White House Whitewash

The Richard M. Nixon Library and Birthplace is now under federal control. It used to be a privately operated enterprise, but today that all changed with a simple ceremony with just a little bit of cake and champagne. "This is a great day for history. The hallmark of this new institution will be true acceptance and love for history — the good, the bad and the ugly," said Timothy Naftali, the museum's new federal director. "We are moving past the tribal squabble."
The "tribal squabble" Mr. Naftali refers to is the library's view of the Watergate era. For the past two decades, visitors were told the Watergate scandal was really a "coup" by Nixon's rivals and the investigative reporting team of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein offered bribes for their nation-shaking scoops.
Now, it would seem, the Watergate break-in and subsequent coverup was an orchestrated attempt to control the outcome of the 1972 presidential election, and to centralize power in the executive branch. The museum used to tell visitors that the infamous eighteen and a half minute gap in one important White House tape — a conversation three days after the break-in — was because of a mechanical malfunction. "No serious historian believes in that," said David Greenberg, a Nixon scholar and professor at Rutgers University. "It's not only not true, it's the opposite of truth. There was a lot along those lines in the library, which was not a matter of interpretation, but was flat wrong, a lie."
The lies at the Richard M. Nixon library in Yorba Linda, California are being stripped away after thirty-five years. Meanwhile, across the continent, Pinhead and Dick continue to fabricate their own elaborate house of cards. I wonder how many years theirs will be allowed to stand.