This Day In History, 1973: The Saturday Night Massacre (And 1968 and 1962) - Updated

Nixon committed the Saturday Night Massacre 45 years ago tomorrow: pic.twitter.com/vKaY5vq18K

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) October 19, 2018

Bridgegate, babygate, cakegate, pretty much every scandalous thing that happens now gets a "gate" designation, but it was Watergate that started it all. What, exactly, happened on that infamous Saturday Night 45 years ago? Here's how the Washington Post covered it, in an article published on Sunday, October 21, 1973:  

In the most traumatic government upheaval of the Watergate crisis, President Nixon yesterday discharged Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox and accepted the resignations of Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William D. Ruckelshaus.

The President also abolished the office of the special prosecutor and turned over to the Justice Department the entire responsibility for further investigation and prosecution of suspects and defendants in Watergate and related cases.

Shortly after the White House announcement, FBI agents sealed off the offices of Richardson and Ruckelshaus in the Justice Department and at Cox's headquarters in an office building on K Street NW.

An FBI spokesman said the agents moved in "at the request of the White House."

Agents told staff members in Cox's office they would be allowed to take out only personal papers. A Justice Department official said the FBI agents and building guards at Richardson's and Ruckelshaus' offices were there "to be sure that nothing was taken out."

Richardson resigned when Mr. Nixon instructed him to fire Cox and Richardson refused. When the President then asked Ruckelshaus to dismiss Cox, he refused, White House spokesman Ronald L. Ziegler said, and he was fired. Ruckelshaus said he resigned.

Finally, the President turned to Solicitor General Robert H. Bork, who by law becomes acting Attorney General when the Attorney General and deputy attorney general are absent, and he carried out the President's order to fire Cox. The letter from the President to Bork also said Ruckelshaus resigned.

These dramatic developments were announced at the White House at 8:25 p.m. after Cox had refused to accept or comply with the terms of an agreement worked out by the President and the Senate Watergate committee under which summarized material from the White House Watergate tapes would be turned over to Cox and the Senate committee.

In announcing the plan Friday night, the President ordered Cox to make no further effort to obtain tapes or other presidential documents.

Cox responded that he could not comply with the President's instructions and elaborated on his refusal and vowed to pursue the tape recordings at a televised news conference yesterday.

That set in motion the chain of events that resulted in the departure of Cox and the two top officials of the Justice Department and immediately raised prospects that the President himself might be impeached or forced to resign.

In a statement last night, Cox said: "Whether ours shall continue to be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and ultimately the American people."

The action raised new questions as to whether Congress would proceed to confirm House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford of Michigan to be Vice President or leave Speaker of the House Carl Albert (D-Okla.) next in line of succession to the highest office in the land.

Richardson met at the White House in the late afternoon with Mr. Nixon and at 8:25 p.m. Ziegler appeared in the White House press room to read a statement outlining the President's decisions.

The President discharged Cox because he "refused to comply with instructions" the President gave him Friday night through the Attorney General, Ziegler said.

Furthermore, Ziegler said, the office of special prosecutor was abolished and its functions have been turned over to the Department of Justice.

The department will carry out the functions of the prosecutor's office "with thoroughness and vigor," Ziegler said.

Mr. Nixon sought to avoid a constitutional confrontation by the action he announced Friday, the press secretary said, to give the courts the information from the tapes which the President had considered privileged.

That action was accepted by "responsible leaders in the Congress and in the country," Ziegler commented, but the special prosecutor "defied" the President's instructions "at a time of serious world crisis" and made it "necessary" for the President to discharge him.

Before taking action, Ziegler said, the President met with Richardson to instruct him to dismiss Cox, but Richardson felt he could not do so because it conflicted with the promise he had made to the Senate, Ziegler said.

After Richardson submitted his resignation, the President directed Ruckelshaus to dismiss Cox. When Ruckelshaus refused to carry out the President's directive, he also was "discharged," Ziegler said. The President's letter to Bork said Ruckelshaus resigned.

Mr. Nixon then directed Bork to carry out the instruction. Bork did so in a two-paragraph letter to Cox, in which he said that at the instruction of the President he was "discharging you, effective at once, from your position as special prosecutor, Watergate special prosecution force."

Bork signed his letter as "acting Attorney General."

Richardson told the President in his letter that he was resigning with "deep regret." He explained that when named Attorney General "you gave me the authority to name a special prosecutor."

"At many points throughout the nomination hearings, I reaffirmed my intention to assure the independence of the special prosecutor," Richardson said.

He said he promised that Cox would not be dismissed except for "extraordinary improprieties."

"While I fully respect the reasons that have led you to conclude that the special prosecutor must be discharged, I trust that you understand that I could not in the light of these firm and repeated commitments carry out your direction that this be done," Richardson said.

Richardson expressed "lasting gratitude" to the President, under whom he also served as under secretary of state, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare and Secretary of Defense. He became Attorney General in May after the resignation of Richard G. Kleindienst, who explained that because of his close association with former Attorney General John N. Mitchell and others involved in Watergate he did not believe he should stay in the post and carry out their prosecution.

"It has been a privilege to share in your efforts to make the structure of world peace more stable and the structure of our own government more responsive," Richardson wrote Mr. Nixon.

"I believe profoundly in the rightness and importance of those efforts, and I trust that they will meet with increasing success in the remaining years of your presidency."

The President replied with a one-sentence letter, addressed "Dear Elliott." It said: "It is with the deepest regret and with an understanding of the circumstances which brought you to your decision that I accept your resignation."

The White House did not release an exchange of letters between Ruckelshaus and the President. But Ruckelshaus wrote a resignation letter and released it.

In a letter to Bork, the President, noting that by law he was acting Attorney General, said that Cox had "made it apparent that he will not comply with the instructions I issued to him."

"Clearly the government of the United States cannot function if employees of the executive branch are free to ignore in this fashion the instructions of the President," Mr. Nixon wrote.

"Accordingly, in your capacity of acting Attorney General, I direct you to discharge Mr. Cox immediately and to take all steps necessary to return to the Department of Justice the functions now being performed by the Watergate Special Prosecution Force.

"It is my expectation that the Department of Justice will continue with full vigor the investigations and prosecutions that had been entrusted to the Watergate special prosecution force."

At the Justice Department, where there were repeated requests by newsmen to interview Richardson and Ruckelshaus, department spokesman John W. Hushen said they had "no desire to come out and talk to newsmen."

Hushen quoted Bork: "All I will say is that I carried out the President's directive."

Hushen said that Richardson would hold a news conference "within a few days." Beginning about 8 p.m., Richardson spent an hour or so calling "relatives, friends and associates," Hushen said.

White House aides, visibly shocked by the developments, argued that when direct quotations from the presidential tapes are released they will restore confidence in the President.

Sen. John Stennis (D-Miss.), picked by Mr. Nixon to listen to all the tapes, will have "unlimited" access to the pertinent recordings and can decide what should or should not be disclosed.

Stennis is expected to begin listening to them soon, possibly early this week. Those requested by the special prosecutor run 10 hours and one minute. Stennis may decide to listen to all or parts of them more than once. He will be the only one to do so. The President's statement on the tapes and excerpts from them will be delivered to the U.S. District Court here and to the Senate Watergate committee at the same time, officials said.

Every time Donald fantasizes about firing his own Special Prosecutor, Robert Mueller, you know someone calmer and wiser (well, assuming there is such a person in the Trump White House,) reminds him that he really doesn't want his own "Massacre." Superficially and in the short term, Nixon got away with it, but nine and a half months later his transgressions caught up with him and he resigned.

Five years before the Saturday Night Massacre, on October 20, 1968, former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy married Aristotle Onassis in Greece. And six years before that, on October 20, 1962, President Kennedy pretended to have a cold and returned to Washington early, in order to deal with what came to be known as the Cuban Missile Crisis.

JFK breaks off campaigning to fly to DC, claiming to suffer from a cold but actually to decide in secret what to do about Soviet missiles in Cuba, still not yet known to public, today 1962: pic.twitter.com/DnqMKHXCYp

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) October 20, 2018

Saturday afternoon update: An interesting literary tidbit. In honor of the Saturday Night Massacre, I pulled out my copy of All The President's Men, the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. To my surprise, the event on the final page is President Nixon's final State of the Union address, which he delivered on January 30, 1974 and the authors' "Acknowledgments" note is dated February, 1974. In other words, when the book was published, Nixon was still president and the end of the story hadn't played itself out yet. That wouldn't come until August, 9, 1974, when Nixon resigned.



photo credit: AP

Saturday afternoon, update #2: In a story about the 50th anniversary of Jackie's wedding to Onassis, the Washington Post waxes nostalgic:

The series of events that led her to the altar began long before a shot was fired in Dallas. While the Kennedys were in the White House, Onassis was already one of the richest and most successful businessmen in the world. He owned an airline, had amassed a shipping empire, and was a prominent player in the oil, gold and real estate industries. He was also known for his philandering, including an affair with a famous opera singer and, for a time, a rumored tryst with Jackie’s younger sister, Lee Radziwill.

It was Lee who first invited Jackie, one of the youngest first ladies in U.S. history, to take a trip with her on Onassis’s yacht in 1963. Jackie was in the midst of deep depression, caused by the death of her third child, Patrick, who was born prematurely. The president reportedly didn’t like the idea of the trip, fearing it would appear improper. But he relented, despite the grumblings of Congress, in hopes that some time in the Aegean Sea would bring Jackie back to herself.

…By some accounts, Onassis was a vulture waiting to swoop in. Journalist Peter Evans’s book “Nemesis: The True Story,” describes a long-running love pentagon and power struggle among Onassis, Jackie, her sister Lee, the president and his brother Robert F. Kennedy. Lee reportedly had an affair with Onassis. Onassis had a business-related grudge against Robert. Robert shared his brother’s disdain for Onassis. And after the president’s death, Robert and Jackie had become increasingly close — some believe suspiciously so. Then in 1968, Robert, too, was assassinated.

Within four months, rumors about Jackie’s relationship with Onassis were confirmed.

“Not a single friend thought Jackie should marry Onassis,” Evans wrote. “But now that Bobby was gone, there was no one who could stop her.” (Read the story here.)

And one more thing. Just weeks after Jackie's controversial trip to Greece in October, 1963, Aristotle Onassis was a guest of the Kennedy family at the White House in November, during the week-end between the president's death on Friday, November 22 and the funeral on Monday, November 25. And, no, that's not snarky revisionist 21st century gossip. William Manchester documented the visit in The Death Of A President, published in 1967:

Rose Kennedy dined upstairs with Stas Radziwill; Jacqueline Kennedy, her sister, and Robert Kennedy were served in the sitting room. The rest of the Kennedys ate in the family dining room with their house guests, [secretary of Defense Robert] McNamara, Phyllis Dillon [wife of the Treasury secretary,] Dave Powers, and Aristotle Socrates Onassis, the shipowner, who provided comic relief of sorts. They badgered him mercilessly about his yacht and his Man of Mystery aura. During coffee the Attorney General came down and drew up a formal document stipulating that Onassis give half his wealth to help the poor in Latin America. It was preposterous (and obviously unenforceable), and the Greek millionaire signed it in Greek. (From The Death Of A President, by William Manchester, published by Harper & Row/Perennial Library, 25th anniversary edition, 1988, page 555.)

According to Sarah Bradford, writing in America's Queen, Onassis was invited to Washington by Jackie's sister Lee:

Another foreign guest was Aristotle Onassis, invited to join them by Lee. He had been in Hamburg for the launching of a tanker on the day of the assassination and immediately telephoned Lee. When she invited him, he reminded her that he had been told to stay out of the United States until after the 1964 election but, as Lee pointed out, that was hardly relevant anymore. The following day he received an official invitation to the funeral from [Chief of Protocol] Angier Biddle Duke; he was to be a guest at the White House during his stay in Washington. That weekend [Jackie's personal secretary] Mary Gallagher was surprised to see Jackie walking through the Center Hall on the arm of a gentleman she did not recognize and was later told by [Jackie's personal maid] Provi [Paredes] that it was Onassis. In the general outpouring of grief, his presence in the bosom of the Kennedy family passed almost unnoticed. However, he rated a brief mention by the meticulous William Manchester. (From America's Queen, by Sarah Bradford, published by Penguin Books, 2000, pages 278-279.)

Another Politician Behaving Badly - Updated

Until about 30 minutes ago I had never heard of Illinois state representative Nick Sauer. He's in the news now and not for the right reasons. (Yes, that was a Bachelor shout-out.) What did Representative Sauer do? I'll let Talking Points Memo explain, in a post titled "Possibly Craziest Story Ever (New Innovations in Pol Revenge Porn:"

Two years ago Illinois state Rep. Nick Sauer began a relationship with a California woman who he met on the dating app Tinder. It was at first a long distance relationship. But she eventually moved to Illinois to be closer to him. The two broke up in March of this year when the girlfriend Kate Kelly found out Sauer was dating other women behind her back. So far, it’s your average story of a rotten boyfriend.

But there’s more.

Not long after Kelly found out that Sauer was cheating on her, she discovered that not long after they started dating Sauer set up an Instagram account under Kelly’s name and identity. He populated that account with nude photos of Kelly that she had taken of herself for Sauer during the time they were living in separate states. From Kelly’s account, it doesn’t seem like Sauer was doing this to retaliate against her, at least not in the conventional sense most of us would think of. Sauer used the account to troll for men with whom he would then engage in graphic online sexual conversations with, using Kelly’s identity. (Read the article here.)

Politico obtained a copy of Ms. Kelly's IG complaint:

According to the complaint filed by ex-girlfriend Kate Kelly with the Office of the Legislative Inspector General and obtained by POLITICO, Sauer used the Instagram account “to catfish other men using my privately shared naked photos. Nick would use this account to direct message men with my photos to engage in graphic conversations of a sexual nature. The men believed they were communicating with me and Nick shared private details of my life.”

In her complaint, Kelly states that she filed a police report with the Chicago Police Department and was told there is “an active investigation” into her claims.

Sauer, who is seeking re-election to a second term in a legislative district that includes the posh northern suburb of Barrington, declined to comment for this story.

In an interview with POLITICO and in her IG complaint, Kelly claimed the two began a long-distance relationship in 2016 after meeting on the dating app Tinder. She moved to Chicago from California in June 2017 to be closer to him but the couple broke up in March 2018, after Kelly says she discovered he had been dating other women.

Both are unmarried. (Read the story here.) 

Politico further states that Representative Sauer is expected to resign today. 

Update: The Chicago Tribune is reporting that Sauer has in fact resigned. 

Grimm's Fairy Tales?

Michael Grimm for Congress appears to be really happening, per NY1 https://t.co/0XNPgsamoV

— Shane Goldmacher (@ShaneGoldmacher) September 17, 2017

Is our old friend Michael Grimm back among us? Could be. If you've forgotten, former Congressman Grimm became infamous when he threatened to throw a reporter over a balcony after a State Of The Union speech. He later went to prison for various tax issues. You can refresh your memory here:

A Grimm Good-Bye
From One Disgraced Pol To Another

When AJ Met Jason... Episode 1 - Updated

Given the events of the last couple of weeks, you could be forgiven for thinking that Anthony Scaramucci, aka The Mooch, was the shortest-serving Communications Director in the Trump White House, while having the most "colorful" personal life. You would, however, be wrong.

That title goes to Jason Miller, who was appointed to the job during the transition in December then resigned two days later saying that after almost two years on the campaign, he needed to spend more time with his family. Sweet, right? Well, no. AJ Delgado, a (female) staffer from the Trump campaign put out a couple of (since-deleted) tweets congratulating Miller on the new job while calling him the "baby daddy" and comparing him to John Edwards. There was buzz that the two of them had been seen partying together in Las Vegas the night before the third Trump-Clinton debate. Yikes.

Confession: I enjoy a juicy political sex scandal (does that make me a bad person?) and it looked like this was going to be a good one. What happened next? Nothing. The story disappeared and it looked like everyone involved had decided that discreet silence was the best policy. At the time I even considered the possibility that the gossip had been wrong.

Wrong again. A moment of silence, please, for those long-ago days of discretion and privacy because they are so over. The story bubbled to the surface today and it isn't pretty. Delgado announced via tweet on Tuesday that she gave birth to a son on July 10. Yesterday Miller provided the following statement to Page Six:

“My wife and I, along with our two daughters, are excited to welcome William into the world and into our family, and we appreciate the well wishes we’ve received from so many.”

Delgado responded with this: (i.e., What do you mean "your" family?) 

And I'm not sure what Jason means that he and his wife are excited to welcome Will. Really? News to me. Let me shut up before I say more...

— A.J. Delgado (@AJDelgado13) August 10, 2017

To counter press coverage implying that the baby was conceived during a one-night stand in Las Vegas, Delgado has said that she had a two-month relationship with Miller, who told her that he was separated from his wife at the time. He did not, presumably, tell her that his wife, from whom he either was or was not actually separated, was pregnant. (That baby was born in January and it appears that Jason Miller is still with his wife.)  

You can read more here: 

Page Six

The Miami Herald

The Daily Mail

The Washington Post

Vanity Fair

If all of this makes you long for the charm and classiness of Anthony Scaramucci, never fear. He'll be talking to George Stephanopoulos live on Sunday morning and to Stephen Colbert on The Late Show Monday evening. 

If you want to know more about the Miller-Delgado scandal, stay tuned. She's apparently spilling the beans to The Atlantic reporter McKay Coppins:

Wasn't my choice to discuss this but since Jason went to Page Six, I guess I now have to share. Story to @mckaycoppins . Stay tuned.

— A.J. Delgado (@AJDelgado13) August 10, 2017

Friday morning update: Here's some of the backstory, from a Politico article dated Christmas Day, 2016:

The matter has caused turmoil within the Trump operation over the past week. After POLITICO reporters received an anonymous email about the alleged affair, Delgado disclosed details of the relationship to senior officials in emails Thursday, the people close to the transition said. The nature of their relationship had been known to people involved in the Trump campaign and transition for “a number of months,” one source said.

In October, the New York Post’s Page Six reported that Delgado and Miller, along with members of the media, had been spotted at a Las Vegas strip club the night before the campaign’s final debate. The New York Times reported last month that Miller offered to resign after that incident, but the offer was rejected.

Delgado is an attorney and conservative commentator who frequently defended Trump on cable networks during the campaign. Miller joined Trump’s operation after advising Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) failed presidential campaign.

Miller, 41, informed top Trump officials of his decision to step down on Friday night. 

The reversal followed a period of indecision for Miller. He had been encouraged to take the job of communications director, which oversees messaging strategy in the White House, by a number of top officials, including incoming chief of staff Reince Priebus and chief strategist Steve Bannon, according to sources. Miller had also weighed taking a more lucrative post in the private sector. (Read the article here.)

We're Not Stupid

Blog readers know I like the view of the world as seen through magazine covers, now here's today's front page of the Chicago Sun-Times:

PHOTO: Front page of the @Suntimes pic.twitter.com/eVSX4Jxq8w

— Matt Rodewald FOX 10 (@Matt_Fox10) May 11, 2017

Something else that's on my mind this morning as I watch the "Comeygate" disaster play out: How many (supposedly) honest and honorable people will find their reputations and future careers destroyed because they insist on carrying water for Donald Trump?

Afternoon update: Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo shared some thoughts about this too:

… no more than 30 hours in, the White House’s absurd cover story about firing Comey over his misdeeds toward Hillary Clinton – a lie that virtually everyone at the White House has now publicly repeated and vouched for – is coming apart at the seams. We can also see the staggering fact that after no more than two weeks on the job, Rosenstein’s public reputation, which was formidable, has been destroyed. He now joins a legion of Trump Dignity Wraiths, men and women (though mainly men) of once vaunted reputations or at least public prestige who have been reduced to mere husks of their former selves after crossing the Trump Dignity Loss Event Horizon.

… I cannot figure why Rosenstein took part in this. I don’t know enough about him to attempt any analysis of his personality. All I know is that he did. And that, whatever his motivations and however it matches or mismatches with his career to this point, his public reputation is deservedly obliterated. There’s something dark and sick at the center of the Trump World because I don’t think anyone can really deny the pattern I’m taking note of here, even though I describe it in fulsome and lavish language: everybody who gets close gets damaged, usually badly. And the heart of that darkness is Trump himself, a lumbering vortex of need and rage, a black hole. The only question is why people keep going, mainly of their own free volition into his reach. (From a post titled The Wraithing of Rod Rosenstein, read it here.)

Marshall follows that with a post titled "They're Trapped in His Lies," which I've copied in its entirety: 

I mentioned earlier that we shouldn’t forget this simple point. Virtually everyone of note in the White House has already repeated and vouched for President Trump’s story of how and why he fired James Comey. Not only was this story a plain absurdity on day one; all the information which has emerged over the last two days has tended to confirm its falsity. Here’s the key point. Everyone who has repeated it knows it’s false. They have knowingly lied on the President’s behalf and about a matter of grave national importance. That includes the Vice President. So in the extreme scenario that the President leaves office and is succeeded by the Vice President, the sitting President will still be directly implicated in this lie and this cover-up.

But there’s an additional problem for everyone in the White House and all the President’s defenders in Congress. And it’s a big one. 

It’s not only that the President has implicated all of these people in his lies and deceptions about Comey’s firing. It is that he will not even stick to his story.

So just a short time ago, NBC released footage of its interview with the President conducted by Lester Holt. In that interview Trump is crystal clear that he decided to fire Comey entirely on his own. He asked Rosenstein to write out his views. But he was going to fire Comey regardless. That specifically contradicts what Pence said in an impromptu press conference yesterday on Capitol Hill.

Trump is like a wild fire hose whipping about violently, driven not by coils and water pressure but his own demons and rage. He will say whatever he wants at any given moment based on emotion, impulse, and his impression of tactical advantage as of that moment. This is not strategy. It’s an out of control person. But there are now large numbers of people and institutions implicated in Trump’s actions. They are on the line and along for the ride with every twist and turn.

The Question

Update: I just saw a tweet referring to "Kremlingate." It's starting.

Original post:
"What did the president know and when did he know it?" This question was originally asked by Senator Howard Baker, the leading Republican on the committee investigating President Nixon and the Watergate scandal, in June, 1973.

Since that time, whenever you hear the "what did he know and when did he know it" question in regards to a politician facing a potential scandal, you can assume that politician has some trouble coming.

Today the question is being asked repeatedly about the current president and his now-former National Security Adviser's contacts with Russia.

Trump has been in office for 25 days.

It's Not Just Josh Duggar

Can this possibly be true? In a blog post at the Christianity Today website titled "My pastor is on the Ashley Madison list," author Ed Stetzer says that as many as 400 Christian leaders may resign their positions tomorrow:

Based on my conversations with leaders from several denominations in the U.S. and Canada, I estimate that at least 400 church leaders (pastors, elders, staff, deacons, etc.) will be resigning Sunday.

Wow. You can read the article here. 

"There Was Always Something A Bit Odd About Josh"

Update #2, Thursday morning: It turns out People did produce a cover that features the three American heroes; it was on copies sent out to subscribers.



Mid-morning update: Remember the Tiger Woods scandal a few years ago, when women started coming out of the woodwork to say they had been with Tiger? It's beginning to look like this is going to be like that. For example:



The New York Daily News ponders it all, read it here.

Original post:
Issue dated September 7, 2015


I'd figured People would probably go for it, with a second Duggar scandal cover in a row, and here it is. Based on the "teaser" article currently posted on People.com, however, which states that "The Duggar family didn't respond to requests for comment," and quotes merely a Duggar family source, a source close to Anna and another source with ties to the family, I'm sure there's not much new information in the actual story. Now, please, please, please, let this be the last cover story about the Duggars. Ever.

And, really, People? Why couldn't you have put the three wonderful young Americans who hogtied a terrorist on a train (THEY SAVED HUNDREDS OF LIVES!) front and center as the main cover story? Didn't you think that would sell well? Even as I was expecting a full Sex Scandal 101 cover, I'd been hoping that the guys would be the main story with Josh as a sidebar, or maybe that People would wait until next week for the American Heroes story. But no. A sex scandal wins out every time.

"Inside Baseball"

Occasionally here at Writing The World, I point out how misleading a magazine headline can be. For example, People frequently writes headlines that sound as if they've interviewed the subject, when in fact they're just cribbing together quotes from "sources" and "insiders."

Now the New York Daily News has some info about how the current cover story, featuring two of the Duggar sisters, came about. Yes, the headline, "ONLY IN People / THE DUGGARS NOW / LIFE AFTER SCANDAL" implies an exclusive interview, but No, there wasn't one. The Daily News explains, using the term "write-around":

The scandal-scarred Duggar family graces the latest cover of People magazine with the headline “Only in People: The Duggars now, life after scandal.” There’s just one problem — the family refused to speak directly to the magazine to avoid being asked about Josh Duggar’s molestation confession, a source close to the magazine tells Confidenti@l.

“They did not want to discuss the scandal, only the future of the family. They wanted to avoid it altogether, which is completely ridiculous,” says our source. “How can they do a cover story and not address the issue at hand?”

We’re told People, which has had a long relationship with the family, approached the Duggars about doing “the first big interview since the confession” and since the TLC show was canceled.

“The Duggars said we would love to, however we will not address Josh’s trouble,” says our source. “People tried to negotiate and eventually played hardball, saying we’re doing the cover with or without you.”

The result was a write-around, with most quotes from a family insider.

Making matters worse is that while this week’s magazine is on stands, it leaked that Josh was a member of adult cheating website Ashley Madison, and that his information, like that of many site users, was hacked.

“That may actually work in People’s favor, because if you see that on a newsstand you’ll assume it’s inside the magazine,” laughs our source.

The "source" is right - People lucked out on the timing. The new cover certainly looks as if it's all about Josh's adultery and porn addiction, but in fact the new issue was published Wednesday morning, a few hours before the "Josh Duggar is on Ashley Madison" scandal broke in the press. 

Yes, There Will Be Schadenfreude

Lots of schadenfreude. When People published their new cover, at 7.00 a.m. central time Wednesday, they had no idea that their headline, "LIFE AFTER SCANDAL," would, in a matter of hours, be both eerily prescient and woefully out-of-date. "Josh's life in seclusion"? You have no idea.



What to say about the Duggars now? Thoughts:

There's no eraser on the internet. Josh first posted his apology on the family's website shortly after lunchtime. Not too many minutes later, he, his parents and/or their PR person apparently decided he shouldn't cop to being addicted to porn and the statement was taken down to be revised. Gawker tracked the edits, which also deleted the reference to Satan and to Josh's illegal activities as a teenager:



Unfortunately (for Josh,) even in the short time the original statement was live, several websites grabbed screen shots that preserve the original language, and most of the articles I've seen are now describing Mr. Duggar as both an adulterer and an internet porn addict. Once it's out there, it's out there. There's no going back. 

Clueless. Before the new scandal went public there were reports that parents Jim Bob and Michelle were trying to get themselves back on television, pitching a new "reality" show featuring them as, wait for it, counselors to victims of sexual abuse. If true, this represents a mind-boggling level of clueless self-regard that would get them not only laughed out of, but sneered out of any pitch meeting. 

In the original People cover story, they're described as "stunned" by the backlash to Josh's child molestation scandal, because they "truly felt people would understand and eventually be okay with it." They're still stunned this morning: 

Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar are "absolutely stunned" in the wake of their eldest son Josh's confession that he had cheated on wife Anna and had an addiction to pornography, a source with ties to the family tells PEOPLE.

"This wasn't something they ever imagined was possible," says the source. "They so strictly limit their exposure to these sorts of outside influences – from websites to even the sort of television they watch, if they turn on the TV at all – that they were absolutely baffled by how this could have been possible."

It seems to me that it's time for these people to step out of the spotlight, stop trying to rebuild their brand and focus on getting a clue, a real clue, about what's really going on with their family. Josh is clearly a very troubled young man, and I believe it's at least possible that his actions as an adult are driven by what happened when he was growing up. The "no big deal, Josh is fine, you must forgive your brother" way his sexual assault on his sisters was dealt with appears to have left Josh more screwed up than before and I'd bet everyone in that family is scarred by it. 

Please, please, please stop telling other people how to live. As I said when "abstinence advocate" Bristol Palin announced her second out-of-wedlock pregnancy, if your brand is built on purity, and in particular if you're telling others how to live, you'd better be practicing what you preach. If you're not, you're going to be excoriated. The Duggars are not just a large family with an old-fashioned lifestyle. They're politically active in support of a rigid, hateful and intolerant ideology. They have supported far-right politicians, recorded robocalls in support of discrimination and in Josh's case, worked for a non-profit that supports hate and intolerance in the name of so-called traditional family values. (Yes, Josh, you are a hypocrite. And yes, this is snark, but has Mike Huckabee had anything to say about this yet?) For the Duggars, it's time to stop worrying about what other people are doing and start cleaning up the mess in their own home. 

Finally, to Josh's wife and the other women and girls in this family, none of this is your fault. NONE OF THIS IS YOUR FAULT. The most troubling thing I've read in the tsunami of reporting on this story is this quote in one of the many articles at people.com: 

The source says that from their knowledge of Josh and Anna and the Duggar family, "no way is she leaving him" – adding that it would not come as a surprise if "on some level" Anna tries to "absorb some of the blame." 

"Maybe not publicly, ever, but privately, there will be some suggestion of whether or not she should have been more aware of the pressures Josh was under, of the issues he was facing, and how she could have better counseled him or helped him," says the source. 

If Anna Duggar chooses to stay with her husband that's no one's business but hers, but for someone, anyone, to suggest that this is in any way her fault is reprehensible and rage-inducing. Not only is it unfair to her but it deflects some of the responsibility off of Josh. At Salon.com, Brooke Arnold tells what it was like growing up in the "women are chattel/men rule the world" mind-set in families like the Duggars and it's chilling. (Read it here.) 

This entire situation is sad on every level and frankly I wonder if anyone in the Duggar family can ever really recover from it. I'm sincere when I say that I hope they can and do. I'm also sincerely hoping they'll step back, relinquish the spotlight, get real help and let everyone heal in private. 

Speaker Of The House

There was a time when I would have said there was no way the governor of New York was paying money to have sex with a prostitute. I would have said there was no way John Edwards had a girlfriend and an illegitimate daughter. I would have said there was no way the junior senator from Nevada was having an affair with the wife of one of his closest friends and I would have said there way no way the governor of South Carolina had a girlfriend in Argentina.

Way. I would have been wrong in all four cases. That's a long way of saying that at this point I was pretty sure that nothing a politician does could surprise me. Even so, I probably would have said that there was no way former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, of Illinois, of course, was not only hiding a deep, dark sex secret but had agreed to pay $3.5 million to keep it secret. Yikes.

We're now in the middle of the media feeding frenzy I call Sex Scandal 101 and the Hastert thing will play out over the coming days and weeks, with all the tawdry details trickling out as they always do. I'll be keeping an eye on, and possibly blogging about, the scandal but for right now, I find that I'm most intrigued by thinking about the position of Speaker of the House. It's the top leadership role in the House of Representatives, but as most of the media stories about Hastert have pointed out, the Speaker is also second in the line of succession to the presidency, right behind the Vice President.

(Brief rant about details: I've seen a couple of articles saying that the Speaker is third in line. No. Just no. The President isn't in line. He's the President. The VP is first in line and the Speaker is second. Who's third? The Senate President pro tempore. Current titleholder: Senator Orrin Hatch.)

Anyway, no big deal, right? Second in line, how important can that be? We've always got a Vice President, right? Actually no. On three occasions in the last 50 years or so the country has been without a VP, twice for a few weeks and once for over a year, putting the Speaker of the House one heartbeat away from becoming President.



In the 1970s it happened twice, both times connected to Richard Nixon. On October 10, 1973, VP Spiro Agnew resigned after being charged with accepting bribes. From that day until December 6, 1973, when Representative Gerald Ford was confirmed and sworn in as Vice President, there was no VP.

Eight months later President Nixon resigned as a result of the Watergate scandal and on August 9, 1974, Vice President Ford succeeded to the presidency. Nelson Rockefeller was selected to be the VP and was sworn in on December 19; until then the country was once again without a VP. Who would have become president if anything had happened to Nixon in 1973 or to Ford in 1974? Speaker of the House Carl Albert, a Democrat from Oklahoma.



The country was also without a VP for over a year from November 22, 1963, when Lyndon Johnson succeeded President Kennedy, until January 20, 1965, when Hubert Humphrey was inaugurated as VP after having been elected along with Johnson in November 1964. According to William Manchester in The Death of a President, there was some drama surrounding Speaker of the House John McCormack, who refused Secret Service protection, saying it was an intrusion:

When Johnson reached Washington [flying home from Dallas after the assassination] McCormack insisted that the Secret Service must discontinue all interest in him at once. Because of the Speaker's political power his extraordinary demand was honored that Friday. Thus the man next in line was without security protection for fourteen months. It was one of the best-kept secrets in the government. Those who knew of it did not even mention it to one another until Hubert Humphrey had been sworn in.  

I know. I'm a geek and it'll probably never happen, at least in real life. It did happen in the alternate universe of The West Wing, thanks to the imagination of Aaron Sorkin. At the end of season four, Vice President Hoynes is found to be having an affair and resigns; shortly thereafter President Bartlet's daughter is kidnapped. Feeling that he is too distraught to lead the country, the president temporarily steps aside and with no VP, Speaker of the House Glen Allen Walken, played by John Goodman, takes the oath as president. Watch it here:



Sunday morning update: I've written about presidential succession, and posted this video, before. (Here and here, for example.) I want to again point out that the typo in the title isn't from me. That's how it's labeled on YouTube.)

Not So Pure After All

Friday afternoon update: TLC has pulled the show from its schedule for "the foreseeable future." Realistically, it's gone for good.

More: Will TLC cancel the Duggars' show? In the end I think they will, as I tweeted last night, but if they don't they might find themselves in court. "Mama June" Shannon, the Mom from the Honey Boo Boo show, reminds everyone that TLC cancelled her show last fall after reports surfaced that she was dating a convicted child molester. That was an expensive loss for Shannon, apparently costing her hundreds of thousands of dollars and she wants to see the Duggars take the same hit. From the Detroit Free Press:

On Friday, she was fuming to TMZ that she wants to sue TLC about unfair treatment, since — so far — the Duggars still have a show, even though, she believes, the parents covered up Josh Duggar's confession to groping five girls 12 years ago in Springdale, Ark.

"I read that the Duggar family said this happening with their son brought them closer to God and each other,' Shannon complained to TMZ. "So they're saying it's OK to have family touch time? Hell no." Read the story here. 

Late Friday afternoon before a long week-end would be the perfect time for TLC to make their announcement. Stay tuned.

Original Post:

My guess? TLC cancels Duggar show before the week-end is over.

— Kimberly Hanes (@WritingTheWorld) May 22, 2015

Believe me when I say that I never thought I'd take to my blog to say nice things about the Kardashians. Around here snarkiness is the usual tone when I talk about Kim and the gang. This morning, however, I'm struck by the contrast between the loving acceptance they've expressed concerning Bruce Jenner's transition, and the hateful intolerance shown by the Duggars for anyone who doesn't live according to their rigid and restrictive morality. And note that the Duggars aren't just a family with a reality show. They use their fame to tell others how to live, supporting conservative politicians and in the case of first-born son Josh, working for the Family Research Council, which has been decribed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-gay hate group. As the Executive Director of the FRC's political operation (up until yesterday, when he resigned,) Josh Duggar toured the country expounding "traditional family values" and yes, telling people how to live:

"Evil done to children is one of its worst forms."
"We have to stand up to defend the American family"
"Children are a gift from the Lord and and when you look at them that way and you look at them really as more of an investment and really, you know, looking beyond yourself, I think that's what's so important."
"... I think it's just such a blessing when you see family and you see that you can honor each other"

It sounds a little different when you know that young Mr. Duggar was sneaking into his sisters' rooms to sexually assault them, doesn't it? (Quotes are from an article at Think Progress, read it here.)

This is an ugly story all around and the gleeful schadenfreude, even gloating, from observers who don't admire the Duggars, isn't contributing anything positive to the situation. Given the hypocrisy at the heart of the Duggars' purity empire, however, I'd say it's understandable.

Will The General Go To Jail?

Back in November, 2012 General David Petraeus was caught in a sex scandal and forced to resign as Director of Central Intelligence. I wrote about it at the time; now there's news that he's reached a plea deal with the Department of Justice. Why? Here's how The Daily Beast is covering it: 

Retired four-star general David Petraeus reached a deal with the Department of Justice and plead guilty to one count of unauthorized removal and retention of classified information. The charge filed Tuesday carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison (it's not clear what penalty, if any, he'll receive). The deal will avoid an embarrassing, protracted trial for Petraeus, who was once the top U.S. military commander during the Iraq War and credited with success during the 2007-08 "surge." Petraeus was made director of the CIA by President Obama but resigned in 2012 after it was discovered he was having an extramarital affair with Paula Broadwell, a former Army Reservist who wrote a biography of him. Petraeus is still married to his wife, Holly.

Talk about unintended consequences. Will he go to jail? Stay tuned.