About tapes, presidents and ‘fake news’
A few months ago, I was watching a Netflix documentary about the JFK assassination. A good part of it focused on the setting up of the Warren Commission – the men who concluded that the alleged Commie sympathizer (by then dead) was single-handedly responsible for killing the President.
The programme featured a conversation between Lyndon B Johnson and a senator from Georgia called Richard Russell, during which the new President persuaded the senator to serve on the Commission. What struck me most was that this call – made from the White House in 1963 – had been taped and that the recording is still available to broadcasters. It’s even on YouTube.
Fast forward a decade, and another set of recordings – the Watergate Tapes – proved the final nail in Richard Nixon’s Presidential coffin. The taping system had been installed in Nixon’s Oval Office desk and captured the incriminating conversations. This was 44 years ago, remember.
Nixon’s departure was, of course, aided by arguably the greatest ever example of investigative journalism. Watergate would never have happened had it not been for the tenacity of Woodward and Bernstein of the Washington Post. The power of the press allied to advances in technology had brought down a President.
We now inhabit the digital age. It can be dizzying to say the least. Everything is recorded – from our meetings with colleagues to the road trips we take to the communications we send and receive. Unless you are careful and clever in the extreme, your movements and your conversations will become a matter of record. It’s inescapable.
And what of the current incumbent of the White House – the son of a Scotswoman, let’s not forget? I’ve been loath to get involved in Trump-related matters in this blog, but it’s the only story in town over here. Is he displaying care, intelligence, sensitivity, or even a manner befitting his position given that his every move, his every tweet, is being recorded for posterity?
Of course not. To be honest, with every passing day his Presidency becomes more bewildering and confusing. His twitter account screams ‘Fake News’ as he tries to persuade the world that events which were undoubtedly recorded never actually happened.
When I was a cub reporter in the early 1970s, the big American papers – Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal – were regarded as the best in the world. Trump now rails against what he calls the ‘Failing New York Times’.
At the same time, his young Presidency is embroiled in what seems to be scandal after scandal. A special counsel has been appointed to conduct a wide-ranging inquiry into the contacts he and his team may have had with Russia during the election campaign. Last week it was revealed that his son, son-in-law, and campaign manager met a Russian lawyer who promised to dish the dirt on Hillary Clinton.
Every phone call and email he and his campaign team made, and every meeting they had before the election and since is traceable. And let’s not forget the ‘golden shower’ tape in a Moscow hotel room. That was revealed in a report by a former British spy and made public by none other than the so-called fake media.
Of course, that tape exists and so do many other damaging recordings. If Trump doesn’t realise that then he has bigger problems than we all imagine. It’s very possible a copy is locked in a safe deep in the offices of the ‘failing New York Times’. I suspect we’ll find out one day.
From day one, Trump has faced questions of competency. These have intensified to the point where serious political commentators, both Democrats and Republicans, now regularly appear on radio and TV stations and state without hesitation that he doesn’t have the mental capacity for the job. It’s not a question of perhaps, it is said as a matter of fact.
It doesn’t help that he blunders around the world stage like a bull in a china shop, pushing other dignitaries out of the way, leering at the wives of fellow presidents, and displaying a general lack of understanding of the important stuff – the matters that exercise the minds of world leaders.
In many ways, it’s difficult to know why he ever wanted the job. He quite simply isn’t up to it. Give him his due, he has proved a very effective orator, he can roil up an audience and tell them what they want to hear. To date, however, he has achieved practically nothing.
Every day over here, a new sensational headline emerges. The Republican Party, which never wanted him as a candidate in the first place, will tolerate him until he has outlived his usefulness. The Russian probe might prove his undoing but if not, as sure as night follows day, a scandal will emerge that will push his Presidency over the edge of the cliff and that will be the end of it.
The events of last week were the clearest example of the dangerous game he and his henchmen are playing. The meeting between his son and the Russian lawyer was exposed by that down-market rag they call the New York Times – where the reporters have contacts in every country in the world and every government agency in the US.
Trump still retains the support of a decreasing but fairly substantial number of Americans. But he is seen by many as an embarrassment – especially his tweeting habit – and unless he does something for those who voted for him, that decrease in support will continue.
Trump was clearly enjoying himself during the campaign when he swept aside Little Marco, Lying Ted, Crooked Hillary and the rest. It’s not such a laugh now that he’s in office and expected to be presidential and diplomatic.
All these years after Watergate, my gut feeling is that the combination of new technology and the power of the media will, one way or another, bring down another President.