How low can Republicans go? How low ya' got? Take that low, then go about a mile or two down and that's getting close.
According to a very interesting article over at Truthout we can see Tricky Dick at his "finest":
"Do you have anybody in the secret service that you can get to?" the US president asked his aide John Ehrlichman in a stark series of Oval Office conversations about Kennedy before the 1972 election. "Yeah, yeah," Ehrlichman replied.
"Plant one," Nixon said. "Plant two guys on him. This could be very useful."
More Below...
And so they did. You see, Nixon and HR Haldeman were convinced... convinced I tell you that Ted Kennedy was (drum roll please...) one of those "Super swinger jet set types"... You know, like Big Three Auto and Insurance Company execs... No, I mean like the kind that screw around on their wives every chance they get.
But hey, Nixon claimed he was only providing Ted with some extra, Secret Service help because of the terrible thing that had happened to his brothers. It was all altruistic, I'm sure!
Because Kennedy was not a presidential candidate in 1972 he did not qualify for full-time secret service protection. But Nixon offered it to him, given the assassinations of his brothers, President John Kennedy and Senator Robert Kennedy.The Alabama governor, George Wallace, was shot in May 1972.
Ted even thanked Tricky Dick. What a thoughtful guy, right? Oh... wait...
But Nixon's motives for the offer were not pure. He worried about being blamed if a third Kennedy was shot while not having secret service protection.
Plus he wanted dirt. And the best way to get it was to have a secret service agent rat on the senator.
Nixon figured that surely Teddy Kennedy would stray from his marriage vows on a trip to Hawaii, or on one of his many visits to Martha's Vineyard and then, then, Dick would have Ted's balls in his hands, at last!
There was one, teensy problem though: Ted Kennedy didn't do anything.
"Does he do anything?" Nixon asked in a September 1971 meeting. "No, no, he's very clean," Ehrlichman replied. "He was in Hawaii on his own. He was staying in some guy's villa. He was just as nice as could be the whole time."
DRAT! FOILED AGAIN!
Oh well... Nixon continued to show the classiness of his party - don't ever worry about a Republican letting us down, there! Yup. Always... Classy... You see, as soon as the election was up, Nixon planned to pull the plug on Senator Kennedy's "protection", claiming:
After the election he doesn't get a ... thing. If he gets shot it's too damn bad... Understand what I'm talking about?