So you think you know about Watergate...
November 25, 2019
Postgate is a banquet of juicy details for the Watergate history buff. Contrary to what one might expect from the incendiary title, this is not another piece of confirmation bias for the deep-state conspiracy theorist, but rather a thoughtful and thoroughly researched bit of investigative journalism by someone well placed as Mark Felt’s lawyer, who has made an admirable effort to uncover some very significant omissions by what has by now become the Watergate canon.
O’Connor’s first hand role in much of the action is particularly illuminating. Fans of Bob Woodward might find this a particularly disconcerting read, although O’Connor balances critique and praise in a professional manner. While this is a bold rethinking of the Watergate narrative, you won’t find any Nixonian exoneration here, and the quality of the scholarship should appeal to all points of the political spectrum from Left to Right. The big omission from the accepted history is how much evidence there seems to be of CIA involvement, and some lurid goings on in the primitive world of DNC wiretaps- Fasten your seatbelt! But I offer no spoilers here. Read it for yourself. Postgate offers some unexpected answers to some of the persistent Watergate questions, and in doing so, opens many more. I’m looking to more from O’Connor in the future.
Modern investigative journalism's Original Sin?
November 6, 2019
I give this book 5 stars overall - just 3 stars for the writing, which is merely serviceable - but the author acknowledges this, just as he realizes he is the only one who could write this story. And the research is 5 stars all the way. My brief background on this: I am an author who graduated from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism in 2017, where the official Washington Post "Watergate canon" was taught with a religious fervor that made me suspicious. I've wondered how the Washington Post went down the gutter since Watergate, but O'Connor argues that it's always been there.
Postgate's claims are incendiary, but the author is no mere fringe conspiracy theorist. O'Connor is a former prosecutor colleague of Robert Mueller's and Mark Felt aka "Deep Throat's" lawyer, who has written on the subject in the past. To O'Connor's credit, he writes with lawyerly precision and the book is as concise as possible given Watergate's complexity. Also, importantly, although PostHill Press often publishes conservative authors, O'Connor makes a compelling case that this is not a partisan book. The book's also a Watergate historiography that relies on, and credits heavily, "Secret Agenda" and "Silent Coup" in this explosive revisionist history to the official Washington Post "Watergate canon." The implications have obvious and profoundly important implications for the dire state of the news media and intrigue around the Trump administration, although O'Connor only hints at this possibility, choosing to focus on the Watergate facts. Is 2019 - Russia-gate, Ukraine-gate. <insert scandal here-gate> new Watergate? Perhaps, but maybe not in the way the inane mainstream news media talking heads intend to frame it.
What's new about this book, and most damning to Woodward and the Washington Post, to me at least, is how O'Connor wound up going down the rabbit hole of the DNC, CIA, call-girls, suspicious deaths, and the missing key. Two main things drew him in after becoming Mark Felt's lawyer. They were, O'Connor writes, (1) The reaction of Bob Woodward and the Washington Post when O'Connor told Woodward "Deep Throat" wanted to come out, which ranged from hostile to borderline hysterical; and (2) the behavior of the publisher of Felt's memoir, the Washington Post-linked PublicAffairs, which ranged from incompetent-at-best to deviously fraudulent. I'll leave it there. If you're intrigued... read the book!
In the meantime, I'd like to hear what Woodward says about this, as a man I admired for a long time. Of course, I admired Charlie Rose too. And I admired the faculty at the Berkeley Journalism School to, before I got to know them and experienced duplicity eerily similar to what O'Connor describes - and wrote about it.
An important read and timely release.
November 7, 2019
If you live in one of the social media echo chambers, and enjoy your daily drivel of reaffirming claptrap, this is NOT the book for you. O’Connor breathes new life into the lost art of investigative journalism, and forces us to question what we’ve previously taken for granted. Did WaPo capitalize on the naiveté of its readers by speeding to foregone partisan conclusions? Did they create the model in use today where conjecture passes for analysis? O’Connor diagnoses the traps in the psychobabble and counsels us on how to recognize them in the future. One need not necessarily agree with every nuance in the book, but through O’Connor’s laser precision in connecting the dots, he reminds us of our civic duty where the press is concerned, to question more and genuflect less.
IS “FAKE NEWS” REAL? —MUST READ IN CURRENT POLITICAL CLIMATE
November 10, 2019
I preordered this book and when it arrived, could not put it down. In this day where “impeachment” is at the front of every news feed, you owe it to yourself to learn what really happened during the Nixon impeachment process: the past is repeating itself and it is not at the hand of The President.
This book gives insight to what is really behind “fake news” – a cover-up that brought down the Nixon presidency for reasons never fully revealed. In our democracy where we depend upon the media to deliver through factual, unbiased, reporting, this book shows how the news can be manipulated to keep the voting public in the dark. It’s an eye-opener and could not be more timely.