Bag Man

Bag Man: The Wild Crimes, Audacious Cover-Up, and Spectacular Downfall of a Brazen Crook in the White House by Rachel Maddow, 2020

Read this book in less than a week.

This is the first book of Rachel Maddow that I've read. I've liked her television show for many years and would consider myself a fan of her journalism and commentary. Now I want to read everything she has written and I'm even considering giving her podcast a listen. Especially the one devoted to this book.

I remember when Spiro Agnew came on the scene in 1968. It was a crazy year both in national politics and current events and for me personally too. Agnew was kind of a blip on the screen of life then but one we all noticed even if it was briefly at the time. 

There were a lot of crazy bigots in politics in 1968 and Spiro Agnew was right up there among them although he actually seemed like a moderate to some people in the South compared to George Wallace and the Klan. I guess nothing has changed. This was also the time when the Republican began courting the racists of the South into the party and the old school segregationist bigots were moving from the Democratic Party to what would over the years turn into the party of racists and immigrant haters. It seems to have all started with Agnew which Maddow very aptly describes in her book.

Agnew was the start of the anti-press strategy and the playing the victim of media bias. He was anti-Eastern elite and railed against the college educated. There was no limit as to how low he would go. His strategy was to convince his legion of supporters that the allegations against him were all vicious lies and that the evidence against him was made up by his enemies that were threatened by his political strength given to him by his supporters. According to Agnew everything against him was just a big wiatch hunt. Sound familiar? He was also a very blatant anti-Semitic and was constantly blowing dog whistles about the threat to America by the Zionist.

He went on rants over law and order especially after the Martin Luther King murder and the resulting race riots. He called the riots an "insurrection" and demanded federal troops to put it down. He also became Nixon's attack dog during the Watergate scandal and he brought about the confrontational conservatism that the republicans are known for today. He loved to question the motives and patriotism of his critics. He was a corrupt and awful person.

Most of the sorry saga of Spiro Agnew took place while I was in the Navy and overseas for the period that he was being investigated. I really missed the newspaper and television stories about his ongoing legal problems. I got back to the States just in time for his resignation. All I really knew about the situation was that he had some kind of tax problems from possible kickbacks while in office.

This book had a lot of surprises for me as to the extent of his moral and financial corruption. The weird thing was that this all happened while Nixon was also in legal jeopardy over the ever expanding Watergate scandal.  People in the Justice Department were worried that there was an increasing change of Nixon being forced out of office and then Agnew would become president. They pushed hard to prevent that a the book is very interesting describing that process that took place without public knowledge. I also didn't know that Nixon really did not like Agnew and only had him on the ticket to improve his popularity in the racists south. He was a so called Republican Populist. Well, he resigned after he was given a sweetheart deal that allowed him to admit to some previous tax fraud that included a small fine and no prison time. There was no admitting to the extensive extortion and bribery cases that were completely documented with extensive evidence and witness corroboration.

Later in 1980 he wrote his memoir where he denied any wrongdoing and claimed that he was a scapegoat that Nixon used to take attention away from the Watergate scandals. He even went so far as to say that Nixon and his people threatened him with assassination using the CIA. Of course nobody believed that claim.

He has had a legacy as pointed out by Maddow that includes a scorched-earth strategy playbook for corrupt office holders under investigation with the following:

• Attack the investigation as a witch hunt
• Obstruct it behind the scenes
• Attack individual investigators in personal terms
• Attack the credibility of the Justice Department itself
• Attack the media informing Americans about the case

There are certainly a lot of comparisons with Trump who has been using Agnew's playbook for many years.