The news of Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee's passing was only hours old and the revisionism was already under way.
Appearing on last night's Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC to share his memories of Bradlee was Post columnist Eugene Robinson, who was hired at the paper by Bradlee and had known him more than 30 years.
The Watergate scandal made its inevitable appearance in the discussion, as you knew it must, and Robinson made a claim that surely had the handful of conservatives watching MSNBC guffaw in disbelief --
He had, people always talked about his instincts, he had a great instinct for a story, he could sometimes almost appear to see around corners. But it wasn't just instinct, it was intelligence, it was rigor, it was a rigor to the way he approached, he approached reporters and stories and news and where's the next story that people don't really talk about but we all should appreciate. He was a really, really, really smart man who, who did his job and wanted to be the best and follow the story where it led, and if it led to the taking down of a sitting president, which was not an easy thing for Ben Bradlee. This was a man who had fought in World War II, who was deeply, deeply patriotic. So that had to, on some level, tear him up but that's where the story led and that's where he was going.
Ben Bradlee all torn up over Watergate? You mean, aside from elevating him to lion-king editor for life, the gold standard in media celebrity, toast of liberal journalists in perpetuity, and immortalized in cinema by Jason Robards at his most hard-nosed? Yes, truly hellish for the poor man.
Agreed, Bradlee was gung-ho in following a story wherever it led, even if it meant taking down a president. And the awkward fact that the president in question had previously run for the office against one of Bradlee's closest friends -- John F. Kennedy -- had nothing to do with it. Absolutely. And did I mention how smart and patriotic Bradlee was?
If Robert Kennedy had avoided an assassin's gunfire in 1968 and gotten elected later that year, does anyone aside from MSNBC pundits believe that Bradlee's Washington Post would have been anywhere near as aggressive in covering the second Kennedy administration as it was Nixon's? Refresh my memory -- did the Post ever win a Pulitzer for its coverage of Chappaquiddick? Didn't think so.
Fortunately for Bradlee, he somehow managed to survive the epic toll on his psyche inflicted by Richard Nixon. "I'm extremely grateful for what he's done for me," Bradlee quipped when I interviewed him for a profile in the Brockton (Mass.) Enterprise after the publication of his memoirs, "A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures" in 1995. Even over the phone I could tell he was being facetious, though not entirely.
That same autumn, Bradlee appeared on Tom Snyder's "The Late Late Show," which used to run after Letterman on CBS. Snyder said the film "All the President's Men," based on the book about Watergate by Woodward and Bernstein, conveyed the impression that the Post's editors and reporters relished going after Nixon (audio) --
SNYDER: You know, a lot of people at the time of Watergate, and I got this from the Jason Robards' characterization of Ben Bradlee in the movie "All of the President's Men," that somehow the journalists took great delight in seeing Nixon take the fall, that they were happy that they got this guy, this guy that Herblock (cartoonist Herbert Block) pictured as the fellow who needed a shave every day of his life, we finally got that son of a bitch.
BRADLEE: Well, (chuckles) look, we had a huge stake in that story. If we had been wrong ...SNYDER: Your paper's on the line, pal.
BRADLEE: ... we'd have lost television, never mind, I would be pumping gas somewhere but ...SNYDER: You'd be making license plates ...
BRADLEE: Well, I don't know what they'd get me on but ... I wouldn't have been ...
SNYDER: You wouldn't be here tonight, I can tell you that, Jack! ... It wouldn't be called "A Good Life," it would have been called "A Miserable Failed Life."
BRADLEE: Yeah. So we were, we were, uh, relieved. You never saw a picture of us gloating because we wouldn't let any cameras in. But I don't think we were delighted. We were so g***damned tired when that happened.
Facetious again, though not entirely -- never let 'em see you gloat.
As for the alleged dearth of photos taken inside the Post during Watergate, a conspicuous exception comes to mind, and Bradlee included the photo in his memoirs. It shows him in the composing room at the paper looking at a first-edition banner headline -- Nixon Resigns.
Bradlee is hunched over the page, a hand covering his mouth, deep creases lining his somber face, his eyes lost in thought. It's a great photo, despite the obvious staging, and one that's been reprinted many times over the years. Its purpose was obvious -- to dispel the persistent belief that the partisanship of Nixon's foes played any role whatsoever in Watergate. And every time I see it, I wonder if I'm looking at an actor as talented as Jason Robards.
