Nixon's Hatchet Man

[Kat Kanning]

Chuck Colson finds the meaning of life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-_XcGJK7W4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_TWolO3DUE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcUTtzeZjiQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tV1Sj-TkbN8

[Kat Kanning]

Here's what I was actually looking for.  Russell said he read this guy's book while in jail.  Here's the quote I was looking for...

"I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren't true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world-and they couldn't keep a lie for three weeks. You're telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible."
? Charles Colson

[WithoutAPaddle]

It took years for me to come to realize the Colson had truly become a new man.  Nevertheless, there are two Chuck Colson stories from when he was the old Chuck Colson that I like to pass along:

Someone named Bruce Oudes published hundreds of Watergate related internal memos that didn't involve criminality but were a good read just because of the glimpses they gave us into the cast of characters.  The title of that collection is, "From: The President. Richard Nixon's Secret Files." Here is my favorite:

From Chuck Colson

To: Ken Cole

January 2, 1970

The National Women's Party has requested that the President allude in the State of the Union Message to the issue of equal rights for women. As you will see from the enclosed, the President has publicly supported this amendment as has every other politician down through the years. Fortunately, the good sense and ultimate wisdom of Congress has always kept this ridiculous proposal from being enacted. It is good politics to talk about it, I must admit. Could you please advise me so I can be in touch with the National Women's Party?



And here is another Chuck being Chuck anecdote:

From: David Brock's The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy, , p.19:

Two years later, testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee revealed that Nixon special counsel Charles Colson took $8,000 from Nixon's reelection committee to purchase copies of The News Twisters...

After Nixon's death in 1994, Colson told the story of The News Twisters to Newsweek: "(He) called me into his office on another occasion and asked me if I had read Edith Efron's book about biased network news coverage. I had. I had also concluded that it was a book destined for obscurity. Nixon then ordered me to get it on the best-seller list. I was used to cryptic instructions, but never one quite like this. After finding the particular stores that the New York Times and others regularly checked to determine which books were selling, I enlisted the assistance of some Nixon supporters in New York. We literally bought out the stores." When Nixon aide E. Howard Hunt quit the White House during the Watergate scandal, he left behind several cartons of The News Twisters.

[Kat Kanning]

Well, I agree with him about the equal rights amendment.  But why did Nixon want that book on the bestseller list?

[Jim Johnson]

In my Mother's church there were some common beliefs;

The louder one pronounces his beliefs the less he believes, because the pious man needs you to believe.

And when a scummy lair speaks, he speaks scummy lies.

[Russell Kanning]

I thought the lying lawyers angle was interesting.
Chucks 7 months in jail taught him how unjust this system was.

[Jim Johnson]

I thought the lying lawyers angle was interesting.
Chucks 7 months in jail taught him how unjust this system was.

The system was all great when he was Nixon's Hatchet Man. 
But the system was unjust when it nipped him in the butt and let his co-crimers go.
So he turned to God, who is ultimately just, which makes his time in jail and the treatment of his co-crimers ultimately just.

I always find it funny that after a man goes to church every Sunday to profess his believe in God he ultimately finds Him inside a jail cell,  http://finance.yahoo.com/news/pf_article_107340.html   
In this case one of the cushiest cells in the nation.

[KBCraig]

In this case one of the cushiest cells in the nation.

A distinction not unlike being the smartest kid on the short bus.

[Jim Johnson]

In this case one of the cushiest cells in the nation.

A distinction not unlike being the smartest kid on the short bus.

I get to sit where ever I want.

[Kat Kanning]

Well, what I saw from those videos was a lying lawyer miraculously changed into someone who spent the rest of his life helping people.