"TRUE F**G STORY: THE PRINCIPLED POLITICIAN…"

Hi Friends!

TRUE F**G STORY © stevenn beck

There was once a political appointee who defied the high ranking and very powerful government who selected him - and risked his position, his livelihood and his reputation to stand up for what he believed in.

The political appointee? Elliot Richardson.

His position? Attorney General of the United States of America.

The high ranking/powerful official? President Richard Nixon.

It was the fall of 1973, the Watergate scandal was exploding, President Nixon was seeking to limit the investigation…and so he ordered Mr. Richardson to fire Archibald M. Cox, the special Watergate prosecutor, who was who determined to obtain possible key evidence (tape-recordings made secretly by the White House).

Richardson refused to fire Cox and resigned instead. (His assistant, William D. Ruckelshaus then stepped to the plate and was fired after also refusing to fire Cox…..ultimately a high-ranking Justice Department official - Robert Bork - accepted the assignment and pulled the trigger.)

Richardson's refusal to buckle under the immense pressure and his ability to stand-up for principle ultimately became one of the turning points in the Watergate investigation (leading to the President's resignation in August 1974).

Richardson: ''The more I thought about it,'' he wrote, ''the clearer it seemed to me that public confidence in the investigation would depend on its being independent not only in fact, but in appearance. It was clear that I could not carry out the instruction." (His wife joked that he would be carried out of the Justice Department in a mahogany coffin.) "I could only have dismissed Mr. Cox for ''extraordinary impropriety...and Mr. Cox's position was not only defensible but right.'*'

At the time he resigned (an event known at the time as the "Midnight Massacre") Mr. Richardson could not have known that Nixon would not survive politically, the "smoking gun" - so-to-speak - had yet to be uncovered…and to cross a vindictive Richard Nixon - the most powerful man in the world - was an especially courageous act and principled act.

Wait a minute. A politician putting principle above position? Daring to defy the President of the United States?

TRUE F**G STORY!

(Now…..if we can only find some more Elliot Richardson's in government…)

Bye for now- be safe!

Stevenn

* from New York Times January 1, 2000.