Ben Stein

When you think about those Beverly Hills luminaries prone to dispensing pointed political commentary, Ben Stein might not be the first person who leaps to mind, especially if you've ever watched him on the Comedy Central quiz show Win Ben Stein's Money.  It's off the air now, but Mr. Stein is still around pitching those eye drops that get the red out.  He's the one that delivers his lines in a deep comical monotone, ending with an unenthusiastic sounding "Wow".

But if you check in with the American Spectator from time to time you'll find he's just weighed in on the legacy of Deep Throat.  He begins by asking just what was it Nixon did that was so wrong.  I suppose we can forgive Mr. Stein for leapfrogging the obstuction of justice en route to the answer to his rhetorical question, which is that Nixon lied.

Oh, now I remember. He lied. He was a politician who lied. How remarkable. He lied to protect his subordinates who were covering up a ridiculous burglary that no one to this date has any clue about its purpose. He lied so he could stay in office and keep his agenda of peace going. That was his crime. He was a peacemaker and he wanted to make a world where there was a generation of peace. And he succeeded.

That is his legacy. He was a peacemaker. He was a lying, conniving, covering up peacemaker. He was not a lying, conniving drug addict like JFK, a lying, conniving war starter like LBJ, a lying, conniving seducer like Clinton -- a lying, conniving peacemaker. That is Nixon's kharma.

According to Mr. Stein, when Nixon's enemies brought him down they also brought to an end his peacemaking initiatives in Southeast Asia, with disastrous results.  Their legacy?

When his enemies brought him down, and they had been laying for him since he proved that Alger Hiss was a traitor, since Alger Hiss was their fair-haired boy, this is what they bought for themselves in the Kharma Supermarket that is life:

1.) The defeat of the South Vietnamese government with decades of death and hardship for the people of Vietnam.

2.) The assumption of power in Cambodia by the bloodiest government of all time, the Khmer Rouge, who killed a third of their own people, often by making children beat their own parents to death. No one doubts RN would never have let this happen.

So, this is the great boast of the enemies of Richard Nixon, including Mark Felt: they made the conditions necessary for the Cambodian genocide. If there is such a thing as kharma, if there is such a thing as justice in this life of the next, Mark Felt has bought himself the worst future of any man on this earth. And Bob Woodward is right behind him, with Ben Bradlee bringing up the rear. Out of their smug arrogance and contempt, they hatched the worst nightmare imaginable: genocide. I hope they are happy now -- because their future looks pretty bleak to me.

Wow.