Matt Cloud

@conzmoleman @drposhlost @as_a_worker twitter.com/realmattcloud/… Meet "our KGB interlocutor" #MoynihanWasDeepThroat

@PincherMartin8 Again -- you don't understand. I'm trying to get rid of you. You won't leave. Bush was in Tyler at 1:00 on 11/22. He had been in Dallas earlier. And here's W on Chrstmas break from Andover on the beach in Florida. And people wonder why the right loses. x.com/realmattcloud/…

@realmattcloud I don't mind giving away secrets but can we keep the conspiracy theories to the plausible, please. If your next move is to place Bush père at the scene of the crime in Dallas, November 22nd, 1963, I'm ducking out.

You can't even give away secrets.

@PincherMartin8 And Bush (and his counterpart Strauss of course) has everything to do with Watergate.

Not directly, but it amounts to the same thing. Nixon's original sin was being dumb enough to get caught in Watergate. You call it "genius", but there was no genius in either the original crimes, the larger coverup, or the political opposition to Nixon from it. You then claimed it "ensured" that later Republicans wouldn't be able to deviate from Nixon's policies. But Watergate was irrelevant by the late seventies, both for the Republican Party and the conservative ideology. The GOP suffered no lasting damage because of it. Ford lost a close election in 1976, but by 1978 the conservative movement was stronger than it had ever been and the GOP was only getting stronger, even with liberal Republicans threatening to leave the party. I can give two reasons why Reaganism didn't consolidate more policy victories, but they have nothing to do with Watergate. First, Reagan was an older president with a clear vision that broke from the past, but little executive vigor in implementing it. Second, he selected George H. W. Bush as his running mate. Bush's moderation - and later his son's - would hamper the party consolidating around more conservative policies. Both Bushes ran under the mantle of Reagan while undermining the conservative movement with their more eclectic policies. There was still enough self-respect in the conservative movement to fight back against the father's direction, but by the 2000s, the movement's strength had petered out and it largely went along with Bush's "Big Government Conservatism."

Nixon was moderate to liberal on civil rights, liberal on government spending, and eventually became an accommodationist with the global communists (Mao, Brezhnev) for the sake of peace. So why did liberals hate Nixon so much? Because the early Nixon was probably the most effective politician in the country at using the red issue to both target his political opponents and root out genuine communists. And the left never forgave him for it.

@PincherMartin8 x.com/realmattcloud/…

@PincherMartin8 No, I didn't call it Nixon's genius. You're not understanding. Watergate was the work of Kissinger to get Nixon out of office in time (a decent interval) before South Vietnam fell. Moynihan was Deep Throat, guiding Woodward on the coverage. Where to go and where not. See ya.

@FedSoc @ilan_wurman, for realz.

The Federalist Society is pleased to announce “The Meese Prize for Excellence in Originalist Scholarship,” a $15,000 annual award recognizing new scholarship that makes a distinct and significant contribution to the field of originalism. The inaugural prize will be awarded to the best originalist article or book published or accepted for publication in 2025. FedSoc will announce the winner at the National Lawyers Convention in November. Just as Attorney General Meese did in 1985, we hope this prize will inspire and promote new groundbreaking originalist scholarship. Nominations are due April 15! fedsoc.org/opportunities/…

@ilan_wurman @steve_vladeck 3/ It's your Thunder. Well done.

@ilan_wurman @steve_vladeck 2/ on of course on the amnity-emnity distinction. No one could be on the King's land without the King's permission in the first place; if they were, it was curtains. Allegiance was a pre-condition to jus soli, not an exception. I hadn't read or even see your ny times op-ed.

Steve Vladeck totally misconstrues my invocation of general relativity, interprets my reply to critics as uncharitably as humanly possible, and somehow claims that I'm the one no longer entitled to a presumption of good faith. Just amazing. If you want to see what the Einstein thing is referring to btw, here it is, judge for yourself: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

@PincherMartin8 And BTW, any threat from a radical or reactionary right was put to a stop here, with McMahon as CIA no. 2 in 82. But I've said enough for tonight.The broader takeaway is that the Cold War enabled, required actually, secrecy and an inversion of truth. This is still not understood.

@realmattcloud I think the early Reagan years saw a genuine movement to try and repeal parts of the Great Society, but it was hampered by a Congress which didn't want to revisit those policies and by a president whose executive vigor didn't match his ideological fervor.

@PincherMartin8 "getting the Left to hate Nixon" to which I should add "WHILE getting Nixon to implement the Left's policies."

@PincherMartin8 "Tory men and Whig measure are what has changed the world."

@PincherMartin8 or philosophy if you like most responsible for Nixon's ouster, and the dominant political movement in the US (and the West) ever since.

@PincherMartin8 It can even be said that Trump continues the Watergate two-step, if not Nixonianism itself, but casting himself as vilified and persecuted as Nixon, yet doing little structurally in remedy. Trump II as has been observed elsewhere is a neo-con admin effectively, the "group"

@PincherMartin8 Thanks. Dinner calls.

@PincherMartin8 Nixon had no intention of reversing liberalism. Not in 68 or in 72, and it couldn't be done by then anyway, for the reasons I have already explained. This is and has been my point.

This I agree with. Nixon consolidated the Great Society. But given his thin margin of victory in 1968, his temperament, and most importantly the large Democratic majorities he was working with, he had little choice. It would've been nice, however, to see a conservative president go down fighting rather than meekly submit.

@PincherMartin8 That's good that you don't agree because I never said that. Later Republicans -- actual players I mean -- had no intention of meaningfully repealing liberalism. As you point out, when that happened it was from Clinton (welfare reform).

@realmattcloud Agreed. Nixon was open to liberal policies. I don't agree that this approach by Nixon poisoned the well for later Republicans.