Just as we’ve never seen a giraffe swim, we’ve never seen a “smart” Republican criminal. They all seem to be idiots.
Let’s start with Watergate. I was privileged enough to be a first-hand observer of that scandal. Working as a literary agent in Washington, D.C., I sold many of the best-selling books of that era. I represented Bernstein and Woodward, and White House Council John Dean. I therefore had a historical front row seat for the dramatic fall of Richard Nixon and All of the President’s Men.
The one takeaway from that experience I’d like to share with you is something that John Dean told me just after being released from prison. He said that doing time wasn’t as hard as he’d imagined, but the disdain and scorn shown to him and the other former White House staffers by the inmate population was brutal. They didn’t care that these men had tried to subvert the democratic process. No, what they cared about was how moronic the plan had been. One told Dean, “I thought Nixon was a smart guy, but he’s the dumbest criminal I’ve ever heard of. I mean who gets his whole crew sent to prison for messing up a f****** third-rate burglary? The guy hasn’t a clue on how to be a criminal.”