tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/spiro-agnew-19236/articlesSpiro Agnew – The Conversation2023-03-30T22:24:09Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1976772023-03-30T22:24:09Z2023-03-30T22:24:09ZTrump indictments won’t keep him from presidential race, but will make his reelection bid much harder<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518608/original/file-20230330-2836-xyrjtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=51%2C25%2C5623%2C3751&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former President Donald Trump has been indicted by a Manhattan grand jury.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2024Trump/fdf2a5bcf6a848a1b418a7f3383fa70a/photo">AP Photo/Evan Vucci</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a historically significant move, the Department of Justice has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/06/08/us/trump-indictment-documents">charged former President Donald Trump</a> with seven counts related to his retention of classified documents.</p>
<p>It’s the first time a U.S. president or former president has been federally indicted. Trump was also <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-hush-money-new-york-indictment-election-027d0e5ac1881a4c55c6379deae75faa">indicted in March</a> by a Manhattan grand jury on New York state charges related to hush money payments made to a porn star just before the 2016 presidential election.</p>
<p>Trump is expected to continue his <a href="https://secure.winred.com/save-america-joint-fundraising-committee/c2d9c0ea50f9b2b0/?utm_campaign=20230607&utm_medium=website">campaign for the presidency</a>, seeking to regain in 2024 the position <a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-michael-pence-electoral-college-elections-health-2d9bd47a8bd3561682ac46c6b3873a10">he lost in 2020 to Joe Biden</a>. </p>
<p>What are the consequences of an indictment and potential trial for his campaign and, if his effort is successful, his future presidency?</p>
<p><a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-2/section-1/clause-5/#:%7E:text=No%20Person%20except%20a%20natural,been%20fourteen%20Years%20a%20Resident">Article II of the U.S. Constitution</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-an-indictment-wouldnt-end-trumps-run-for-the-presidency-he-could-even-campaign-or-serve-from-a-jail-cell-194425">sets forth very explicit qualifications for the presidency</a>: The president must be 35 years of age, a U.S. resident for 14 years and a natural-born citizen. </p>
<p>In cases involving analogous qualifications for members of Congress, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1968/138">the Supreme Court has held</a> that such qualifications form a “constitutional ceiling” – prohibiting any additional qualifications to be imposed by any means. </p>
<p>Thus, because the Constitution does not require that the president be free from indictment, conviction or prison, it follows that a person under indictment or in prison may run for the office and may even serve as president.</p>
<p>This is the prevailing legal standard that would apply to former President Trump. The fact of his indictment and potential trial is irrelevant to his qualifications for office under the Constitution.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, there seems no question that indictment, conviction or both – let alone a prison sentence – would significantly compromise a president’s ability to function in office. And the Constitution doesn’t provide an easy answer to the problem posed by such a compromised chief executive.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506724/original/file-20230127-25-rzcolt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a blue suit, red tie and white shirt showing a clenched fist in front of several US flags." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506724/original/file-20230127-25-rzcolt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506724/original/file-20230127-25-rzcolt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506724/original/file-20230127-25-rzcolt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506724/original/file-20230127-25-rzcolt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506724/original/file-20230127-25-rzcolt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506724/original/file-20230127-25-rzcolt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506724/original/file-20230127-25-rzcolt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Former President Donald Trump, at a campaign event at his Mar-a-Lago home on Nov. 15, 2022, in Palm Beach, Fla., when he announced he was seeking another term in office and officially launched his 2024 presidential campaign.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/former-u-s-president-donald-trump-gestures-during-an-event-news-photo/1441799553?phrase=Trump&adppopup=true">Joe Raedle/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Governing from jail?</h2>
<p>A presidential candidate could be indicted, prosecuted and convicted by either state or federal authorities. Indictment for a state crime may seem less significant than federal charges brought by the Department of Justice. </p>
<p>Ultimately, though, the spectacle of a criminal trial in state or federal court would have a dramatic effect on a presidential campaign and on the credibility of a president, if elected. </p>
<p>All defendants are presumed innocent until proved guilty. But in the case of conviction, incarceration in state or federal prison involves restrictions on liberty that would significantly compromise the president’s ability to lead.</p>
<p>This point – that functioning as president would be difficult while under indictment or after being convicted – was made plain in a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/olc/opinions/2000/10/31/op-olc-v024-p0222_0.pdf">2000 memo</a> written by the Department of Justice. The memo reflected on a <a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/4517361/092473.pdf">1973 Office of Legal Counsel memo produced during Watergate</a> titled “Amenability of the President, Vice President and other Civil Officers to Federal Criminal Prosecution while in Office.” The background to the 1973 memo was that <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Watergate-Scandal">President Richard Nixon was under investigation</a> for his role in the Watergate break-in and <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/1010.html">Vice President Spiro Agnew was under grand jury investigation for tax evasion</a>.</p>
<p>These two memos addressed whether a sitting president could, under the Constitution, be indicted while in office. They concluded he could not.
But what about a president indicted, convicted, or both, before taking office, as could be the case for Trump?</p>
<p>In evaluating whether a sitting president could be indicted or imprisoned while in office, both the 1973 and 2000 memos outlined the consequences of a pending indictment for the president’s functioning in office. The earlier memo used strong words: “[t]he spectacle of an indicted President still trying to serve as Chief Executive boggles the imagination.” </p>
<p>Even more pointedly, the memos observe that a criminal prosecution against a sitting president could result in “physical interference with the President’s performance of his official duties that it would amount to an incapacitation.” </p>
<p>The memo here refers to the inconvenience of a criminal trial that would significantly detract from the president’s time commitment to his burdensome duties. </p>
<p>But it’s also lawyer’s language to describe a more direct impediment to the president’s ability to govern: He might be in jail.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506727/original/file-20230127-25-d1i7qh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a blue suit, white shirt and red tie, wearing glasses, faces a crowd of reporters with microphones on a sidewalk." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506727/original/file-20230127-25-d1i7qh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506727/original/file-20230127-25-d1i7qh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506727/original/file-20230127-25-d1i7qh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506727/original/file-20230127-25-d1i7qh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506727/original/file-20230127-25-d1i7qh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506727/original/file-20230127-25-d1i7qh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506727/original/file-20230127-25-d1i7qh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani arriving at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta, Ga., on Aug. 17, 2022, to appear before the special grand jury investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/GeorgiaElectionInvestigation/e57d949e422646d8b46e78ca8ac56f99/photo?Query=georgia%20election%20investigation&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=239&currentItemNo=13">AP Photo/John Bazemore</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Core functions affected</h2>
<p>According to the 1973 memo, “the President plays an unparalleled role in the execution of the laws, the conduct of foreign relations, and the defense of the Nation.” </p>
<p>Because these core functions require meetings, communications or consultations with the military, foreign leaders and government officials in the U.S. and abroad in ways that cannot be performed while imprisoned, constitutional law scholar <a href="https://www.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.12987/yale/9780300123517.001.0001/upso-9780300123517-chapter-2">Alexander Bickel remarked in 1973</a> that “obviously the presidency cannot be conducted from jail.” </p>
<p>Modern presidents are peripatetic: They travel nationally and globally on a constant basis to meet with other national leaders and global organizations. They obviously wouldn’t be able to do these things while in prison. Nor could they <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/katrina/">inspect the aftermath of natural disasters</a> from coast to coast, <a href="https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/remarks-announcing-intention-nominate-sandra-day-oconnor-be-associate-justice">celebrate national successes and events</a> or <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/10/13/remarks-president-opening-remarks-and-panel-discussion-white-house">address citizens and groups on issues of the day</a>, at least in person.</p>
<p>Moreover, presidents need access to classified information and briefings. But imprisonment would also obviously compromise a president’s ability to access such information, which must often be <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/what-scif-who-uses-it-n743991">stored and viewed in a secure room</a> that has been protected against all manner of spying, including blocking radio waves – not something that’s likely available in a prison.</p>
<p>As a result of the president’s varied duties and obligations, the memos concluded that “[t]he physical confinement of the chief executive following a valid conviction would indisputably preclude the executive branch from performing its constitutionally assigned functions.” </p>
<p>Translation: The president couldn’t do his job.</p>
<h2>Running from prison</h2>
<p>Yet what to do if citizens actually elect an indicted or incarcerated president? </p>
<p>This is not out of the question. At least one incarcerated presidential candidate, Eugene Debs, garnered almost a million votes <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-presidential-campaign-of-convict-9653-203027">out of a total 26.2 million cast</a> in the election of 1920. </p>
<p>One potential response is the 25th Amendment, which enables the president’s Cabinet to declare the president “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” </p>
<p>The two Department of Justice memos note, however, that the framers of the 25th Amendment never considered or mentioned incarceration as a basis for the inability to discharge the powers and duties of the office. They write that replacing the president under the 25th Amendment would “give insufficient weight to the people’s considered choice as to whom they wish to serve as their chief executive.” </p>
<p>All this brings to mind Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’ <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Supreme_Court_and_American_Constitut/sPiGrv0h6mkC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=If+my+fellow+citizens+want+to+go+to+hell,+I+will+help+them.+Its+my+job&pg=PA11&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">admonition about the role of the Supreme Court</a>: “If my fellow citizens want to go to Hell I will help them. It’s my job.” </p>
<p>Holmes’ statement came in a letter reflecting on the Sherman Antitrust Act, which he thought was a foolish law. But Holmes was prepared to accept the popular will expressed through democracy and self-determination. </p>
<p>Perhaps the same reflection is apt here: If the people choose a president hobbled by criminal sanctions, that is a form of self-determination too. And one for which the Constitution has no ready solution.</p>
<p><em>This story is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-indictment-wont-keep-him-from-presidential-race-but-will-make-his-reelection-bid-much-harder-197677">an article</a> that was published on March 30, 2023.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197677/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stefanie Lindquist does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With a federal indictment of former President Donald Trump, currently a presidential candidate, a legal scholar explores what the law says about the consequences of such an unprecedented act.Stefanie Lindquist, Foundation Professor of Law and Political Science, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2001522023-03-14T12:23:43Z2023-03-14T12:23:43ZDon’t trust the news media? That’s good<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514930/original/file-20230313-20-dh6jh0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C3%2C2108%2C1406&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Approach with caution, advises a journalism scholar.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/newsreader-filming-in-press-room-royalty-free-image/694041078?phrase=news%20room&adppopup=true">simon kr/E+/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Everyone seems to hate what they call “the media.” </p>
<p>Attacking journalism – even accurate and verified reporting – provides <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-being-anti-media-is-now-part-of-the-gop-identity/">a quick lift for politicians</a>. </p>
<p>It’s not just Donald Trump. Trump’s rival for the 2024 Republican nomination, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, <a href="https://www.wfla.com/news/politics/gov-ron-desantis-to-speak-in-jacksonville/">recently criticized</a> “the Lefty media” for telling “lies” and broadcasting “a hoax” about his policies.</p>
<p>Criticizing the media emerged as an effective bipartisan political tactic in the 1960s. GOP Sen. Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign got the ball rolling by needling the so-called “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/opinions/lyndon-johnson-barry-goldwater-liberal-media-bias-hemmer/index.html">Eastern liberal press</a>.” </p>
<p>Democratic President Lyndon Johnson’s lies about the Vietnam War clashed with accurate reporting, and a “credibility gap” arose – the growing public skepticism about the administration’s truthfulness – to the obvious irritation of the president. Johnson complained CBS News and NBC News were so biased he thought their reporting seemed “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/30/opinion/lyndon-johnson-vietnam-war.html">controlled by the Vietcong</a>.”</p>
<p>Democrats like Chicago’s Mayor Richard J. Daley, who complained bitterly about news coverage of the 1968 Democratic convention – labeling it “<a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/09/02/how-fake-news-was-born-at-the-1968-dnc-219627/">propaganda</a>” – and Federal Communications <a href="https://law.uiowa.edu/people/nicholas-johnson">Commissioner Nicholas Johnson</a>, who published “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/59804">How to Talk Back to Your Television Set</a>” in 1970, argued that “Eastern,” “commercial” and “corporate” media interests warped or “censored” the news. </p>
<p>In 1969, Republican President Richard Nixon’s vice president, Spiro Agnew, launched a public <a href="https://theconversation.com/he-was-trump-before-trump-vp-spiro-agnew-attacked-the-news-media-50-years-ago-122980">campaign against news corporations</a> that instantly made him a conservative celebrity. </p>
<p>Agnew warned that increased concentration in news media ownership ensured control over public opinion by a “tiny and closed fraternity of privileged men, <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/2019/11/10/fifty-years-ago-spiro-agnew-and-des-moines-speech/4166207002/">elected by no one</a>.” Similar criticism emerged from leftists, including <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/78912/manufacturing-consent-by-edward-s-herman-and-noam-chomsky/">MIT linguist Noam Chomsky</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514934/original/file-20230313-26-hjldur.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man with a receding hairline and gray hair talking into a microphone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514934/original/file-20230313-26-hjldur.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514934/original/file-20230313-26-hjldur.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514934/original/file-20230313-26-hjldur.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514934/original/file-20230313-26-hjldur.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514934/original/file-20230313-26-hjldur.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514934/original/file-20230313-26-hjldur.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514934/original/file-20230313-26-hjldur.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Vice President Spiro Agnew said in 1969 that concentrated news media ownership ensured control over public opinion by a ‘tiny and closed fraternity of privileged men, elected by no one.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-politician-us-vice-president-spiro-agnew-speaks-news-photo/846059208?phrase=Spiro%20Agnew&adppopup=true">David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The bipartisan popularity of news media criticism continued to grow as politicians found attacking the messengers the fastest way to avoid engaging in discussion of unpleasant realities. Turning the spotlight back on the media also helped political figures portray themselves as victims, while focusing partisan anger at specific villains.</p>
<p>Now, only 26% of Americans have a favorable opinion of the news media, according <a href="https://knightfoundation.org/reports/american-views-2023-part-2/">to a poll published in February 2023</a> by Gallup and the Knight Foundation. Americans across the political spectrum share a growing disdain for journalism – no matter how accurate, verified, professional or ethical.</p>
<p>Yet open debate over journalism ethics signals healthy governance. Such argumentation might amplify polarization, but it also facilitates the exchange of diverse opinions and encourages critical analyses of reality.</p>
<h2>Journalistic failures damaged trust</h2>
<p>Americans grew to distrust even the best news reporting because their political leadership encouraged it. But multiple failures exposed over the past several decades also further eroded journalistic credibility. </p>
<p>Long before <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/mar/09/digitalmedia.tvnews">bloggers ended Dan Rather’s CBS News career in 2005</a>, congressional investigations, civil lawsuits and scandals revealing unethical and unprofessional behavior within even the most respected journalism outlets doomed the profession’s public reputation.</p>
<p>In 1971, CBS News aired “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Selling-of-the-Pentagon">The Selling of the Pentagon</a>,” an investigation that revealed the government spent tax dollars to produce pro-military domestic propaganda during the Vietnam War. </p>
<p>The program <a href="https://www.byrdcenter.org/blog/the-selling-of-the-pentagon-staggers-v-cbs">infuriated U.S. Rep. Harley Staggers</a>, who accused CBS of using “the nation’s airwaves … to deliberately deceive the public.” </p>
<p>Staggers launched an investigation and subpoenaed CBS News’ unpublished, confidential materials. CBS News President Frank Stanton <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1971/04/10/archives/cbs-gains-support-for-defiance-of-subpoena.html">defied the subpoena</a> and was eventually vindicated by a vote of Congress. But Staggers, a West Virginia Democrat, publicly portrayed <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bound-congressional-record/1971/07/13">CBS News as biased</a> by insinuating the network had much to hide. <a href="https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,904979,00.html">Many Americans agreed with him</a>. </p>
<p>“The Selling of the Pentagon” was the first of many investigations and lawsuits that damaged the credibility of journalism by exposing – or threatening to expose – the messy process of assembling news. As with the recent <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/03/06/1161221798/if-fox-news-loses-defamation-dominion-media">embarrassing revelations about Fox News</a> exposed by the Dominion lawsuit, whenever the public gets access to the backstage behavior, private opinions and hypocritical actions of professional journalists, reputations will suffer. </p>
<p>But even the remarkable Fox News revelations shouldn’t be considered unique.</p>
<h2>Repeated lying</h2>
<p>Numerous respected news organizations have been caught lying to their audiences. Though such episodes are rare, they can be enormously damaging. </p>
<p>In 1993, General Motors <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/10/us/nbc-settles-truck-crash-lawsuit-saying-test-was-inappropriate.html">sued NBC News</a>, accusing the network of deceiving the public by secretly attaching explosives to General Motors trucks, and then blowing them up to exaggerate a danger.</p>
<p>NBC News admitted it, settled the lawsuit and news division President Michael Gartner resigned. The case, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1993/02/10/nbc-apologizes-for-staged-crash-settles-with-gm/fe1d1da2-9939-4076-a7e2-8e625d7ddede/">concluded The Washington Post’s media critic</a>, “will surely be remembered as one of the most embarrassing episodes in modern television history.”</p>
<p>Additional examples abound. Intentional deception – knowingly lying by consciously publishing or broadcasting fiction as fact – <a href="https://cjc.utpjournals.press/doi/full/10.22230/cjc.2006v31n1a1595">occurs often enough in professional journalism</a> to cyclically embarrass the industry.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514946/original/file-20230313-26-3kx646.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A screenshot of a clipping from the New York Times, July 2, 1971, about a contempt vote against CBS and its top executive." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514946/original/file-20230313-26-3kx646.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514946/original/file-20230313-26-3kx646.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514946/original/file-20230313-26-3kx646.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514946/original/file-20230313-26-3kx646.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514946/original/file-20230313-26-3kx646.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514946/original/file-20230313-26-3kx646.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514946/original/file-20230313-26-3kx646.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A front page story in The New York Times on July 2, 1971, with details about the conflict in Congress over the CBS documentary ‘The Selling of the Pentagon.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1971/07/02/issue.html">New York Times archive</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In cases such as <a href="https://www.cjr.org/the_feature/the_fabulist_who_changed_journalism.php">Janet Cooke and The Washington Post</a>, <a href="https://ajrarchive.org/Article.asp?id=1838">Stephen Glass and the New Republic</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/us/correcting-the-record-times-reporter-who-resigned-leaves-long-trail-of-deception.html">Jayson Blair</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2002/02/22/new-york-times-feature-was-fiction/35e234a4-9cb6-47b8-8e1c-3bc95a0cb34d/">Michael Finkel</a> of The New York Times, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/01/business/media/atlantic-ruth-shalit-barrett.html">Ruth Shalit Barrett and The Atlantic</a>, the publication of actual fabrications was exposed. </p>
<p>These episodes of reportorial fraudulence were not simply errors caused by sloppy fact-checking or journalists being deceived by lying sources. In each case, journalists lied to improve their careers while trying to help their employers attract larger audiences with sensational stories.</p>
<p>This self-inflicted damage to journalism is every bit equal to the attacks launched by politicians. </p>
<p>Such malfeasance undermines confidence in the news media’s ability to fulfill its constitutionally protected responsibilities. If few Americans are willing to believe even the most verified and factual reporting, then the ideal of debate grounded in shared facts may become anachronistic. It may already be.</p>
<h2>Media criticism as democratic participation</h2>
<p>The pervasive amount of news media criticism in the U.S. has intensified the erosion of trust in American journalism. </p>
<p>But such discussion can be seen as a sign of democratic health. </p>
<p>“Everyone in a democracy is <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674695870&content=toc">a certified media critic</a>, which is as it should be,” media sociologist Michael Schudson once wrote. Imagine how intimidated citizens would respond to pollsters in Russia, China or North Korea if asked whether they trusted their media. To question official media “truth” in these nations is to risk incarceration or worse. </p>
<p>Just look at Russia. As Putin’s regime censored independent media and pumped out propaganda, <a href="https://twitter.com/YaroslavConway/status/1627374815697936385">the nation’s least skeptical citizens</a> became the war’s foremost supporters.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://cmj.umaine.edu/faculty-staff/michael-j-socolow/">media scholar and former journalist</a>, I believe more reporting on the media, and criticism of journalism, is always better than less.</p>
<p>Even that Gallup-Knight Foundation report chronicling lost trust in the media <a href="https://knightfoundation.org/reports/american-views-2023-part-2/">concluded that</a> “distrust of information or [media] institutions is not necessarily bad,” and that “some skepticism may be beneficial in today’s media environment.”</p>
<p>People choose the media they trust and criticize the media they consider less credible. Intentional deception scandals have been exposed at outlets as different as The New York Times, Fox News and NBC News. Just as the effort to demean the media has long been bipartisan, revelations of malfeasance have historically plagued media across the political spectrum. Nobody can yet know the long-term effect the <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20527880-dominion-v-fox-news-complaint">Dominion lawsuit</a> will have on the credibility of Fox News specifically, but media scholars know the scandal will justifiably further erode the public’s trust in the media.</p>
<p>An enduring democracy will encourage rather than discourage media criticism. Attacks by politicians and exposure of unethical acts clearly lower public trust in journalism. But measured skepticism can be healthy and media criticism comprises an essential component of media literacy – and a vibrant democracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200152/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael J. Socolow does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Journalism has been fodder for politicians’ contempt for generations. A huge percentage of the public doesn’t trust the news media either. That mistrust isn’t a bad thing in a democracy.Michael J. Socolow, Associate Professor, Communication and Journalism, University of MaineLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1229802019-11-08T12:14:49Z2019-11-08T12:14:49ZHe was Trump before Trump: VP Spiro Agnew attacked the news media 50 years ago<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300483/original/file-20191106-12481-degdkg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Vice President Spiro T. Agnew on Aug. 8, 1973 at a Washington news conference.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/AP-A-DC-NY23-FILE-PM-OBIT-AGNEW/15b3d673a6e0da11af9f0014c2589dfb/8/0">AP/file</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Americans witnessed an unprecedented event 50 years ago: live television coverage on all three national networks of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQpQyJQm2Mk">a speech by the vice president of the United States</a>.</p>
<p>Speeches by vice presidents never received such attention. But the address on Nov. 13, 1969, by Vice President Spiro T. Agnew to the Midwest Regional Republican Committee Meeting in Des Moines, Iowa, blandly titled “<a href="https://americanrhetoric.com/speeches/spiroagnewtvnewscoverage.htm">The Responsibilities of Television</a>,” set off a public uproar. </p>
<p>Almost overnight, it made Agnew one of the most significant conservative political leaders in the country.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y97l3n8pVP8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Agnew, delivering the speech in Des Moines.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Querulous criticism’</h2>
<p>Agnew argued that the television network news programs, and the “tiny and closed fraternity of privileged men” who produced them, had acquired “a profound influence over public opinion,” with few checks on their “vast power.”</p>
<p>He then attacked their treatment of President Richard Nixon’s recent speech on the Vietnam War, known now as <a href="https://mass.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/23784e9a-e7c1-4be2-a64c-80aaa6e52f6e/nixons-silent-majority-speech-the-day-the-60s-died/">the “Silent Majority” speech</a>. </p>
<p>According to Agnew, after the president finished the “most important address of his administration,” a “small band of network commentators and self-appointed analysts” subjected it to instant and “querulous criticism,” demonstrating their outright hostility to the president’s policy. </p>
<p>In Agnew’s view, their opposition was at odds with how the majority of Americans viewed the speech. </p>
<p>Although he said he was not calling for any censorship, Agnew posed the question of whether it was “time that the networks were made more responsive to the views of the nation and more responsible to the people they serve.”</p>
<h2>Suspicious of the media</h2>
<p>In many respects, Agnew was Donald Trump before Donald Trump. He was a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/19/us/spiro-t-agnew-point-man-for-nixon-who-resigned-vice-presidency-dies-at-77.html">polarizing political figure</a>, beloved by conservatives, hated and mocked by liberals, yet favored as the likely Republican nominee to succeed Richard Nixon. </p>
<p>In his attacks on television news, Agnew struck a chord with conservatives who had long regarded the media with suspicion. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=UyfcLYY9F0gC&pg=RA1-PT445&lpg=RA1-PT445&dq=%E2%80%9Cwithin+a+few+hours+telegrams+began+arriving+at+the+White+House;+the+switchboards+were+tied+up+all+night+by+people+calling+to+express+their+relief+that+someone+had+finally+spoken+up.%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=HqfAcTpdoM&sig=ACfU3U2hDbaU6zd4JU7sZHb3OCudZAMYlQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjRntPt49PlAhVC11kKHYAbDgMQ6AEwAHoECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9Cwithin%20a%20few%20hours%20telegrams%20began%20arriving%20at%20the%20White%20House%3B%20the%20switchboards%20were%20tied%20up%20all%20night%20by%20people%20calling%20to%20express%20their%20relief%20that%20someone%20had%20finally%20spoken%20up.%E2%80%9D&f=false">Nixon later called Agnew’s speech</a> a “turning point” in his presidency. He described how “within a few hours telegrams began arriving at the White House; the switchboards were tied up all night by people calling to express their relief that someone had finally spoken up.” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/tags/nixon.html">The networks themselves</a> calculated that the messages they were receiving were running almost five to one in support of Agnew.</p>
<p>Why did Agnew speak out when he did? </p>
<p>The immediate background to the speech involves the intersection of two developments, both connected to the long, bloody war in Vietnam that appeared to have no end. </p>
<p>The first was the <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/2019-08-12/bad-news">rise of adversarial journalism</a> during the Vietnam War. Before Vietnam most news coverage “<a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/2019-08-12/bad-news">tended to be bland and deferential to government</a>.” The government’s lies and false optimism about the war, revealed most dramatically after the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/tet">losses of the Tet Offensive</a>, fundamentally changed the relationship. </p>
<p>Vietnam, as the historian of journalism <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=7zJwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT147&lpg=PT147&dq=%22established+a+baseline+level+of+antagonism+between+the+press+and+the+government.%22&source=bl&ots=oRlWvW1ky4&sig=ACfU3U3dEQTvK9aJXtaH1owWJonvO0pwcg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjyi7WhjdblAhVEnuAKHUaoASwQ6AEwAHoECAMQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22established%20a%20baseline%20level%20of%20antagonism%20between%20the%20press%20and%20the%20government.%22&f=false">Matthew Pressman argues</a>, “established a baseline level of antagonism between the press and the government.” </p>
<p>Most famously, Walter Cronkite, the anchor of CBS News and the “most trusted man in America,” delivered an unusual <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXg8BbMp1Yg">editorial</a> in February 1968 calling on the Johnson administration to negotiate an end to the war. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Nn4w-ud-TyE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Walter Cronkite, delivering his Vietnam editorial.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the weeks before the Agnew speech, television news provided <a href="https://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/broadcasts/calendar?clear=true">extensive and overwhelmingly positive coverage</a> of the large antiwar protests, including the <a href="http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2080036_2080037_2080024,00.html">October “moratorium” against the war</a>.</p>
<p>The second development was the failure to end the protracted war. Nixon and his National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger tried a variety of military threats and enticement to convince North Vietnam to negotiate. They even launched <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-2082-1.html">a secret nuclear alert</a> to intimidate Hanoi.</p>
<p>Nothing worked, and Nixon’s Silent Majority speech was a plea to the American people to give him more time to achieve a <a href="https://qz.com/689961/watch-peace-with-honor-richard-nixons-1973-speech-on-the-end-of-us-involvement-in-vietnam/">“peace with honor”</a> in Vietnam. </p>
<p>The absence of any dramatic new steps toward peace in Nixon’s speech was the main reason the network’s “self-appointed analysts,” including the former <a href="http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_2758B13C7014459498315BDF568EC3BC">Paris negotiator W. Averell Harriman</a>, engaged in the “instant” and “querulous criticism” that Agnew described. Their abrupt dismissal of the speech infuriated Nixon and his aides and motivated them to respond forcefully.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300501/original/file-20191106-12487-ykuoih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300501/original/file-20191106-12487-ykuoih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300501/original/file-20191106-12487-ykuoih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300501/original/file-20191106-12487-ykuoih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300501/original/file-20191106-12487-ykuoih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300501/original/file-20191106-12487-ykuoih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300501/original/file-20191106-12487-ykuoih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300501/original/file-20191106-12487-ykuoih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nixon speechwriter Patrick Buchanan wrote Agnew’s speech.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-APHS106985-106985-7624-jpg/5a0d8db347784d6d8c2e7a74217420ce/15/0">AP /Anthony Camerano</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Justified aggression or ‘appeal to prejudice’?</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/watergate/pat.html">Patrick Buchanan</a>, Nixon’s ultra-conservative speechwriter, encouraged the president to launch an attack on the networks, and drafted the speech for Agnew. Buchanan later remembered that as Nixon read his proposed draft, he heard him mutter, “This’ll tear <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=OueiDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA70&lpg=PA70&dq=%22tear+the+scab+off+those+bastards%22&source=bl&ots=jfEJ76EWHS&sig=ACfU3U1VkL_48bSJbSz9hX139_wAjVJnDw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj4l9if_tPlAhWqUxUIHQI-AZoQ6AEwAHoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22tear%20the%20scab%20off%20those%20bastards%22&f=false">the scab off those bastards</a>.”</p>
<p>The networks reacted strongly, with NBC’s President Julian Goodman calling it “<a href="https://www.upi.com/Archives/Audio/Events-of-1969/Hijacking/">an appeal to prejudice</a>,” implying that Agnew’s focus on the small group of “privileged men” living in New York was a code for anti-Semitism. </p>
<p>Both Goodman and CBS President Frank Stanton accused Agnew of trying to undermine the freedom of the press, especially in the attempt to “intimidate a news medium which <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=KH5iToNJhzcC&pg=PT115&lpg=PT115&dq=Stanton+%E2%80%9Cintimidate+a+news+medium+which+depends+for+its+existence+upon+government+licenses.%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=L_TlGYBqlD&sig=ACfU3U2XJaPPI0Xbh83ZIWDwrxWq6sv-XQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjb3tzU_9PlAhVTT8AKHR9iBHEQ6AEwBHoECAQQAQ#v=onepage&q=Stanton%20%E2%80%9Cintimidate%20a%20news%20medium%20which%20depends%20for%20its%20existence%20upon%20government%20licenses.%E2%80%9D&f=false">depends for its existence upon government licenses</a>.”</p>
<p>Some journalists saw this as an overreaction, and viewed Agnew’s attack as part of the larger challenge to the country’s traditional institutions that the war in Vietnam had catalyzed. </p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Mh-7yfEPU0sC&pg=PA35309&lpg=PA35309&dq=Richard+Harwood+and+Laurence+Stern++%22the+issue+of+media+performance+is+not+going+to+evaporate+in+this+country+simply+because+publishers+and+network+presidents+wrap+themselves+in+the+First+Amendment+and+sneer+at+Spiro+Agnew.&source=bl&ots=yHwGzKA2Gm&sig=ACfU3U0iJ-mAzNKbQ-OXUanLg_7uRjlwzA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjUr5Cq9NXlAhVKdt8KHTuLBe0Q6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=Richard%20Harwood%20and%20Laurence%20Stern%20%20%22the%20issue%20of%20media%20performance%20is%20not%20going%20to%20evaporate%20in%20this%20country%20simply%20because%20publishers%20and%20network%20presidents%20wrap%20themselves%20in%20the%20First%20Amendment%20and%20sneer%20at%20Spiro%20Agnew.&f=false">Richard Harwood and Laurence Stern wrote</a> in the Washington Post that “the issue of media performance is not going to evaporate in this country simply because publishers and network presidents wrap themselves in the First Amendment and sneer at Spiro Agnew. For the facts are that the media are as blemished as any other institution in this society and that there is growing public concern over their performance.” </p>
<p>But CBS’s renowned news magazine, “60 Minutes,” devoted <a href="https://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/broadcasts/829929?">an hour-long special</a> to rebutting Agnew’s criticism, featuring Walter Cronkite speaking at a Chamber of Commerce function in his hometown of St. Joseph, Missouri.</p>
<p>Cronkite rejected the idea that the media overreacted, and maintained that “What we’re defending is the people’s right to know, and we have to be at the frontline of that battle at all times.” </p>
<h2>Populist attacks</h2>
<p>This early version of a government war on the news media did not give Agnew what he and the president wanted. Although the networks eventually abandoned the “instant analysis” of presidential speeches in favor of giving the <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/before-the-fall-an-inside-view-of-the-pre-watergate-white-house/oclc/1191758">opposition “equal time” to respond</a>, TV network news continued to <a href="https://www.cjr.org/special_report/the-fall-rise-and-fall-of-media-trust.php">retain the trust of most Americans</a> as the most objective source for their news well into the 1970s, particularly during the Watergate period.</p>
<p>And when <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/19/us/spiro-t-agnew-point-man-for-nixon-who-resigned-vice-presidency-dies-at-77.html">Agnew himself resigned in disgrace</a>, brought down by his own greed in a bribery scandal, his assault on TV news seemed discredited as well. </p>
<p>But Agnew had demonstrated the vulnerability of the mass media to populist attacks, firing some of the first shots in a culture war that persists to this day.</p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122980/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Alan Schwartz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When Vice President Spiro Agnew gave a speech in 1969 bashing the press, he fired some of the first shots in a culture war that persists to this day.Thomas Alan Schwartz, Professor of History, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/902112018-01-22T11:30:19Z2018-01-22T11:30:19ZSecret memo shows bipartisanship during Watergate succession crisis<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202675/original/file-20180120-110090-8myqvm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gerald Ford, left, and Carl Albert wave on Dec. 6, 1973, just after Ford was sworn in as vice president. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It was the height of Watergate and the Democratic speaker of the House, Carl Albert, needed advice. With Vice President Spiro Agnew’s resignation, and the Nixon presidency imperiled, Albert was suddenly next in line to become president. The vacancy continued for 58 days – between the time that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1973/10/11/archives/judge-orders-fine-3-years-probation-tells-court-income-was-taxable.html">Agnew resigned</a> on Oct. 10, 1973, until Gerald Ford was sworn in as vice president on Dec. 6. </p>
<p>Looking for advice, Albert turned to <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1006069466">Ted Sorensen</a>, John F. Kennedy’s alter ego and Democratic sage.</p>
<p>Just days after the Saturday Night Massacre on Oct. 20, 1973, when Nixon ordered the firing of independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox, Sorensen sent Albert a 19-page secret memo to help him prepare for the possibility of becoming president. While most of the memo addressed the logistics of setting up a new administration, Sorensen also cautioned Albert, a Democrat, that he shouldn’t think about resigning in favor of a Republican vice president. </p>
<p>One doesn’t need to be a history buff to grasp the significance of Sorensen’s startling advice. It implies Albert was considering resigning so that a presidential succession triggered by the removal of Nixon wouldn’t look partisan. From the vantage point of our current political tribalism, it is almost inconceivable that a Democrat would even think of forgoing the presidency in favor of a Republican. </p>
<p>But I believe he did.</p>
<p>I stumbled upon this Watergate back story at a 1996 meeting on presidential disability hosted by the White House physician, <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/432984899">Dr. Connie Mariano</a>. I was there as a <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1056/NEJM199112053252334">physician and bioethicist</a> who had written about <a href="http://vivo.med.cornell.edu/display/pubid0027053642">advance directives</a>, a topic that would be relevant if a president became incapacitated and surrogates had to make medical decisions.</p>
<p>Memories of Watergate shared by former Sen. Birch Bayh, a Democrat from Indiana, were the highlight of the meeting. Bayh, the primary author of the 25th Amendment and an expert on presidential succession, recalled how congressional leaders worried about the appearance of a coup d'état back in 1973 after the Agnew resignation. If Albert became president while the vice presidency was vacant, he would also bring a new party into power.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202676/original/file-20180120-110097-1i4qsth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202676/original/file-20180120-110097-1i4qsth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202676/original/file-20180120-110097-1i4qsth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202676/original/file-20180120-110097-1i4qsth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202676/original/file-20180120-110097-1i4qsth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202676/original/file-20180120-110097-1i4qsth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202676/original/file-20180120-110097-1i4qsth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202676/original/file-20180120-110097-1i4qsth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Democratic Sen. Birch Bayh supports the nomination of Gerald Ford to be vice president during testimony before the Senate Rules Committee on Nov. 5, 1973.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bayh memorably phrased it as the presidency going to “the party opposite.” To avoid this, Bayh told us that there was a gentleman’s agreement in which Albert would resign so that the Democratic House could elect Jerry Ford as speaker. This would keep the presidency under Republican control. </p>
<p>Bayh’s anecdote has stayed with me ever since. I am still amazed that few seemed to know about this footnote to history. Albert’s willingness to place country over party and personal interest – according to Bayh’s account – seemed a story begging for a bigger audience and academic study. </p>
<p>Over the years, I have sought confirmation. A few <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Albert">scattered</a> <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=akQJeN1zs2UC&pg=PA175&lpg=PA175&dq=sorensen+albert+memo&source=bl&ots=INVMcE_wWL&sig=TbqT-gEaaC4u6ZnNpr0RWoHnQX4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjOx92f79_YAhVKC6wKHcZRAAQQ6AEIQjAJ#v=onepage&q=sorensen%20albert%20memo&f=false">references</a> inferred that Speaker Albert considered resigning the presidency so a Republican could serve instead, but solid evidence was elusive. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, Albert was on the record that any succession should not be a partisan affair. For example, in his <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/little-giant-the-life-and-times-of-speaker-carl-albert/oclc/44958376&referer=brief_results">1990 autobiography,</a> he wrote, “Otherwise sensible people saw a chance to forestall Ford’s confirmation, impeach and remove Nixon, and hand the presidency to the next in line, me.” </p>
<p>But Albert would have nothing of it. “In an impeachment inquiry, two institutions would be judged, not one,” he wrote in his memoir. “We would examine the president, and the American people would examine us. I did not know what we would learn about the president, but I never doubted what the people would learn about their House of Representatives.” While insisting that he would not make partisan use of the impeachment process, Albert did not recount any plans about resigning the presidency in favor of a Republican.</p>
<p>Later, in 2011, Sen. Bayh spoke about the temptation to accelerate House impeachment proceedings to create the double vacancy in the presidency and vice presidency to get Speaker Albert, a Democrat, into office. In <a href="http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol79/iss3/2/">an interview with John Feerick</a>, dean of Fordham Law School, Bayh recalled, “Temptation, sure. … But anybody that raised that to me knew they’d have to clear me out of the senate first in order to do that, because that wasn’t what the 25th Amendment intended. I think, when it got right down to it, I’m sure Speaker Albert said the same thing … He had a respect for the constitutional structure, I think.”</p>
<h2>Sorensen’s secret memo</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202677/original/file-20180120-110090-1mkkkp4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202677/original/file-20180120-110090-1mkkkp4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202677/original/file-20180120-110090-1mkkkp4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=880&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202677/original/file-20180120-110090-1mkkkp4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=880&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202677/original/file-20180120-110090-1mkkkp4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=880&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202677/original/file-20180120-110090-1mkkkp4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1106&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202677/original/file-20180120-110090-1mkkkp4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1106&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202677/original/file-20180120-110090-1mkkkp4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1106&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Ted Sorensen in 1973.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span>
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<p>With the press of current events, as another special prosecutor investigates another president, I redoubled my efforts to confirm my recollections and learn more about this unheralded episode. At the very least it was an interesting what-if in American history. And given the current challenges to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-trumps-definition-of-the-rule-of-law-the-same-as-the-us-constitutions-77598">rule of law</a> and the possibility of another constitutional crisis, Speaker Albert’s example could serve as a moral exemplar for both Democrats and Republicans who soon might have to place the national interest over partisan ones. </p>
<p>Albert passed away in 2000, so it wasn’t possible to simply speak to him. Because I had first learned of Albert’s plans from Sen. Bayh’s comment, I thought I would try and contact him through <a href="https://libraries.indiana.edu/birch-bayh-senatorial-papers">the Birch Bayh papers at the University of Indiana</a>. The University of Indiana archivists put me in touch with Jason Berman, Bayh’s former chief of staff who has remained in contact with his old boss. </p>
<p>In a November 2017 interview, Berman told me that given the senator’s age and the state of his health he was not able to reliably respond to my query. To test my recollection, I asked Berman if the phrase “party opposite” sounded like Senator Bayh, he said “it does.”</p>
<p>Berman did say that “there was a group of liberal Democrats I cannot identify, who wanted to impeach Richard Nixon right away so Carl Albert could become president.” And he confirmed that “there was no way [Albert would] participate.” Taking partisan advantage of the Agnew resignation Berman noted “would have been subversive, to create an institutional way to address vacancies.”</p>
<p>Berman didn’t know if Albert’s plans included an intention to resign if elevated to the presidency, but cautioned “… if [there was] a gentleman’s agreement, I doubt there would be a paper trail.” Helpfully, he recalled the possibility of a secret memo from Ted Sorensen to Speaker Albert that might be housed at the University of Oklahoma.</p>
<p>And <a href="https://arc.ou.edu/repositories/3/digital_objects/652">there it lay</a> among Albert’s papers in <a href="http://www.ou.edu/carlalbertcenter.html">the Carl Albert Center archives</a>, seemingly undisturbed since the speaker’s death. Joel Jankowsky, who had served as Albert’s legislative assistant and later helped to organize the papers at Oklahoma University, told me in a January 2018 interview, “I was the guy to go through all the papers at OU and I don’t remember it.” </p>
<p>Dated Nov. 8, 1973, and marked “personal and confidential” on Paul Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison letterhead, Sorensen wrote Albert, “I admire your recognition of the need for advance planning of this kind … ” Sorensen went on to suggest that the memo be destroyed lest it “might be misinterpreted as evidence of an improper motivation on your part for the President’s ouster.”</p>
<p>Jankowsky told me Albert “put it in the safe and didn’t talk to anyone about the memo.”</p>
<p>Fortunately for history, the document survived and confirms Bayh’s recollection. There is a clear indication that Albert contemplated stepping aside to let Ford become the president. Sorensen opposed this but did endorse a unity government with Ford serving as a Republican vice president under the Democrat Albert.</p>
<p>In a remarkable aside, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1982/11/28/speaker-albert-was-ready-to-be-president/84ebaa61-9cf1-4817-836e-a993e7e0e980/">curiously omitted from a 1982 report in The Washington Post on the memo</a>, Sorensen laid out his objections to an Albert resignation. He cautioned, “NOTE: I question whether it is either necessary or desirable to commit yourself to resigning in favor of a Republican Vice President. That would only heighten the impression of political instability in our government. You are the legitimately chosen successor selected by our most representative body under a long-standing plan adopted by the Legislative Branch.”</p>
<p>While Sorensen and Albert disagreed on the propriety of resignation, their positions shared the common objective of strengthening the rule of law. Sorensen argued against resignation because he believed it would undermine Constitutional process. Nonetheless <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1982/11/28/speaker-albert-was-ready-to-be-president/84ebaa61-9cf1-4817-836e-a993e7e0e980/?utm_term=.7e25fb23e35a">Albert told The Post in 1982</a> that he was ready and willing to serve if “the circumstances were right.” </p>
<p>Following Watergate, Albert seems to have worried that a transfer of power to the “party opposite” would further politicize Nixon’s removal. While the tactics of these two Democrats were different, each sought to preserve faith in the stability of our institutions through an orderly and non-politicized presidential succession. Their intentions were not motivated by partisanship but the national interest.</p>
<p>When asked about what the right circumstances might have been for Albert, Jankowsky replied, “I hate to speculate but he felt there was a need for consensus…he was not running away (from the presidency) but not seeking it.” Jankowsky told me, “These leaders thought of country first, these are people who believed in bipartisan governance.”</p>
<p>And they were not alone. </p>
<p>In 1995, <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/64759181">President Ford recalled, “Now I can tell from practical experience</a> that after Vice President Agnew resigned, the Speaker of the House, Carl Albert, was next in line. Carl was a long-time good friend of mine and a very formidable adversary. He couldn’t wait to get somebody in as vice president because he did not like the possibility of hanging out there as Speaker of the House and next in line to the presidency. I suspect in the uncompetitive situations of prior years, the same attitude would have been shared by the people standing next in line.” </p>
<p>It would be a mistake to view the Sorensen memo with historic sentimentality, simply a relic of a bygone era of bipartisanship. Drafted during the searing schism of Watergate, it has credibility and relevance for our own times. While Speaker Albert never had to make the fateful choice of serving as president, or resigning in favor of a Republican, the fact that he even considered stepping aside is inspiring. His example shows that true patriotism crosses the aisle and is seldom narrowly partisan. Hopefully, this is a lesson that his successors in the Congress will heed. History will be their judge too.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph J. Fins is a Trustee Emeritus at Wesleyan University, current board member of The Hastings Center and the International Neuroethics Society</span></em></p>What if impeaching the president meant the White House would switch parties? It was an ethical question Democrats faced in the 1970s.Joseph J. Fins, The E. William Davis Jr, M.D. Professor of Medical Ethics and Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/454172015-08-05T20:31:08Z2015-08-05T20:31:08ZThe withering of the culture war<p>I like speaking before senior citizen groups about my research on the American culture war. Seniors almost all recognize the PowerPoint image of the late Spiro Agnew, former vice president and “attack man” for President Richard Nixon. </p>
<p>It was Nixon who made a point of appealing to the “great silent majority” of Americans. Nixon gave <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/nixon-vietnam/">a nationally televised address</a> in November 1969, seeking support for his Vietnam War policy against the backdrop of growing antiwar sentiment. </p>
<p>But it was Agnew who took to the road with speeches mocking the elite media that were critical of Nixon. He called them “<a href="http://politicaldictionary.com/words/nattering-nabobs-of-negativism/">nattering nabobs of negativism.</a>” In words worthy of a Fox News versus Jon Stewart battle – and increasingly the United States Congress – Agnew proclaimed the uses of “<a href="http://wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/objects/108/111235/ch29_a4_d2.pdf">positive polarization.</a>”</p>
<h2>Agnew still resonates</h2>
<p>What’s meaningful to me – and appreciated by my 20-year-old college students – is how much the attacks by Agnew continue to resonate with the tone of resentment and anxiety that shapes political debate today. It is in this context that seeing Donald Trump atop the early Republican polls is both surprising and not.</p>
<p>Trump is certainly a spectacle (some say “clown”). He may be a force who crashes and burns early in this contest, but for now he is arguably speaking to some enduring sentiment among part of the electorate. </p>
<p>In a recent speech reminiscent of Nixon, <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-claims-champion-silent-majority">Trump said</a>, “The silent majority is back, and we’re going to take the country back.” In phrases worthy of Ronald Reagan, the one president held in high esteem by all Republican candidates, Trump has on his podium <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/26/1373408/-Trump-Claims-Authorship-Of-Slogan-Make-America-Great-Again-Internet-Face-Palms-Hard">the motto</a> to “make America great again.”</p>
<p>In journalist John Heilemann’s <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/donald-trump-nh-focus-group">recent focus group</a> discussing Trump, respondents articulated some of their reasons for supporting the 2015 Trump phenomenon: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“He speaks the truth.”<br>
“He doesn’t care what people think.”<br>
“He’s like one of us … besides the money issue.”<br>
“I think we could be a proud America again.”<br>
“To the American people it would be a presidency of hope.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>To such supporters, Trump is not a clown. He’s a folk hero – though an odd vessel for the articulation of resentment. In an era of economic anxiety and foreign policy frustration, it is predictable that immigrant bashing and Obama vilification are propelling the Trump candidacy. </p>
<p>But data, both demographic and attitudinal, suggest the opposite. America is becoming more diverse and Americans less wedded to some important “wedge issues” that have driven divisions in the American electorate for over 30 years. This change is happening across the breadth of American society, especially among the young.</p>
<p>In my new book, <a href="http://nyupress.org/books/9780814738122/">The Twilight of Social Conservatism: American Culture Wars in the Obama Era</a>, I analyze why the shift in diversity and attitudes toward moral issues have made America such a different place now than when Nixon spoke and when Reagan ruled. The country has changed significantly even since 10 years ago, when Bush adviser Karl Rove predicted decades of conservative domination, in our “center-right country.” </p>
<p>There are three key reasons for this.</p>
<h2>More accepting of gay rights</h2>
<p>The first is that Americans have changed their attitudes on some of the key issues, such as gay rights and same-sex marriage, that fueled the culture war. </p>
<p>Same-sex marriage is now the law of the land in all 50 states. That change is paralleled by a steady growth in American public opinion supporting the <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2015/07/29/graphics-slideshow-changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage">legal reform</a>. Not that long ago, opposition to same-sex marriage was a powerful “wedge issue.” It could be used to attract blue-collar but socially conservative voters to Republican Party candidates, including <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/04/politics/campaign/04gay.html?_r=0">George W Bush in 2004</a>. Now Republican strategists <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/29/rush-limbaugh-gay-marriage-now-inevitable/">downplay</a> discussion of it. Even Rush Limbaugh concedes acceptance of same-sex marriage is “inevitable.”</p>
<p>This shift is both attitudinal and demographic. As the millennial generation has come of voting age, its members’ progressive views on personal morality and the power of government to intervene have presaged a more liberalized American future. Fully 73% of those Americans born after 1981 <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2015/06/08/support-for-same-sex-marriage-at-record-high-but-key-segments-remain-opposed/">support</a> marriage equality. The emergence of the “ascendant majority” of millennials, unmarried women and voters of color that was key to the 2012 Obama reelection has replaced reliance on the “Reagan Democrats” who were interested in those <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/columns/political-connections/why-the-culture-wars-now-favor-democrats-20130404?print=true">wedge issues</a>.</p>
<h2>Americans less church-going</h2>
<p>Secondly, while still much more institutionally religious than France, England or Germany, Americans have become more secular and <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/">less church-going</a>. </p>
<p>The importance of religion – a key underpinning for the rise of the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition – has dramatically changed. Americans are more decidedly secular (or “unaffiliated” or “unchurched”). Millennials over 18 lead them, at 35% unaffiliated. Meanwhile, Americans of faith have never been as dramatically conservative on such issues as coverage of religious conservatives might imply. For example, fully 60% of American Catholics now support marriage equality.</p>
<h2>Latinos less conservative</h2>
<p>Third, social conservatives – like the anti-marriage-equality group the National Organization for Marriage – cannot hope for the growing Latino presence in a diverse America to slow that <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/06/19/latinos-changing-views-of-same-sex-marriage/">progressive shift</a>.</p>
<p>In 2012, the Pew Hispanic Center found that over <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/06/19/latinos-changing-views-of-same-sex-marriage/">50% of Latinos</a> supported same-sex marriage. Younger Latinos are a large part of the Latino population. They were even more pronounced in their views, in keeping with their millennial peers.</p>
<p>The culture war “wedge issues” that have been successful for over 30 years in politics are losing their edge. This “unwedging” is what characterizes America in 2015, especially among the millennial generation. It is hard to imagine a future in which these social conservative forces regain their salience and power.</p>
<p>One thing is clear: the 2012 call by Chairman of the Republican National Committee <a href="http://goproject.gop.com">Reince Priebus</a> and his committee for greater receptivity to the increasing ethnic diversity of America isn’t being heeded. Although the 2012 elections indicated the emergence of this potentially powerful “ascendant majority,” Thursday’s debate may ignore that reality and offer some Nixon-era nostalgia.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45417/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Dombrink does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Wedge issues that have divided American voters for years are losing their edge.John Dombrink, Professor, Department of Criminology, Law & Society, University of California, IrvineLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.