President Obama and the Michael Brown case
I have noticed that a number of people question why President Obama has not spoken more about the murder of Michael Brown. The reason the president has not done so is simple: he isn’t stupid.
Many of us here are old enough to remember a Monday afternoon in August of 1970 -- August 3rd, actually -- when then-President Richard Nixon spoke to reporters in Denver. Nixon, himself an attorney, used the on-going trial of Charlie Manson & family to try to scold the press. Taking the type of cheap shot that illustrated his hatred for the media, the president accused the media of using their “front pages” daily to present Manson as “a glamorous figure.”
“Here is a man who was guilty, directly or indirectly, of eight murders,” Nixon told reporters. On the record.
That, of course, made the next day’s headlines. And it raised the potential for a mistrial. Although the jury was sequestered, there was a risk that one or more jurors could be exposed to the presidents’ foolish remark.
Indeed, Manson would hold up a copy of the LA Times the following morning, The jury was then voir dired, to evaluate if the process was tainted. (One juror told the judge, “I didn’t vote for him, anyhow”!)
Members of the executive and/or legislative branches are not supposed to voice their opinion of a potential, or on-going, criminal trial. This is President Obama is not speaking about this case specifically.
Carry on.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Response to Cha (Reply #3)
Many who criticize the president without forethought are just having another day at it.
Sometimes the quietest person in the room is the smartest one.
Other times that's a way to know that they're the leader.
You are quite correct. 
BTW, it took me some years to get over Lonnie when they cancelled WKRP.
...because clearly, there is something insidious and evil going on inside America's black communities, regarding the militarization of (mostly white) police and the 'for profit' prison system...demoralizing and destroying the hopes and dreams of my black brothers and sisters.
TYY 
A decade later, in his job as president, Nixon approved hiring a Secret Service man who said he'd 'kill on command' to guard Ted Kennedy. You can hear Nixon and Haldeman discuss it, about 40 minutes into the HBO documentary "Nixon by Nixon."
Ted Kennedy survived Richard Nixon's Plots
By Don Fulsom
In September 1972, Nixon’s continued political fear, personal loathing, and jealously of Kennedy led him to plant a spy in Kennedy’s Secret Service detail.
The mole Nixon selected for the Kennedy camp was already being groomed. He was a former agent from his Nixon’s vice presidential detail, Robert Newbrand—a man so loyal he once pledged he would do anything—even kill—for Nixon.
The President was most interested in learning about the Sen. Kennedy’s sex life. He wanted, more than anything, stated Haldeman in The Ends of Power, to “catch (Kennedy) in the sack with one of his babes.”
In a recently transcribed tape of a September 8, 1972 talk among the President and aides Bob Haldeman and Alexander Butterfield, Nixon asks whether Secret Service chief James Rowley would appoint Newbrand to head Kennedy’s detail:
Haldeman: He's to assign Newbrand.
President Nixon: Does he understand that he's to do that?
Butterfield: He's effectively already done it. And we have a full force assigned, 40 men.
Haldeman: I told them to put a big detail on him (unclear).
President Nixon: A big detail is correct. One that can cover him around the clock, every place he goes. (Laughter obscures mixed voices.)
President Nixon: Right. No, that's really true. He has got to have the same coverage that we give the others, because we're concerned about security and we will not assume the responsibility unless we're with him all the time.
Haldeman: And Amanda Burden (one of Kennedy’s alleged girlfriends) can't be trusted. (Unclear.) You never know what she might do. (Unclear.)
Haldeman then assures the President that Newbrand “will do anything that I tell him to … He really will. And he has come to me twice and absolutely, sincerely said, "With what you've done for me and what the President's done for me, I just want you to know, if you want someone killed, if you want anything else done, any way, any direction …"
President Nixon: The thing that I (unclear) is this: We just might get lucky and catch this son-of-a-bitch and ruin him for '76.
Haldeman: That's right.
President Nixon: He doesn't know what he's really getting into. We're going to cover him, and we are not going to take "no" for an answer. He can't say "no." The Kennedys are arrogant as hell with these Secret Service. He says, "Fine," and (Newbrand) should pick the detail, too.
Toward the end of this conversation, Nixon exclaims that Newbrand’s spying “(is) going to be fun,” and Haldeman responds: “Newbrand will just love it.”
Nixon also had a surveillance tip for Haldeman for his spy-to-be: “I want you to tell Newbrand if you will that (unclear) because he's a Catholic, sort of play it, he was for Jack Kennedy all the time. Play up to Kennedy, that "I'm a great admirer of Jack Kennedy." He's a member of the Holy Name Society. He wears a St. Christopher (unclear).” Haldeman laughs heartily at the President’s curious advice.
Despite the enthusiasm of Nixon and Haldeman, Newbrand apparently never produced anything of great value. When this particular round of Nixon’s spying on Kennedy was uncovered in 1997, The Washington Post quoted Butterfield as saying periodic reports on Kennedy's activities were delivered to Haldeman, but that Butterfield did not think any potentially damaging information was ever dug up.
SOURCE:
http://surftofind.com/tedkennedy
While I had read the part of the transcript available years ago, and wrote about what I knew on DU, almost no one I know now still has heard anything about it.
That will change, thanks to you, H20 Man. I learned about the specific, sordid and murderous details thanks to your recommendation for HBO's "Nixon by Nixon."
How was JFK different? Ask Secret Service agent Abraham Bolden, who reported overt racism by his fellow agents and outright hostility toward the "n------loving president," quoting fellow Secret Service agents on the JFK detail.
Abraham Bolden speaks at JFK Lancer.
The story of a man who told the truth:
After 45 Years, a Civil Rights Hero Waits for Justice
Thom Hartmann
June 12, 2009 11:52 AM
A great miscarriage of justice has kept most Americas from learning about a Civil Rights pioneer who worked with President John F. Kennedy. But there is finally a way for citizens to not only right that wrong, but bring closure to the most tragic chapter of American presidential history.
After an outstanding career in law enforcement, Abraham Bolden was appointed by JFK to be the first African American presidential Secret Service agent, where he served with distinction. He was part of the Secret Service effort that prevented JFK's assassination in Chicago, three weeks before Dallas. But Bolden was framed by the Mafia and arrested on the very day he went to Washington to tell the Warren Commission staff about the Chicago attempt against JFK.
Bolden was sentenced to six years in prison, despite glaring problems with his prosecution. His arrest resulted from accusations by two criminals Bolden had sent to prison. In Bolden's first trial, an apparently biased judge told the jury that Bolden was guilty, even before they began their deliberations. Though granted a new trial because of that, the same problematic judge was assigned to oversee Bolden's second trial, which resulted in his conviction. Later, the main witness against Bolden admitted committing perjury against him. A key member of the prosecution even took the fifth when asked about the perjury. Yet Bolden's appeals were denied, and he had to serve hard time in prison, and today is considered a convicted felon.
After the release of four million pages of JFK assassination files in the 1990s, it became clear that Bolden -- and the official secrecy surrounding the Chicago attempt against JFK -- were due to National Security concerns about Cuba, that were unknown to Bolden, the press, Congress, and the public not just in 1963, but for the next four decades.
SNIP...
Abraham Bolden paid a heavy price for trying to tell the truth about events involving the man he was sworn to protect -- JFK -- that became mired in National Security concerns. Bolden still lives in Chicago, and has never given up trying to clear his name.
Will Abraham Bolden live to finally see the justice so long denied to him?
CONTINUED...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thom-hartmann/after-45-years-a-civil-ri_b_213834.html
After the assassination, Bolden traveled to Washington on his own dime and tried to report what he saw to the Warren Commission. For his trouble -- and despite an exemplary record as a Brinks detective, Illinois State Trooper, and Secret Service agent -- Bolden was framed by the government using a paid informant's admitted perjury and spent a long time in prison. The government also drugged him and put him into psychiatric hospitals.
Bolden's only "crime" was telling the truth. The truth is something more people should try. Thank you for telling it about Nixon and President Obama, H20 Man.
PS: Thanks for the kind words about me. While I'm too humble to go there, they mean the World to me.
