Gaslit, Watergate ... and more ranting about Israel's new government

I have been watching the Gaslit tv series for the past few weeks and have been finding it very interesting. Even though it is primarily about the private lives of Martha Mitchell (played by Julia Roberts) and John Dean (Dan Stevens), it also shows the Watergate scandal as it happens and from different angles than from its usual projection. I had quite a surprise in the fifth episode when the music that accompanied John and Mo Dean to their 'honeymoon' at Camp David was 'I want to see the bright lights tonight', by none other than Richard and Linda Thompson. Slightly anachronistic, I thought, as the song would only be recorded a few months after the event that it accompanied. The song was played again during the long credits sequence, although it itself was not credited.

I suppose that I knew about Watergate, but I was more involved with other matters at the time, and like the Vietnam war, it passed me by. Watching this series sparked my interest, so I had to find more authoritive material that would explain Watergate in depth. First off was 'Fear and loathing on the campaign trail 72' by Hunter S. Thompson; whilst this was written contemporaneously with Watergate, it was more about the George McGovern campaign for the Democratic nomination. I actually read this book about 40 years ago (when even then it was 10 years old), but it didn't leave too much of an impression then. 

This led me to a much more informative book, "King Richard: Nixon and Watergate, an American tragedy", by Michael Dobbs. Whilst this book limits itself to the hundred days following Nixon's inauguration in January 1973, and similarly limits its point of view to Nixon, it also gives a great deal of background to Watergate and explains how the entire house of cards fell down. The book contains many pictures of the main characters in the Watergate saga, and it is quite amusing to see how closely the actors in 'Gaslit' resemble their real life counterparts. Julia Roberts really looks like Martha Mitchell; Dan Stevens resembles John Dean quite well, and the actress playing his wife does look like Dean's wife. Sean Penn was unrecognisable as John Mitchell, but has been made up to resemble him very closely. Similarly Gordon Liddy. Going back to 'Gaslit', I wish that they could have toned the language down a bit. Did public figures really swear so freely then, or is it the 2020s informing the 1970s?

Of course, reading about Nixon and how far his henchmen/cronies/supporters were willing to go brings up painful memories of Donald Trump and his belief in an alternate history. Lost an election? Declare election fraud and claim that you won. There was yet another example of this a few weeks ago: a Republican candidate for a governership lost, but she took her case to the supreme court of the state, citing election fraud. The judge stated that the evidence presented showed no signs whatsoever of tampering or fraud, and that the suit was baseless. I forget now who the plaintiff was and in which state this happened: after all, I'm not a student of American election fraud.

This, unfortunately, brings us (once again) to the newly sworn in government of Israel. Of course, there was no election fraud, but claims that "the people spoke" are somewhat contentious when the actual margin was so thin. But that's as may be; what worries us 'bleeding heart liberals' is that the victors believe that they can do whatever they like (as per Nixon et al.), such as dismantling the entire judicial system. Something doesn't suit them? Pass a law allowing it. Where else do you have a minister responsible for the police and the border police who himself has been convicted for various crimes? 

As a commentator said on television last night, "They [the government] say that it will be like in America, where politicians nominate the judges for the supreme court. What they are forgetting is that in America there are three separate branches of government: executive, legislative and judicial. In Israel, there is no separation between the executive and legislative branches, and if this joint branch nominates the judicial branch, then there is no separation whatsover. So no, Israel is not like America".

One outrageous statement was made by one of the extremist ministers (Orit Strook) at the beginning of the week: doctors will be empowered to refuse treatment to patients if the patient's qualities (sex, sexual orientation, ethnic origin) are against the doctor's beliefs. Fortunately this has been condemned by everyone, including Strook's coalition partners, so it looks like this piece of megalomania will not get very far.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court will decide (whilst it still has the power) whether one of the senior ministers is fit to serve, considering that he was imprisoned over seven years ago for fraud (the 'cooling off period' for that sentence has passed) and that he was convicted once again last year for tax evasion. In a plea bargain, he received a suspended sentence and promised to leave politics. Whilst he did resign from the Knesset at the time, he contends that the condition referred only to the then-current Knesset, not to future elections. Others would beg to differ. Some say that he should be held in contempt of court and should not only resign again from the Knesset but should also serve the prison time that was previously suspended. As no doubt he would say (quoting Humpty Dumpty from 'Alice through the looking glass'), 'words mean what I want them to mean' - not necessarily what is written in a dictionary. 

There is no doubt that the Supreme Court's decision (whatever it will be) will be decisive for the months and years to come.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
999	31/12/2016	Farewell 2016 - a summary of the year from my idiosyncratic viewpoint	DBA, Health, Personal, Obituary, Song writing, Theanine
1102	31/12/2017	End of an era	TV series
1192	31/12/2018	Love is all you need (film)	Films, Sorrento, Italy

I have been thinking over the past few days about writing a summary for 2022, but feel that now is not an appropriate end point.