We’ve probably all heard about Dan Rather and his “Memogate,”
and you may know of Katie Couric’s anti-Christian bent as
evidenced in her infamous statement against Dr. James Dobson,
saying that he advocated for the murder of homosexuals and
instigated the murder of Matthew Shepherd in Wyoming, and
as also evidenced in the “interview” (or “Liberal Inquisition”)
that she did with Kenneth Starr in which she berated the Bible
and intimated that anyone who believes that any of it is true must be crazy.
But did you know that Diane Sawyer was a trusted White House
employee of the late former President Richard M. Nixon – a
Republican, and that she stabbed him in the back in an interview after
he had left office?
At some point, Ron Ziegler, White House press secretary, hired
Diane Sawyer to serve in the administration of President Richard
M. Nixon. She ended up holding several positions within that
administration, and worked there through his resignation in 1974.
She was part of the Richard Nixon-Gerald Ford transition team
from 1974 to 1975. She also assisted former President
Nixon in the writing of his memoirs in 1974 and 1975. As you
will see from a later interview she did with the former President,
Sawyer had been a trusted employee of Nixon’s, but she would
betray that trust, just as it seems to me as all liberals eventually do,
and hurt him only to advance her own career and the liberal agenda.
Nixon was in the process of putting Watergate behind him, had
entered back into public life, and was again making a positive
contribution to society, as you will see below, and that must
have taken tremendous courage, given the fact that every liberal
in America was against him, and also given the fact that
he had given them the opportunity they had long been eagerly
awaiting: the opportunity to discredit a Republican administration.
It must have felt like a tremendous coup for them.
Well, here are the facts of the matter. According to Robert Sam
Anson in his 1984 book, Exile: The Unquiet Oblivion of Richard
M. Nixon (New York: Simon and Schuster), pp. 261-265:
(Note: In the transcript, Nixon uses God’s Name flippantly on
two occasions, not as profanity, but disrespectfully, so be warned
if you respect the Lord. I have put it here as “thank _____, with the
word “God” going in the blank, not out of superstition, but out of the
respect for God that He deserves.)
… Richard Nixon … had come out of the desert. He was
back in the arena again.
Like a force suddenly let loose, Nixon was a blur of activity the
next several months.
In January, he put the finishing touches on his manuscript
and submitted it to his publisher.
In February, he flew to Jamaica for two weeks of
vacationing and conferences with the newly elected
conservative prime minister, Edward Seaga.
In March, he traveled again to Morocco for talks with
King Hassan.
In April, he granted a long interview to Time on his
current thoughts on the state of the presidency.
In May, he delivered a foreign policy address to a
Republican fundraiser in Orange County, California.
And there was more ahead. In the next year, he would
deliver seven major speeches, appear on eleven network
interview shows, attend seven GOP fundraisers, travel
to nine foreign countries (meeting the heads of state of
each), confer with the editorial boards of several major
publications, and, if he got around to it, perhaps grant
interviews to the 150 reporters with standing requests.
Such was his prominence that even hated Harvard
was asking him to come.
Confident was not the word for Richard Nixon’s mood.
He was ebullient, and, with the reception he had been getting
of late, there was cause for it. When he addressed the
party faithful in Orange County, denouncing proponents
of the nuclear freeze and warning that the next year was
going to be “tough politically,” he was introduced as
“truly one of our great Presidents” and a band played
“Hail to the Chief.” Afterward, the Republican
autograph-hunters, many of whom had paid $1000 a piece
to shake his hand, stood in queues thirty-deep. In
Morocco, where the king hosted one banquet in his
honor and the U.S. ambassador another, 75,000 people
gathered outside his Marrakech hotel on the chance
they might get a glimpse of him. When Nixon rewarded
them by wading into the crowd to shake hands and hold
up babies, a chant went up in Arabic, “You should
still be President.” Nixon responded by flinging out his
arms in his V-for-Victory campaign salute, and shouting
into the din, “Hasta luego!”
The only bit of unpleasantness in all of this came from
an unexpected source. In late May, as Nixon was setting
his plans for a three-week trip to Eastern Europe, Diane
Sawyer called, asking for an interview. Since leaving
San Clemente, Sawyer had become a television star for
CBS, first as the network’s State Department correspondent,
and later as co-host of the CBS Morning News. Throughout,
her relations with Nixon had remained friendly, and Nixon
agreed to the interview request. He coupled his
acceptance with an invitation to dinner.
At first, the session went well. Nixon was in a relaxed,
almost playful mood, gently poking fun at himself
(“My media critics consider that—that I’m rather the
one who probably was behind the barn door when the
brains were handed out.”), advising Teddy Kennedy to
lose twenty pounds and “get some new ideas” (“I’m sure
he will; he’s a very practical man.”) and terming former
Vice President Walter Mondale (“Mondale, blah!) “just
a warmed-over Carter.” As for Reagan, Nixon had nothing
but praise.
“Now,” Nixon said, “if—if—if you ask whether he’s smart
in terms of IQ, in terms of whether or not he would be
accepted as a full professor at Harvard, the
probabl—the answer is, probably not and thank _____ we
don’t have a full professor at Harvard as President.”
His tone sharpened when Sawyer asked him about the
press. “Now let’s talk about the ladies in the press for a
moment,” Nixon replied. “We have to realize that men
reporters can be tough, but women reporters think they have
to be tougher; they’ve got to prove something. . . . A
delightful fellow, Manolo Sanchez, who worked for us
when we were in the White House years—walking by the
press quarters, he used to refer—he’d look in there, and
he says, ‘There you have the vultures and the witches.’ Now
[by] the vultures he referred to the men, [by] the witches
he referred to the women.” Nixon shrugged. “My views
are a bit old-fashioned, I must admit. . . . But . . . like the
little ditty from the song, ‘Why can’t a woman be like a
man?’ . . . I want women to be like women. I want men to be
like men.”
“Maybe . . . the press has a visceral reaction against me,”
he went on. “Maybe it was my manner, I don’t know.
But it was there, and, as far as I am concerned, it’s now
live and let live.” He smiled at Sawyer. “They
usually have underestimated me. And—but I’ve done
reasonably well, except for some unfortunate events which
we won’t go into at the moment.”
But it was precisely those events Sawyer did want to go into.
Noting that the tenth anniversary of the Watergate
break-in was approaching, she asked what it now meant to him.
“It happened a long time ago,” Nixon answered, eyes
narrowing. “I’ve said everything I—I can on the subject. I
have nothing to add, and I’m looking to the future rather than
the past. . . . I’ve always said this: ‘Remember Lot’s wife.
Never look back.’”
Sawyer continued to press. “But a lot of people say, and these
are common people, ordinary people, people in the street,
say that you never just said, ‘I covered up and I’m sorry.’”
“Well, that—is, of course, not true,” Nixon replied with
apparent agitation. “As a matter of fact, if you—if you go back
and look at the Frost broadcast, and if you read my memoirs,
I’ve covered all that in great, great detail. And I’ve said it
all, and I’m not going to say anything more in the future.”
Sawyer was not so easily put off. “Do you think about it when
you’re just sitting alone, when some—when it’s—you’re not working?”
“Never,” Nixon snapped. “No. If I were thinking about it,
I wouldn’t be able to—do I—what is some of the constructive
work I’ve been doing on my new book, and also preparing for
the travels I’m going to be doing. You see, I
understand—I—I—I—understand the obsession with this
subject. It’s understandable. But people who are obsessed
with it don’t understand me. I went through it, I know what went
wrong, I know that I have a responsibility, I’m not trying
to excuse myself. But I’m not going to spend my time just
looking back and wringing my hands about something I can’t
do anything about.”
The exchange grew increasingly hostile.
SAWYER: You don’t even sit sometimes and think to
yourself, once again, as everyone thinks you must, “Why didn’t
I burn those tapes?”
NIXON: I’ve covered that also, of course, in my — in my
memoirs, and I must say that if — I must get — I must get a oh,
a half a dozen letters a week even now. “Why didn’t you
burn those tapes?” And the answer is, of course, I should. It
should have been done. But the main part is, they should never
have been started.
SAWYER: You did say to David Frost, you said that
you made horrendous mistakes, ones not worthy of a President,
ones that did not meet the standard of excellence that you dreamed
of as a young boy. What was the worst one, the thing that
you’re most sorry about?
NIXON: Oh—oh—oh, the worst one—the—the—I’ve—covered
this in great detail, and I’m not going to go into it any further.
SAWYER: There’s no one thing that you had in mind when
you were saying that?
NIXON: Well, the—the—well—well, the—if—if—well, it—I
th—I’ve—I’ve covered it already, but its- -it perhaps is—on
reflection, the thing that was the greatest mistake was in
failing to concentrate on it the moment I got word on it.
SAWYER: What’s it like to be Richard Nixon, and go out and walk
into a room? Do you — what do you sense when you walk into a
room? Do you ever think, these people are looking at me because
I resigned, or that—you—
NIXON: No, I never look back. I never did look back. And
people are very friendly. You—you have to realize that people
who reach the highest levels in public life don’t become
obsessed with themselves, and thinking, “Oh, my ______, what are
people going to be thinking of me,” and all that sort of thing. If they do,
they’re never going to be great leaders.
SAWYER: You also said to David Frost, you said, “I let down my
friends, I let down the country, I let down an opportunity I had for
projects that would have built a lasting peace; and I let the
American people down, and I have to carry that burden with me the
rest of my life.” Does that burden get heavier or lighter?
NIXON: Now that says it all, right there, and, as far as I am
concerned, having said it then, I’m not going to say it again now.
SAWYER: Could I get some phrases again? John Mitchell.
NIXON: Well, I think I’ve covered enough now, so
we’ll—I—I think we’ll—
SAWYER: How about John Dean?
NIXON: No comment.
SAWYER: You won’t even say whether the burden, year by year,
gets heavier or lighter?
NIXON: No (pauses) I’ve—I’ve already pointed out that I’m not
looking back.
The camera switched off. Nixon smiled tightly at Sawyer and
rubbed his hands together, as he did when he was nervous.
“Well,” he said, “you got it?”
When Sawyer returned to her office, a message was awaiting her.
The dinner was canceled.
That 1970s interview should serve as an example of the blatant disregard,
the outright hatred, that all liberals, Diane Sawyer included, have for
their fellow human beings who hold a point of view which goes
against their liberal, socialist, communist, anti-God agenda, especially
if that person has even a small amount of influence. And Nixon had been
a President, so of course they hated him. The more influence that one has
for the good, the more that person is hated by the liberals. Their attacks
are merciless and calculated, sometimes years in advance. We must
fight them, but we had better know with whom we are dealing.
According to Anson, Sawyer had acted “as interrogator” to help prepare
Nixon for the March 23, 1977 television interview with David Frost.
She had been trusted by President Nixon. But she betrayed that trust.
Maybe the following is at least a little telling. Back on August 9, 1974,
President Richard M. Nixon had appeared on television to announce
that he was resigning the presidency. Diane Sawyer was, at the time,
working as an assistant in the press office of Ron Ziegler, White House
press secretary. According to Anson on page 14 of his book, “As she
looked closely at the television screen from on board Air Force One,
she noticed that there were tears in his [Nixon’s] eyes.” There was no mention
of tears in her eyes. Pretty strange for someone who had worked for the
first American President in history to resign his office - unless she had
never agreed with his philosophy in the first place. After all, in what
may be another little-known fact, she was at one time considered a
strong suspect for being “Deep Throat” during the Watergate scandal.
She was one of six people to request and receive a public denial from
Bob Woodward. But she wouldn’t have been considered a strong suspect
unless she had been on the inside of the Nixon administration and unless
she had also been a person who disagreed with at least some of Nixon’s policies.
Nixon wasn’t without sin. But then, none of us are. God has made that plain to us.
There are many verses in the Bible which point to this fact, but one that is
well-known and that points it up very plainly is Romans 3:23, which says,
“…all have sinned, and fall short of God’s glorious standard.” The good news is
that God has made a way out. He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus, to pay the
penalty for us on the cross. Everyone who repents of their sins and believes
on Him receives forgiveness and eternal life. You can pray to God right now
and accept Jesus Christ as Lord. You don’t have to be in a church to do it,
although God commands you to join a good, Bible believing church once
you have done it. You need the fellowship of other Christians.
Jesus, who is God, says in Matthew 7:5 (and this is also recorded in Luke 6:42),
“You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see
clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” We have developed at least
a couple of sayings from that verse. “Clean up your own backyard before
you go to telling me to clean mine up.” And, “Isn‘t that the pot calling the
kettle black?” So, since Diane Sawyer took the liberty to attempt to
make President Nixon feel like he should keep that burden on his back for
the rest of his life here on earth (and she was probably, in my opinion,
hoping that it would only get heavier for the rest of his life), then I
believe that Diane Sawyer’s life deserves being looked at as well.
What has she actually done in life? I think the record shows that she won a
beauty contest when she was about 18, thereby getting a scholarship to college,
chose to attend an all-women’s college (pretty strange choice for a liberal),
and went into “journalism,” a profession in which you really need to be more
of an actor or actress than an actual journalist, since the main qualification is
the ability to read cue cards and look into the camera that has the light on
rather than the one that is momentarily turned off.
Now, those who run the liberal media would like for the rest of us to think that
they and all the people who work for them are wholesome, squeaky-clean,
completely trustworthy, and entirely above reproach. But such is usually not
the case. And ABC television “journalist” Diane Sawyer is one poignant
illustration of this.
ABC News currently promotes Sawyer as follows: “Among U.S. broadcasters,
she is among the most popular according to recent surveys.”
A few facts on Diane Sawyer: Full name: Lila Diane Sawyer. Age: 61.
Birth date: December 22, 1945. Works for ABC News and is co-anchor of
ABC’s Good Morning America. Profession: Television journalist. I may have a
bit of a problem with that. Maybe it should read, “Misleading television
commentator who attempts to pass off as fact the opinions of every anti-American,
anti-God individual and organization on earth, and does so in such a way that she
tries to convince and influence the American people to believe that those
opinions are American, and that they are worthy of adopting as one’s own.”
Diane Sawyer was born in Glasgow, Kentucky. Soon after her birth, she
moved to Louisville, Kentucky with her parents. She won the “America’s
Junior Miss for 1963” scholarship pageant, a beauty pageant, as a representative
from the State of Kentucky, which must have provided her with a scholarship
to attend college. She received a B.A. degree in English from Wellesley
College in Massachusetts in 1967 and completed a semester of law school
before deciding on a career in broadcasting. Now, as I’ve already said,
Wellesley is a college for women only. She must have chosen Wellesley.
I can’t imagine the “America’s Junior Miss” pageant people saying, “Now,
we’re giving you a college scholarship, but you can only use it to go to
Wellesley.” Or, if they did say that, then Sawyer could have turned them down
on “principle,” saying that an all-women’s college was just as unacceptable
in her eyes as an all-men’s college. Or maybe she wasn’t a liberal yet, given the
fact that she later went to work in a Republican administration. At any rate,
Diane Sawyer had no problem attending Wellesley for four years, but I’m
guessing that she does have a problem today with even the thought of
allowing the existence of any college that is for men only, being given over,
as she is, to the ideologies of the feminist movement and the women’s
liberation movement. The motto of her alma mater is “Non Ministrari sed
Ministrare” - “Not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” That motto is
taken from the words of Jesus in Matthew 20:28 and Mark 10:45, which say,
in part, “…the Son of Man (Jesus referring to Himself) did not come to be served,
but to serve, …” That’s another irony, given the fact of Sawyer’s obvious
anti-Christian sentiments.
After college, Sawyer went back to Louisville, Kentucky in 1967 and began her
career in broadcasting at a local television station, WLKY, where she was a
local TV news reporter until 1970.
At some point, Ron Ziegler, White House press secretary, hired Diane Sawyer
to serve in the administration of President Richard M. Nixon. She ended up
holding several positions within the Nixon administration. She worked
in his administration through his resignation in 1974. She was part of the
Richard Nixon-Gerald Ford transition team from 1974 to 1975. She also
assisted former President Nixon in the writing of his memoirs in 1974 and 1975.
Eerily, I have not been able to find any information on what Diane Sawyer was
doing between 1975 and 1978, the time between her leaving political life and
her going to work for the mass media.
She became a political correspondent for CBS in 1978, working
as CBS News’ State Department Correspondent. She was a floor
correspondent for the 1980 Democratic Convention. She became a
co-anchor of the CBS Morning News in 1981. She was a floor
correspondent for the 1984 Republican and Democratic National
Conventions. She became a correspondent for 60 Minutes in 1984,
and was the first woman to co-anchor that show. She stayed there for
five years. She got married to director Mike Nichols on April 29,
1988, making her 42 years old when she married him. She was podium
correspondent for the 1988 Democratic and Republican National
Conventions. She moved to ABC in February 1989 to co-anchor
Primetime Live with Sam Donaldson. In addition to her Primetime
assignment, Sawyer was named co-anchor, with Charles Gibson, of
Good Morning America in January 1999. Sawyer and Robbie Gordon
received the 2004 George Polk Award for Television Reporting given
annually by Long Island University to honor contributions to journalistic
integrity and investigative reporting.
According to ABC News’ own website, “Sawyer reported live from
Ground Zero during the week of Sept. 11 and interviewed over
60 widows who gave birth after the World Trade Center disaster.
She recently returned to Afghanistan to reunite the women profiled in
her landmark 1996 report from behind the burqua, as one of the first
Western journalists to expose the plight of women under Taliban rule.
She also presented a groundbreaking two-hour special on gay adoption
and the foster care system, featuring Rosie O'Donnell's personal story as a
gay parent.
“Her interviews include President George W. Bush in his first
national interview; Saddam Hussein, the first Western television
interview granted by the Iraqi president for nearly a decade;
President Fidel Castro; Robert MacNamara's public apology on Vietnam;
… Ellen DeGeneres, who announced her homosexuality; ousted Panamanian
leader Manuel Noriega's first interview from prison; Michael Jackson
and his then-wife Lisa Marie Presley's only interview; Michael J.
Fox's interview about Parkinson's disease and the decision to leave
his show; and former first lady Nancy Reagan on President Reagan's
battle with Alzheimer's disease and their 50-year marriage. She also
had the first interview at home with the Clintons after the 1992
presidential election.
“Other important investigations include … uncovering the questionable
business practices of three major televangelists … Sawyer's revealing
hidden-camera investigation of racial discrimination, which
documented the different experiences of blacks and whites in America,
also won the Grand Prize in the prestigious Robert F. Kennedy
Journalism Awards.
“Sawyer's overseas reporting includes her coverage of the attempted
coup in Moscow, when she made her way into the office of Boris