Wrecking On The Craigy Rocks
August 31, 2007 at 9:52 am
Ruth Marcus provides good historical precedent for the Larry Craig escapade:
He was an important political figure, arrested for engaging in lewd conduct in a public men’s room. Married, with children, he told no one. Instead he pleaded guilty without even hiring a lawyer, hoping the problem would quietly disappear.
When, as was inevitable, the press got hold of the story, his erstwhile supporters quickly distanced themselves — and commissioned a poll to assess the political damage. His career in politics was over.
This man was not Idaho Sen. Larry Craig but Walter Jenkins, the aide Lyndon B. Johnson called “my vice president in charge of everything.” Jenkins was arrested in October 1964 for having sex in the men’s room of the Washington YMCA. …
When the story broke just a few weeks before the 1964 election, Johnson scarcely hesitated before instructing Abe Fortas to secure the resignation of Jenkins, his longest-serving aide.
But there’s another interesting element to the Jenkins tale worth remembering: the actions of Bill Moyers.
A few years back Bob Novak wrote about Judge Laurence H. Silberman, who was Instructed by the House Judiciary Committee in 1974 to report on secret files kept by J. Edgar Hoover. Here’s Novak:
Even worse than “dirt collection,” Silberman continued, was Hoover’s offering of Bureau files to presidents. He exempted only Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower from this use of FBI files, but said, “Lyndon Johnson was the most demanding.”
When President Johnson’s aide Walter Jenkins was arrested for homosexual conduct in a men’s room during the 1964 campaign, Silberman said, LBJ aide Bill Moyers directed Hoover to find similar conduct on Barry Goldwater’s staff. “Moyers’ memo to the FBI was in one of the files,” he continued. An “outraged” Moyers telephoned Silberman, he said, to assert that the memo was “phony.” “Taken aback,” said Silberman, he offered an investigation to publicly exonerate Moyers. “There was a pause on the line, and then he [Moyers] said, ‘I was very young. How will I explain this to my children?’” “Silberman’s account of our conversation is at odds with mine,” Moyers told me when I asked for comment.
SoCalRebel said,
August 31, 2007 @ 12:05 pm
Bill Moyer’s is a partisan hack posing as a thoughtful, fair-minded commentator.
Goose, gander, all that…
Robbins Mitchell said,
August 31, 2007 @ 12:13 pm
I remember at the time a joke going around about a new sandwich called a ‘Walter Jenkins Special’…..a foot-long hot dog with mayonnaise
willis said,
August 31, 2007 @ 12:45 pm
LBJ had the phone number to the which house changed to “Jenkins 812.”
John Plunket said,
August 31, 2007 @ 4:27 pm
Puerile humor aside, the epochal differences in our culture today vs. that of 1964 –in DC as well as the nation– really stand out when you read Al Weisel’s excellent account of the Walter Jenkins affair http://home.nyc.rr.com/alweisel/outwalterjenkins.htm . I was lucky enough to have been a good friend of Lyndon Jenkins, Walter’s son. When the world came crashing down around his Dad’s head, I was so young that the only way I knew something really odd had occurred was that my Mom fetched Lyndon for a TWO night sleepover DURING the school week. Weisel’s account is fascinating in many respects.
davod said,
August 31, 2007 @ 5:00 pm
We live in a strange world where their is evidence of someone asking the FBI to do something illegal and he is still treated as a demi-god by his peers.
This is really akin to getting the Stasi to go after your opponents.
Jenn Mikosz said,
September 1, 2007 @ 12:43 am
On a recent cable TV show, a field producer ambushed Moyers. The poor old man was standing in the street, his comb-over blowing the wrong way, begging for a cab to save him from this kid with a camera. It’s was the first time I’d ever felt sorry for that corny old prostitute. Reading this charge makes me regret that momentary sympathy.
william said,
September 1, 2007 @ 9:46 am
I’d like to see Bill Moyers interview Barney Frank on the Larry Craig story.
pst314 said,
September 1, 2007 @ 11:05 am
That’s why NPR loves Moyers. They can never resist a Party Apparatchik.