WHO THE HELL WAS WILLIAM LOEB . . . AND WHY DOES HE MATTER TODAY

WHO THE HELL WAS WILLIAM LOEB . . .
AND WHY DOES HE MATTER TODAY

It was 1976, a Presidential year.

Indeed, it was the first Presidential year since Watergate and Richard Nixon's resignation of the Presidency in 1974.

I was a sophomore at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.

All the candidates -- Carter, Udall, Harris, Shriver, Church, Bayh, Sanford, Benson, Reagan and Ford -- traipsed through the snows of New Hampshire,  knockin' on doors and drinking coffee in more living rooms than they could count, each in search of votes in that state's  first-in-the-nation presidential primary.

All of them also had to deal with William Loeb.

And his front page editorials.

In 1976, William Loeb was the publisher of the Manchester Union Leader.  Unlike most newspaper publishers at that time, he told his readers what he thought above the fold and just below the front-page headlines, pretty much the sweet spot in any newspaper.  

He was also mean. 

In 1972, he published a forged letter claiming presidential candidate Edmund Muskie had referred to French-Canadians as "Canucks".  This was bad for Muskie, principally because  there were many French-Canadians in New Hampshire at that time.  It became worse for him, however, a little later, when falling snow created the appearance of tears on Muskie's face as he stood outside the  Leader's offices angrily denouncing Loeb as a liar.

Long story short, Muskie's campaign cratered as anger and tears were falsely turned into emotional instability.

Emotional instability was something we did not  tolerate in our Presidents back then.

In 1976, the Manchester Union Leader was the only statewide newspaper in New Hampshire.  In fact, given the mountains, which limited over the air radio and TV signals, and Boston's sense of itself, which limited its curiosity to Massachusetts, the Leader was pretty much the only statewide source of news at that time.

Loeb never apologized for the "Canuck" letter, not even after its genesis as part of Nixon's "dirty tricks" operation became known.  Instead, he continued to use the Leader to pursue his vendettas and libel his detractors.  

He once wrote that President Eisenhower, the architect of D-Day and victory in World War II,  had "done more to destroy the respect, honor and power of the United States than any President in his history." Later, in the '70s, he attacked the teenage daughter of a Governor for allegedly advocating the use of marijuana. The girl suffered a nervous breakdown.

Loeb also routinely lied about his past . 

He claimed to have been a reporter for eight years at the old New York World.  The paper's publisher denied the claim, and in any case the paper did not even exist during the years Loeb said he worked for it.  After his own mother disinherited him, Loeb sued her estate on her death for a 75% share, claiming they had reconciled,  and then settled for a small percentage of very little, his scorched earth litigation tactics having exhausted the estate (and, not coincidentally,  his siblings' shares).

Many of his journalistic ventures either died . . .

Or became exhibits to his transparent nastiness.

His Haverhill Journal went belly up in eight years, the Connecticut Sunday Herald in five (though incomplete records make its date of death uncertain). In 1949, he purchased a group of Vermont papers and founded the Vermont Sunday News.  That same year, he fired the printers of those papers when they tried to unionize.

Loeb was also a hypocrite.

Though married to three different women himself, he attacked Nelson Rockefeller during the  1964 Presidential primary.  Rockefeller had divorced his first wife in 1962 and married his second in 1963.  In 1964, however, he was running against Loeb's favorite conservative, Barry Goldwater . . .

So,  thrice married Loeb vilified twice married Rockefeller as a "wife swapper".

Even Loeb's patriotism was suspect.

He  avoided the draft in World War II on the ground of ulcers. But he reportedly helped his case by drinking a lot and causing the ulcers to flare up just before his medical examination. 

In 1975, Kevin Cash wrote a book entitled "Who the Hell is William Loeb".  In it, Cash recounted the lies, libels and licentiousness of his subject.  In response, Loeb threatened legal action in an effort  to stop Cash from publishing the book.  As a result, four New Hampshire publishers would not touch it and Cash himself had to set up his own publishing company to get the book printed.  The company was incorporated in Delaware (out of Loeb's reach) and the book was printed in Vermont.

Loeb died in 1981 and in the years that followed no one was able to replicate his unique ability to unite dishonesty, hypocrisy and malice in a suit of shameless promotion.

No one, that is, until Donald Trump.

Earlier this week, we  learned that, in a phone call last July, Trump asked Ukraine's President, Volodymyr Zelensky,  to do him a "favor" and investigate former Vice President Biden and Biden's son, Hunter.  The request violated the law, which prohibits the solicitation of foreign help in our elections, and otherwise had all the trappings of Trump-brand sleaze.  

Shortly before the call, Trump had frozen $391 million in aid to Ukraine, and during it, he reminded Zelensky of all the United States had done for his country as he asked for dirt on the Bidens.  Afterward, Trump ordered the electronic transcript of the call deep-sixed in a super-classified computer file meant to protect the nation's most important secrets (but not the President's mob-like shakedowns).

Later in the week, more shoes dropped.  

On Thursday, America's former special envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, handed over text messages confirming that Trump was in fact holding up aid until Zelensky played ball.  Among the texts was one from our Ambassador to the Ukraine, William B. Taylor.  He wrote:  "I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign." 

This is . . .

Game Over.

Trump will be impeached.

Though he claims the call was "perfect", the administration's own rough transcript of it renders that claim ludicrous . . .  

As will  the actual electronic transcript of the call, once freed from the super-classified imprisonment to which it was sent to die.

Trump is in full meltdown.

Yesterday,  he decided to violate the law in plain sight, asking China and Australia to investigate the Bidens as well.  This morning,  he repeated that Ukraine should do so.  

Earlier in the week, he was wildly tweeting to his base, imploring them -- with a word salad of lies -- that he was being "harassed"; that the whistle blower and listeners who outed him are "spies"; that Congressman Schiff, the Chair of the House Committee investigating the matter, should be "arrested" for "treason"; and that those following Constitutional processes were nevertheless staging a "coup". Meanwhile, his seconds -- who include a deranged former Mayor named Giuliani -- were reduced to screaming (in Rudy's case) or just plain ducking (in the case of most everyone else).

Expect our Commander in Chief to become more unhinged . . .

And our politics to become more fetid.

Trump is not Nixon.  

The latter respected our institutions.  

Trump is trolling them.  

He vilifies  any reporters, whistle blowers, legislators, judges or civil servants who oppose him. He lives in the gutter, his word repository and the reputed source of an authenticity that supposedly confuses none who take him seriously but all who take him literally.  In 1974, senior Republican Senators went to Nixon and told him the gig was up.  Nixon respected them and quit.  Trump, however, respects no one (and in any case fears prosecution once he leave the Oval  Office).  He will not go quietly into the night.

Trump is also not Clinton, our other most recently impeached chief executive.  

Clinton compartmentalized, walling off his official duties and policy-making from the continuing storm of subpoenas, media reports, and the drama inherent in an on-going impeachment saga.  Put simply, he got the work of the Presidency done.  

Trump is paralyzed.  

He cannot hold a press conference with a foreign leader, or walk by a gaggle of reporters on the south lawn, without it turning into a profanity-laced tirade against his enemies, real and imagined. 

He is all tweets, all the time.

And nothing else.

With Nixon and Clinton, impeachment was serious, sad and tragic.

With Trump, it will be all that . . .

And something more.

During the 1976 Presidential campaign,  Kevin Cash visited  Dartmouth College to talk about Willian Loeb.  I met him outside the studios of Dartmouth's radio station, WDCR.  I asked him how he felt in the wake all the fights to get his book published and the attacks from Loeb.  In response, he repeated what he had posted in his book's epigraph . . .

Something his father had told him years ago.

"When you fight with a skunk, you wind up stinking even if you win."