Friday, May 08, 2009

Skip down for Blog #14

Here are some You Tube excerpts of the real Frost / Nixon interviews.



Concerning the 18 1/2 minute gap in one of the Watergate tapes (below):


Finding $1 million dollars to pay off the Plumbers (below):



Why didn't you stop it [the whole break-in, cover-up, mess] (below)?


There was no cover-up of any criminal activities (below):



If I intended to cover it up, it would've gone away (below):



I gave them a sword, and they stuck it in (below):



We do not have full access to these interviews on YouTube but you can buy them on Amazon ($30) or from www.frostnixon.com or get a copy from your local library to see all six hours of footage if you can't get enough of just these excerpts. These excerpts are released by the owners of the originals. Yes, I know, those darn copyrights.

6 comments:

Evan Fried said...

No, I do not believe the president can do whatever he wants in defense of the United States during the time of war. There are laws and international laws that must be followed. You just don’t drop those laws because of your beliefs. The president is not a dictator. President Bush wire tapping phones was breaking the right to our privacy. If any normal person wire tapped peoples phones they would be thrown in jail, so what gives the president the right to do something like that. I do not agree with Nixon’s reasoning. Nixon was a narcissist that believed that whatever he did was justified and not illegal. "When the President does it, that means it's not illegal.” (Nixon). From this you could take that Nixon believed that he could kill someone and get away with it, he thought of himself as all mighty. During the Saturday Night Massacre, Nixon realized that he wasn’t the top dog when he ordered the attorney general to fire someone and he refused and resigned. Nixon’s reasoning that he can do whatever he wants is because something is a threat to the peace of America. Doing what he does is a threat to a peace of America because it takes away the trust factor between the people of America and the President and putting a wide-gaping hole through the credibility gap.

Joe Wallace said...

I do not agree with Nixon when he said that “if the president does it, it’s not illegal.” I think that by putting the president above the law it is giving him too much power. By putting the president above the law it is almost like he is a dictator because he can pretty much do whatever he wants. Now in a time of war with another country this becomes a different situation. When it comes to the president making decisions about what to do with other countries then it would be possible to consider him above the law. In a time of war it is the president’s responsibility to control what the country does during the war and everyday laws do not apply to anybody during war. Although this situation is much different than the president breaking into US government buildings to plant spy ware. When it comes to the president’s actions inside the US dealing with American people then the president cannot be above the law because that would be unfair to everybody else in the country. His job is to enforce the law, not to break it. I think that Nixon’s reasoning was not convincing enough to get my support.

Anonymous said...

Tyler DeWald:

What is the difference between the people of America and the President? There is no difference, at least there should be no difference; Nixon believed that he was the all mighty and could do what ever he wanted to do. Once Nixon said “When the President does it, that means it is not illegal”. That is dead wrong; being president you don’t get any special treatment. In the constitution, there is a line reads “No man is above or below the law”. Not even the President. If anyone did what Nixon did, they would have been in prison. Nixon’s reasoning to why he did he was because he said he had executive rights, in other words Nixon was trying to claim he was protecting the Nation claiming it was for the good of the country. Things like what Nixon did and the other presidents, like George W. Bush (bugging phones) just create a wider credibility gap. It is in the matter of trust and peace to and from the people.

Donavin Camarata 5th hour said...

Yes, I do believe that the President of the United States can do whatever he wants in the defense of the United States, but ONLY during a time of war. Laws will be broken or curved a bit to prevent any attack or incident from occurring in the act of protecting the people. I understand how laws are not meant to be broken or questioned in any way, but terrorists and extremist groups laugh in our face for the war we are which in this case being if they attack us they don’t care if they kill innocent, but we were to attack them and killed innocent all of the sudden were considered the bad guy. Laws are what keeps us from begin like the terrorists though, making us vulnerable at the same time. For doing this the President should not be considered a dictator or above the law, he is doing what he believe is best for the country and that is what makes his job so much harder, we judge every decision he makes but when we face the same question we choose the almost opposite of what he chose. In Nixon’s case for wiretapping phone, I don’t fully support of it but if the country was threatened in any way I would most defiantly take extreme actions to prevent any sort of attack. Nixon was under the assumption that whatever he did was justified and not illegal, I can vogue for the fact that he was justified in doing it to protect the people, but it was illegal. “When the President does it that means it’s not illegal.” A historic statement made by President Nixon in which he believed that when faced in a time of crisis the President must make very difficult decisions. Also another perspective of this would be that the President’s actions are not extreme actions against the law (such as killing someone and saying it isn’t illegal for him). President Nixon only did these actions because he felt the country was threatened by other powers, and took the very difficult decision of breaking the law to protect the people. Now if we were to be sitting here today and had an attack occur during ANY Presidency…..who would we blame? The President himself? Congress? FBI? Almost immediately all of the blame would be directed to the president for not taking enough action, but when in contrast terrorist attacks being prevented the President’s actions are considered excessive action.

Anonymous said...

china wells(3rd hour)

i must say that i seriously dont agree with him when he says if the president does it it's not
illegal because in that case if he's telling us that he's basically saying he can do what he wants because he's the president. i dont think he should be able to do that for the simple fact that just like any other person has rules he should have rules too. he's human like everyone else. of course he's the president so his privliges are more exstravagant than any othwer but this is not fair neither is it safe for him to be able to do what he want because he's president.

Im Thurgood McCants and i approve this message said...

Whena president has that kind of attitude he ruins alot , and seems to be abusing his power. Thats like him saying he can commit a cride rather it be white collar, homicidie, or something as simple as shop lifting and not be charged. By Nixon saying "When the president does it, that means it's not illegal!" it shows his arrogance and feeling higher of himself. Yes, he is president, and arguably the most powerful man in the world bu the stills puts his pants on one leg at a time. Imagine if every goverment official or the pope feels that way of himself it will lead to a currupt world.