John McCain's Terrorist Friend: G. Gordon Liddy

In light of the completely unsurprising news that McCain is going to try to tie Barack Obama to Bill Ayers, I thought it might be fun to look at John McCain's much more dangerous, much more violent, much more radical friend: G. Gordon Liddy, notorious even in the lawless Nixon White House for his fanaticism and his unbelievable lack of any moral restraint whatsoever. Chicago Tribune columnist Stephen Chapman brought the issue up this spring (the article is not online, unfortunately) but HuffPo picked up on it. Read along with me, dear friends, as we dive into the muck of Liddy, the Ultimate Right Wing Republican and die-hard McCain supporter.

Let's start by establishing their connection:

In 1998, Liddy's home was the site of a McCain fundraiser. Over the years, he has made at least four contributions totaling $5,000 to the senator's campaigns--including $1,000 this year.
Last November, McCain went on his radio show. Liddy greeted him as "an old friend," and McCain sounded like one. "I'm proud of you, I'm proud of your family," he gushed. "It's always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon, and congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great."

And what kind of man is Liddy, exactly?

[Adolf Hitler] was G Gordon Liddy's first political hero. Liddy was a sickly, asthmatic child when he grew up in Hoboken, New Jersey, in the 1930s. The town was full of ethnic Germans who idolized Hitler. Liddy was made to salute the Stars and Stripes Nazi-style by the nuns at his school; even now, he admits, "at assemblies where the national anthem is played, I must suppress the urge to snap out my right arm." His beloved German nanny taught him that Hitler had -- through sheer will-power -- "dragged Germany from weakness to strength."

This gave Liddy hope "for the first time in my life" that he too could overcome weakness. When he listened to Hitler on the radio, it "made me feel a strength inside I had never known before," he explains. "Hitler's sheer animal confidence and power of will [entranced me]. He sent an electric current through my body." He describes seeing the Nazis' doomed technological marvel the Hindenberg flying over New Jersey as an almost religious experience. "Ecstatic, I drank in its colossal power and felt myself grow. Fear evaporated and in its place came a sense of personal might and power."

Read the whole terrifying interview with Liddy here.

Liddy was the originator and leader of the Watergate break-in, about which he is utterly unrepentant. (He wanted to kill columnist Jack Anderson for writing critcal articles about Nixon, as well.) Liddy did his absolute best to undermine American democracy, for which he has the deepest contempt (being a Nietzschean)and yet he hides behind the First Amendment to say things like this, which is from a 1994 exchange on his radio show:

Liddy: When the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms thugs come to kill your wife and children, to try to disarm you and they open fire on you. When they come at the point of a gun, force and violence, when you're going to defend yourself, use that Gerand [M-1 rifle]. That thing is 30-06, and it'll take 'em right out.

Caller: And yes, aim for the head.

Liddy: Absolutely.

If Bob Dole, Newt Gingrich or Oliver North missed the Sept. 15 show, the Sept. 6 show would have helped them understand this Republican supporter's character.

Liddy: Arm yourself. Get instructed in how to shoot straight.

Caller: I've got weapons.

Liddy: Absolutely. And don't give 'em up, and don't register either.

Caller: No way. And I'm aiming between the eyes.

Liddy: There you go. That way their flak jackets won't protect them.

For the listeners to Liddy's 250 stations, appeals for the election of Republican candidates were sandwiched between frequent depictions of the Clinton administration as an evil that needed to be resisted with deadly force. That may explain why Liddy was invited to be the guest of honor at the Republican Party's "Salute to Talk Radio."

Now, maybe McCain likes and admires Liddy because Liddy, like McCain, knows how to win wars. Here's Liddy, from the Media Matters article, on Vietnam:

While the Nixon administration was spraying tonnes of napalm and poison over Vietnam, he complained the policy was "too soft." He says now, "I wanted to bomb the Red River dykes [sic: dikes]. It would have drowned half the country and starved the other half. There would have been no way the Viet Cong could have operated if we had the will-power to do that."

"... What I'm saying is we had better embrace the horror of war. If you aren't tough, if you don't pull out all the stops, you lose." So all of the conventions created in the wake of the Second World War - the Geneva Conventions, the very concept of war crimes - these are all just polite fictions to be crumpled? "Of course. The Seventh Infantry Division in 1945 used to drive their tanks around with the heads of defeated Japanese solders displayed proudly on the front. That's what we need to train our present-day soldiers to be." Returning to Vietnam, he adds that the French -- the colonial power preceding the Americans -- succeeded in Vietnam because "they were using the Foreign Legion, then manned almost completely by veterans from the most disciplined, ruthlessly efficient practitioners of all-out warfare in history: the Waffen SS."

Of course, what did you expect from someone who said:

G. Gordon Liddy's comment in 1995, when discussing how he'd used stick figures of the Clintons for target practice. "Thought it might improve my aim," he said.

Yes, this is John McCain's good friend and supporter. Liddy is the darling of the Freepers and the other right wing lunatics. He's a violent enemy of our nation, a traitor, a pathological liar, and a true domestic terrorist. He's also heard on 238 radio stations every weekday. So if Johnny Boy wants to play rough, I suggest we go G. Gordon Liddy on his ass.