Last night, Dora and I traveled to Odessa for the John Ben Shepperd Lecture Series, hosted by the John Ben Shepperd Public Leadership Institute and UTPB. The featured guests were Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. If you have ever seen the motion picture "All The President's Men" starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, then you know the historical significance of Woodward and Bernstein, the Washington Post reporters responsible for the Post winning the '73 Pulitzer Prize for their work on the Watergate scandal during Richard Nixon's presidency. In a nutshell, these two men brought Richard Nixon down!!!!
The theme for the night was "From Nixon to Bush: What President Obama Can Learn from Presidents Past." The discussion was an intimate setting. To give the audience a sense of what happened, Woodward asked Bernstein questions and vice versa. Both Woodward and Bernstein were articulate, knowledgeable, and humorous. The following are some of the interesting points of the evening (yes, I took notes):
1. (Woodward) "Having dinner with [Al] Gore is like having dinner with a jackhammer...it's taxing."
2. (Woodward/Bernstein) "Unjustified secrecy is a problem for every president since Nixon."
3. (Woodward) How did they pursue the story of the century (Watergate)? Methodically...they went to everyone...clerks, assistants, ect. and they did not get sidetracked. They did not get caught up in the "noise." The "noise" was what Nixon was calling them in public and in the press..."fabrications" and reporters with "political agendas." They worked day and night. The most powerful man in the country consistently threatened them.
4. (Woodward) The Bush administration demonstrated a "contemptuousness for the truth." The number one mistake Bush made was having secret meetings with Cheney. At these secret meetings, decisions were discussed and made, without considering other options. In contrast, the Obama administration considers other options and debates the information.
5. (Bernstein) "Vietnam and the Watergate scandal are inseparable." Both had the element of secrecy...tapping reporters because the secrecy of the presidency was penetrated. "The Bush administration learned nothing from the Nixon presidency."
6. (Bernstein) The Watergate scandal is often misunderstood. It was not just about the breaking and entering. It had an agenda: to sabotage the leading Democratic presidential candidates....to retain power through unconstitutional methods.
7. (Woodward) Nixon had an obssession with Ted Kennedy, who was one of the leading candidates for the presidency. For instance, when Kennedy requested Secret Service detail because he was receiving numerous death threats, Nixon did not want to grant his request, but later changed his mind. Why? Nixon figured the Secret Service could work for HIM by serving as HIS spies. He wanted to sabotage Kennedy. The latest tapes reveal Nixon's hatred toward Kennedy.
8. (Bernstein) "Nixon and [George W.] Bush were horribly suited for the job."
9. (Woodward) Nixon and [George W.] Bush are different. Hate drove Nixon. Bush, on the other hand, had criticisms and justifiably so, but he didn't hate. He actually believed he was doing the right and moral thing. The drawback to this belief was that Bush believed his morality was infallible.
10. (Bernstein) "The point is, though different, Nixon and Bush both had character flaws that made them unsuitable for the job. And both believed that their morality was infallible."
11. (Woodward) The Whitewater scandal during the Clinton presidency was about nothing. There was nothing there to report. But the Clintons didn't know how to deal with a newly enfranchised press.
12. (Woodward/Bernstein) The Obama administration, so far, has steered clear from "unjustified secrecy," something that has plagued other administrations where they chose to make the press and its conduct the issue and not the conduct of the president.
They did include a brief discussion about Hillary Rodham Clinton, which I think bears witness to the fact that Hillary is a person who is capable of being a great leader. After all, the evening was about several different presidencies and here we were, throwing Hillary into the mix of powerful men. Bernstein's most recent book is the national bestseller A Woman In Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham. Woodward asked Bernstein what he thought of Hillary and he said, "She is a remarkable, able, vunerable human...passionate."
At the end of the evening, Dora was able to get her event program autographed by both Woodward and Bernstein. I took my personal copy of their book The Final Days, written in 1976 about the last days of the Nixon presidency, and had them autograph it. It was a great evening.
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