Chuck Colson, Watergate scandal figure, dies at 80

[Faygo Kid]

Source: Washington Post

Charles W. Colson, the Republican political operative who boasted he would “walk over my own grandmother” to ensure the reelection of President Richard M. Nixon and went on to found a worldwide prison fellowship ministry after his conversion to evangelical Christianity, died April 21 Inova Fairfax Hospital. He was 80.

The death, after a brain hemorrhage earlier this month, was confirmed by a family spokeswoman, Michelle Farmer. Mr. Colson was a resident of Naples, Fla., but maintained an apartment in the Leesburg area.

Mr. Colson’s reputation as a “dirty tricks artist” overshadowed his achievements as a darkly brilliant political strategist. He had helped lay the groundwork for the Nixon landslide of November 1972 by appealing to disgruntled Democrats and blue-collar minority voters.

A self-described “hatchet man” for Nixon, Mr. Colson compiled the notorious “enemies list” of politicians, journalists and activists perceived as threats to the White House. And most fatefully, he helped orchestrate illegal activities to discredit former Pentagon official Daniel Ellsberg, who was suspected of leaking a top-secret history of the Vietnam War to the New York Times and The Washington Post. . .

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/whitehouse/chuck-colson-nixons-dirty-tricks-man-dies-at-80/2012/04/21/gIQAaoOHYT_singlePage.html

---

A real sweetheart that one. Oh well, RIP.

[CBGLuthier]

1. RIP Ratfucker

Their term not mine. I think rats are morally superior to Colson and his kind.

[goclark]

31. What about saying " REST"

and leave out those othet two words.

He doesn't deserve the last two words.

[Yavapai]

43. How about RIH?

Roast in Hell...

[goclark]

48. That sounds OK with me

[lastlib]

53. This is one of those obituaries I take great pleasure in reading.....eom

[alp227]

2. single page view: replace "story" with "singlePage" as in...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/whitehouse/chuck-colson-nixons-dirty-tricks-man-dies-at-80/2012/04/21/gIQAaoOHYT_singlePage.html

[Faygo Kid]

3. Done. Thanks.

[niyad]

4. isn't that the same hospital where darth cheney got his heart?

[The Wizard]

10. That would be

Where Dick bought the heart of a teenager who was sacrificed so his family could get out of debt.

[The Atheistic Human]

15. Yup

They also have delicious sandwiches there!

[Great Caesars Ghost]

5. rest in pieces

[whistler162]

6. R.I.P. a man who after

doing wrong and paying for it tried to do right by helping prisoners.

[yardwork]

9. ...and was a homophobic jerk who used his infamy to promote bigotry.

[Ikonoklast]

20. The evil men do lives on long sfter they are gone.

Eff him, he was the Karl Rove of the Nixon administration.

[whistler162]

36. Alot of mindless hate from the

mindnumbed!

Pitiful.

[Ikonoklast]

38. Apologist for a fellow co-religionist?

How quaint.

[LeftyMom]

27. He set up dominionist ministries to a captive audience,

and violated the first amendment by trying to promote his brand of Christianity at public expense. He was an awful person, and getting religion only made him worse.

[October]

39. Exactly. Some call it redemption. Hardly.

[dmallind]

51. Helping?!

Indoctrinating, scamming, brainwashing, grifting - sure. But helping?

[Festivito]

7. Reap what you sew, and say hi to your grandma for me.

... for a long long eternity.

[underpants]

8. "would rather be in prison embracing an inmate." -- + he lead the rebranding as Christian

Jim Liske, CEO of Prison Fellowship, told CBS News that Colson continued to meet with top elected officials and leaders but "would rather be in prison embracing an inmate."

We should say something good when some dies.

Chuck Colson is dead.
Good.

[calimary]

11. Well, okay.

He sure did a lot of damage in his day - more than he even anticipated if you extrapolate out the young "College republi-CONS" who hung on his every word and idea, and have lived on to apply a lot of those lessons to the great sadness and disgrace of this country.

I have so many mixed feelings about the whole "he went to prison and found God" thing. I DO believe that souls can be saved. I DO believe in deathbed conversions. And I'm glad he found some sort of - I dunno - SOMETHING. But hey, he found it awfully doggone late, and only AFTER he'd done all this shitty stuff to people and ruined careers and sabotaged campaigns and just really icky things, not to mention sow the seeds for lee atwater and in turn his evil spawn who learned this kind of shit at HIS knee: kkkarl rove. colson left a long swath of wreckage behind in his lust for power and influence and positioning in the pecking order next to the alpha male of this dreadful criminal pack. And in some cases, I'm afraid, it strikes me as being a cop-out. Oh you're in prison so NOW you've found God, 'eh, and all of a sudden that just washes all your crime and guilt away and makes it all better. Oh how cute. That doesn't change who you were, and maybe still are, and it doesn't change what you did or turn time back and reverse the damage you did and the hurt and ruination and betrayal you caused - the effects of which people still have to live with. Better late than never, I guess, 'eh?

It's awfully hard for me to go there, though. No you don't get off that easy with me, you conniving weasely schmuck! And yeah, I know I'm supposed to be forgiving too. But this one's among the more difficult ones.

[yardwork]

12. He continued to do hateful things after he supposedly found God.

He was an extreme homophobe who promoted violence and hatred toward gay people. Colson was not a nice man.

[immoderate]

13. Sort of like a piece of shit.

A vile human being.

I don't wish anyone dead. But there's no sense giving false praise to a lowlife.

--imm

[MNBrewer]

18. Would be a wasted wish, anyway. It's pretty much guaranteed.

[October]

41. He served 7 months. And then reinvented himself as a Christian savior to a captive audience . Ugh.

And he was rewarded handsomely for this so-called Christian rebirth.

[humblebum]

14. De mortuis nihil nisi bonum. nt

[goclark]

16. Rest....

can't remember those last two words.

[MNBrewer]

17. #3?

1. Brietbart
2. "Painter of Light" guy
3. Colson?

[eppur_se_muova]

24. RIP axis of evil ?? nt

[October]

42. Interesting. "Painter of Light" guy (Thomas Kinkade, btw)

Three hate-filled so-called Christians.

[MNBrewer]

46. Only one committed esthetic crimes though.

[grasswire]

19. I knew Chuck Colson; I saw him nearly every day...

...when I lived in the Washington metro area and when he was not traveling or at his home in Florida.

I think he took the most clever and expedient path after Watergate exploded.

It is what we now call a "limited hangout." He copped to a minor, lesser offense right away.

Brilliant strategy.

And then he found God.

Brilliant strategy.

And then he used religion to build a powerful empire of conservative Christians that he used for political purposes.

He had a daily radio commentary. He had inserts that were distributed in church bulletins across the country. He had columns and commentaries in various publications, and an in-house staff that wrote all manner of material for him.

He was deeply, deeply involved in the culture wars. He was a celebrity in the conservative Christian world. He had a donor base that produced $29 million and upwards per year. (The empire has declined in recent years.)

He did well for himself, through strategic command of the Watergate involvement.

And he did some good in the world. But in the end, he was still in love with power and its perks.

I do not know if the good outweighed the bad. I don't think it did.

[Arugula Latte]

40. What good did he do?

Certainly not anything linked to evangelicalism.

[grasswire]

44. a significant part of his non-profit empire was for prison reform

A lot of money and a lot of work went into advocating for prison reform issues: legislation to stop the practice of forcing female inmates to be shackled during childbirth, opposing the de facto tolerance of prison rape, assisting offenders in reentry to society following incarcerations, etc.

That's just a bit of the reform work and advocacy that has been done over several decades. It was honest, humanitarian work.

Oh, and a lot of effort goes into standing with the family members on the outside of the wall. Christmas gifts for children of prisoners, mentors, community. Etc.

[Arugula Latte]

49. Okay, well that is good stuff.

I will give him that.

[dballance]

21. Burn in Hell you bastard

I hope there is a hell for people like him.

[rurallib]

23. My sentiments exactly

Usually I let deaths go by quietly, but this man deserves a special place in hell.

[GliderGuider]

22. My mama taught me to only say good about the dead. He's dead.

Good.

[eppur_se_muova]

25. Karl Rove weeps.

He's lost a hero.

[GoneOffShore]

26. Never have wished anyone dead.

But I was delighted to hear that Colson had snuffed it.

[coalition_unwilling]

28. William F. Buckley, Jr. said it best (and he would know) when he

compared Colson's supposed conversion to evangelical Christianity to W.C. Fields embracing the Temperance Union

On a serious note, I'll bet you dollars for donuts not one of our media asks Daniel Ellsberg for his reaction to Colson's passing. Colson pled guilty to defaming Ellsburg, but Colson was up to his eyebrows in obstructing justice in the Watergate aftermath. IMHO, Colson should have died in prison for what he and his henchpeople did to Ellsberg.

[EFerrari]

30. I bet Amy will ask.

She seems very fond of Dan Ellsberg and has him on frequently.

[DallasNE]

33. Colson Was Always About Colson

He did what many scoundrels do; announces a conversion to evangelical Christianity, provides some lip service, then carries on as usual. Even his sugar coated Wikipedia page can't cover up his practice of far right political hatchet work. Jeb Bush pardoned him, restoring his right to vote, and George W. Bush invited him to the Whitehouse for an illgotten honor. To my knowledge Colson has never repentent for the crimes he committed. Colson was to Nixon as Rove was to Bush with the only difference that Colson spent some time in the slammer while Rove went free to continue his dirty work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Colson

[coalition_unwilling]

35. Interestingly enough, Rove cut his teeth politically as one of

Donald Segretti's "dirty tricksters" (the campaign hit squad whose crimes preceded those of E. Howard Hunt's Plumbers by a couple years, IIRC). Rove actually was investigated by the Special Prosecutor (or some sort of preliminary investigation was opened), but the investigation suffered for lack of resources and was dropped following Nixon's resignation.

[grasswire]

45. Ellsburg tried to meet with him in recent years.

Colson never did respond to the invitation.

[jmowreader]

29. Hunter Thompson once called him "the meanest man in America." That was probably an understatement.

Thompson also said he and one of his friends were planning to throw a bag full of live rats over the White House fence, but decided against it because Colson probably liked rats.

You know how the evangelicals say converting to Christianity washes away all your sins? Not even God could wash away Colson's sins, nor do I think he really tried--especially since after converting his sinning probably increased.

[RBInMaine]

32. Old Saying: No one is more righteous than a reformed whore.

[sofa king]

34. I'm trying to think of something kind to say.

All I can think of is this: eventually, he found a way to prey upon and get rich off of other criminals, instead of the American people at large.

For that, maybe Tricky Dick will piss out the flames for him in Hell.

[Solly Mack]

37. All men do.

Some just not soon enough.

[stuffmatters]

47. Why was Colson on the Grassy Knoll?

Colson left a lot of dots unconnected along with his self-contradictory Christianity.

I never saw any explanation for the photographs of Chuck Colson on the Grassy Knoll the day Kennedy was shot.
Though he professed to have changed through Christianity, his lifelong resentments/ fantasies of victimhood dispute that conversion: He never apologized to Ellsberg and harbored lifelong animosity towards "Deep Throat",unabashedly expressed
when Deep Throat died.
His Christian Fellowship was a member of ALEC. That pretty much put Colson in the for profit prison lobby along with CCA et alios.
12 Step programs do enormous outreach and help to prisoners without payoff or self promotion. In contrast, Colson was compatible with ALEC's agenda of privatization, profiteering, increasing prison/ slave labor and millions in taxpayer subsidy.

[CanonRay]

50. I normally won't speak ill of the dead

but Chuck Colson was a prime asshole. Good riddance and if there is a hell, I'm hoping he's burning.

[lastlib]

52. .

"Once proud and full of passion,
He fought the Cause of Man,
Many people loved his courage,
Many followed his command

He changed the old into the new,
And the course of things to come
And then one day they noticed
he was gone...

I heard the king was dying,
I heard the king was dead
And with him died the chronicles
That no one ever read..."
--Kerry Livgren, Kansas Closet Chronicles


Enjoy sharing your eternal torment with your old boss, Colson. You richly deserve it.

[catbyte]

54. Boo fucking hoo

He's one of the original crazy evangelical right wingers along with Jerry Falwell & Pat Robertson. Yuck.

Diane
Anishinaabe in MI & mom to Leo, Sophie, Taz & Nigel, members of Dogs Against Romney, Cat Division
"We ride inside--HISS!”

[FiveGoodMen]

55. Good.