I’d Vote for Liz

BY JOANNE CELI

KONKLIFE FEATURING WRITER

I’m a lifelong Democrat, but I would vote for Liz Cheney. Here is someone with the sterling traits of bravery, intelligence and integrity. Very rare qualities in these times. Would I disagree with much of her policies? Absolutely. But I could go to sleep at night comforted in knowing there was someone in charge who had the good of the country at heart.

I recently watched Gaslit, the series about Martha Mitchell’s involvement in bringing Nixon down during Watergate. She was the wife of John Mitchell, Nixon’s Attorney General, who wound up serving 19 months of his 1-to-4-year sentence for obstruction of justice, conspiracy and perjury. Watching this series has brought up many memories and comparisons between Watergate and the January 6th Hearings.

So many men in the Nixon cabinet were jailed. The more well-known: H.R. Haldeman, the Chief of Staff, John Ehrlichman, the Assistant to the President in charge of Domestic Affairs, Charles Colson, White House Counsel, John Dean, White House Counsel and Howard Hunt, CIA Operative. Of course, they had the craziest of “Crazies” – G. Gordon Liddy, former FBI agent and General Counsel for the Committee to Re-Elect the President. The equivalent of Liddy in today’s scenario would be both hair-dye-running Rudy Giuliani and Dr Pepper-slugging Sidney Powell.

They were all jailed, in a nutshell, for the crime of burglarizing the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in Watergate, DC. That crime included all the side crimes of wiretapping, conspiracy, etc. They took down the cabinet for a Keystone Kops escapade of sabotaging a party that had no chance of winning the election to begin with. Nixon had a projected landslide victory over McGovern.The result ended in 69 indicted and 48 convicted. President Nixon resigned rather than face certain impeachment.

So far, over 700 have been charged for the January 6th insurrection. The charges include conspiracy, obstruction and sedition among others. Five people died because of this attempted coup and 140 officers were injured. These criminals didn’t just break into a hotel room to steal paperwork – they broke into and defiled our Capital Building. They threatened to kill the Vice President of the United States, among others.

I wonder who will be charged. I wonder if the man who said “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th.  Be there, will be wild” will share any consequences with the ones he called to join him. I wonder if anything will happen to the man who let armed rioters into the Capitol because they weren’t there to get him.  Nixon had the decency to leave before he was impeached. This man was impeached twice and he’s actually running again!

The crimes of 1972 pale next to the near-destruction of our democracy on January 6th, 2022. I just hope and pray that a future generation won’t think January 6 is nothing compared to what they’re living through.  

Go Liz.

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