irresistible conversation topic for a mixed crowd that included White House budget director Mick Mulvaney, Republican Senators Rand Paul and Pat Roberts, anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen, and a smattering of current and former Pentagon and State Department officials.
The elite group of policy influencers leaned Republican, but there was little agreement on the gravity of the actions of Trump’s inner circle.
“It’s worse than Watergate,” said The Atlantic magazine’s editor-at-large Steve Clemons, turning away from his steak and and gratin dauphinois. “Watergate never involved advocating for the interests of a foreign country and the implication of potential treason.”
Rand Paul, found in the middle of a geopolitical discussion with Mullen, the retired US Navy admiral, rejected any historical parallels to the Nixon era. “I’d say no,” he told BuzzFeed News before declining to elaborate.
A few feet away, Grover Norquist called the uproar over Don Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer a distraction that to this day has had no impact on the president’s admittedly stalled agenda to repeal and replace Obamacare, rewrite tax laws, and rebuild America’s crumbling infrastructure.
“It’s true that this Russia thing and this delayed agenda are happening in the same century, but they’re not affecting each other,” said Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform.
“Who isn’t voting for health care because of Russia? The Freedom Caucus? No. The Democrats are the only ones who care about Russia and they’ve absented themselves from the entire conservative agenda anyway,” he added.
Others sought to avoid the more controversial aspects of the Russia probe and instead look at the practical ramifications. Lt. Gen. Wallace “Chip” Gregson, a senior director at the Center for the National Interest, said everyone could agree that the probe has started to sap the Trump administration’s ability to govern.
“There’s only so much intellectual capital and waking problem-solving time available to any given staff even one as large as the US government,” he said.
“I think even Henry Kissinger would agree that had the Nixon administration not been encumbered with responding to other issues that there may have been a lot more intellectual capital and good staff work ... to expend in support of other objectives,” he said.
Kissinger, for his part, avoided any explicit mention of the investigation in his 12-minute speech, only to say that the country needed men like Greenberg, a WWII vet and think tank board member, to “give us hope” at a moment “when we are so divided.”
He gave pointed reference to his background as a Jewish refugee who fled Nazi Germany in 1938, though did not overtly mention the Trump administration’s temporary travel ban on people from six Muslim-majority countries.
“I came here as a refugee and so I know what America meant to people who were oppressed,” Kissinger said.
In what may have been an act of score-settling, he also criticized elite American academic institutions that incidentally have not always looked favorably on his decision to wage an intense bombing campaign on North Vietnam in 1972 and Cambodia in 1973.
“When I later on at Harvard and elsewhere heard about the totalitarian tendencies in America and the battles that had to be fought against the dictatorial Americans who were trying to deprive us, I thought, you don’t know how lucky you are because you’ve never seen a totalitarian country,” he said.
The Center for the National Interest, founded by Nixon in 1994, has never shied away from promoting the type of “strategic realism” that led to Nixon’s opening of China or Kissinger’s disengagement of America from Vietnam.
When asked what Nixon’s advice would be for Trump nowadays, Norquist gave a blunt answer that may give the current president some short-term relief: “Don’t have a Democratic House and Senate when you’re under attack,” said Norquist. “That’s Nixon’s advice.”
We asked cats what they thought of the big dog.
Delusional.
of course the difference is Nixon did not have common citizens willing to take to the streets and fight on his behalf and fight back against the left...President Trump does..
“Thanks to Don Jr, MILLIONS will die!!!”
Which trump?
Ivanka?
Baron?
I’ve lost track.
Too stupid to know.
High desert hick right about here says: “Between none and zero.”
Plus there was little or no alternative media in the 1970s.
Trump is REALLY in trouble now!!
Sounds like the press is despertly casting about for anything negative the Muh Russian thing is causing Trump. They’re losing the battle.
“It’s worse than Watergate,” said The Atlantic magazine’s editor-at-large Steve Clemons....
____________________________________________________
There were hundreds of things Obama did that were worse then Watergate. Add in the 8 years America was infested with Clintonitis - and we have THOUSANDS of crimes and scandals that were worse than Watergate.
Trump, Trump Jr., the rest of the family and all of the Trump administrations have acted like Boy Scouts on a Sunday School picnic compared to what Obama or Slick Willie used to do.
Za bunch of elitists who are still hurting about HIllary’s loss
They asked the mega-Globalist what he thinks of President Trump? Seriously?
Trump didn’t do something that isn’t a crime. His son also didn’t do anything that isn’t a crime. Neither of these non-events made any difference about anything.
There’s the translation for the elites who like things nice and ambiguous.
Run drug tests on these so called journalists.
If they fail to pass the tests, freeze their computers, pads and smart phones until they pass the drug tests.
Buzfeed.
Lets all remember that Buzzfeed is the primary internet Fake News source that provides the lies and junk news to CNN.
Buzzfeed is anal cancer
Buzzfeed ran with the fake dossier. They should be treated as cat litter.
Ref me earlier post, Trump has more than enough to put Hitlary in jail for a long time. When/where ever possible go after odumbo hard and fast as he can. Shut the obstructionist down as quickly as necessary so he can get to the business he was elected to do. Trump has the power, use it.
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