re: #135 Shiplord Kirel, live from behind wingnut lines

My suggestion that the Republican Party itself be prosecuted, and abolished, will seem extreme but consider what would have happened if Nixon had accused McGovern campaign manager Gary Hart of being a Soviet agent. Imagine further that it was proven true.

Speaking of Nixon, I just came across this four-year-old article which is…horrific at multiple levels: The Lyndon Johnson tapes: Richard Nixon’s ‘treason’

It begins in the summer of 1968. Nixon feared a breakthrough at the Paris Peace talks designed to find a negotiated settlement to the Vietnam war, and he knew this would derail his campaign.

He therefore set up a clandestine back-channel involving Anna Chennault, a senior campaign adviser.
…
In late October 1968 there were major concessions from Hanoi which promised to allow meaningful talks to get underway in Paris - concessions that would justify Johnson calling for a complete bombing halt of North Vietnam. This was exactly what Nixon feared.

Chennault was despatched to the South Vietnamese embassy with a clear message: the South Vietnamese government should withdraw from the talks, refuse to deal with Johnson, and if Nixon was elected, they would get a much better deal.

So on the eve of his planned announcement of a halt to the bombing, Johnson learned the South Vietnamese were pulling out.

But here’s the money quote:

The president did let Humphrey know and gave him enough information to sink his opponent. But by then, a few days from the election, Humphrey had been told he had closed the gap with Nixon and would win the presidency. So Humphrey decided it would be too disruptive to the country to accuse the Republicans of treason, if the Democrats were going to win anyway.

Gee…sound familiar? -_-