Tonight I had the distinct honor of addressing those two wonderful fabulists, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, spinners of the yarn known as Watergate. These aging gatekeepers of the mainstream media were in town to deliver the University of Tulsa’s Presidential Lecture (sponsored by the Darcy O’Brien Endowed Chair). After these gentlemen had once again returned the spell-bound yet geriatric audience to those thrilling days of yesteryear four decades past, re-telling the lurid tales of Nixon, Liddy, Hunt, McCord, Mitchell, Halderman, etc. I expressed to them just how pleased I was to finally meet the Brothers Grimm of our national mythos, and that one day in the future I will perhaps meet Hans Christian Anderson himself, John Dean. Then we may finally address the real question at the heart of Watergate. It was not, of course, the identity of “Deep Throat,” or “What did the president know and when did he know it.” The real question remains: “Was Mo a Ho?” The audience gasped! You should have seen the look on Woodward’s face as he struggled to explain (or as he put it, decode), the meaning of my interrogatory. Priceless! I then stated that my true question was actually directed at Mr. Bernstein, author of the brilliant article, “The CIA and the Media.” I pointed out that he had outlined in his piece how the Central Intelligence Agency had engaged in covert activities with the nations’ press described as “the Mighty Wurlitzer” or “Operation Mockingbird.” Was the intelligence community engaged in such activities today? We can all sleep better tonight since Bernstein reassured me that all that kind of stuff ended at the conclusion of the Cold War. Woodward equally reassured us that “the system worked” because Gerald Ford did the right thing in pardoning Richard Nixon. Neither gentleman knew (when asked by another audience member) of anything concerning E. Howard Hunt’s death-bed confession regarding his involvement in the JFK assassination. The very notion was totally foreign to them. Bernstein even took out his cell phone and did a quick Google search, finding no article on the topic. That forbidden subject will be undoubtedly be further addressed by meddlesome busybodies next year as we approach the fiftieth anniversary of the coup d’etat by the top tier of the National Security State which murdered John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.

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