Pic by Westerfield

As soon as Dean warned me off reading it, I ran to my knapsack, pulled out the book, and saw that the remaindered sticker covered the name of James Rosen, “Chief Washington
correspondent for FOX ‘News’ Channel,” as the Fox web site puts it.  It seemed like ironic synchronicity that I
was holding a book written by someone at Fox “News” when my side-vocation was to write about Fox “News” for NewsHounds. I told my BFF John Dean that I would read it anyway,
since I read just about anything Watergate related, even the prison apologia/biography
of Nixon, written by my former-countryman (until he renounced his Canadian
citizenship) Conrad Black, or as I like to call him Lord Black of Black Bottom.

[BTW: “Tit in a ringer” is not sexist; it’s inside Watergate, inside
John Mitchell, inside baseball talk.  If
it needs explanation, it’s not worth it.]

And, that was that…or so I thought.

The next day I received the following tweet from the book’s author, who
thinks himself some kind of Beatles expert. 

Oh man, this is GREAT!!! I have John Dean and James Rosen arguing over my head on Twitter. The gang at the coffee shop certainly heard all about THAT the next day. All those days of skipping college classes to watch the Watergate hearings, and reading all those books, is finally paying off. Meanwhile, I’m not intimidated by a cutebeatle or anyone else at Fox “News.” If there’s one thing I know more about than Watergate, it’s The Beatles. So, I changed the subject and challenged Rosen with a Beatles trivia question.

Okay, maybe I made it worse with my next tweet.  And, maybe it was hubris on my part to also add Paul McCartney to my Beatles trivia challenge, but there it is:

And there it is, the gauntlet drawn. James Rosen will only play Beatles trvia with me if I promise to read his book and not be cowed by John Dean. Why do I suspect there is bad blood between Rosen and Dean and why do I feel that reading The Strong Man will provide the answer? But I don’t have time for that because there’s Beatles trivia with which to stump Rosen. Note my clue: You Can’t Do That.

And there we have it. I must have convinced Rosen that I would read his book because he finally deigns to play Beatles trivia with me.

Rosen’s second guess was Sophie Tucker, which if you know Beatles trivia isn’t that crazy an answer. But it was still wrong.  Rosen never attempted a 3rd guess, arguing instead that at the ’64 press conference The Beatles said Brian Wilson was their fave and at the ’66 press conference The Beatles said “Sophie Tucker” was their fave group. I had to remind cutebeatle about the ’68 press conference, when The Beatles were announcing the formation of Apple, they were asked their favourite ‘Merkin singer and they replied, “Harry Nilsson” and then were asked who is their favourite ‘Merkin group and they answered “Harry Nilsson,” which is how I discovered Harry Nilsson for myself.

So…I thought me and Rosen had a good thing going. Days later, a s I began reading his book we were still exchanging tweets back and forth, mostly Harry Nilsson-related at my instigation. Now I would see what the NYT and Doris Goodwin Kearns raved about.

Then several things occurred almost simultaneously:

Soon afterwards I learned that James Rosen, Chief Washington
correspondent for FOX “News” Channel, had a very thin skin because he blocked me on Twitter. However, for a while I didn’t know why. It could have been “All of the above” for all I knew. [He eventually cleared it up. It was “D.”]

Meanwhile I was reading Rosen’s book on John Mitchell just like I promised. Because so many things jumped out at me while I was reading it, I marked each one with a yellow Post It note. This is what the book looks like now that I have finished. Every one of those yellow slips is a question I have for cutebeatle.

However, more to the point, I believe I have unmasked Rosen’s secret source. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein had their Deep Throat, the secret source that was later revealed to be Mark Felt, 2nd in command at the F.B.I., who kept them on the right track. Rosen appears to have his own Deep Throat, a secret source to whom he guaranteed anonymity. It comes early in The Strong Man, on page 61: “A source close to the [Anna Chennault] affair–who demanded anonymity–strongly challenged the veracity of the prime witness.” This is backed up by endnote 66, which reads: “E-mails from [a confidential source] to the author, January 21, 2003, 6:16 p.m.; and Wednesday January 22, 2003, 3:25 p.m.”

Here’s where we get into the weeds on Nixon. Rather than do that here, I am going to write a full review of The Strong Man by James Rosen, but I wanted to provide the background to why I would even bother to review a 4-year old book. Not only do I think Rosen made an overt challenge that requires a response in the form of a review, but now there are two other factors driving me: 

1. It’s a book that deserved greater attention and condemnation when it was released. It’s full of contradictions, loaded language, softening of misdeads, and attempts to place the blame for Watergate on lower-downs; 
2. I can break some news. I can not only expose Rosen’s confidential source, but can also explain who still has a reason to cover up Nixon’s misdeeds and why all these years later this confidential source still doesn’t want the public to know what happened way back then.

However, I miss playing Beatles trivia with cutebeatle.

Further reading on Not Now Silly:

Did Roger Ailes Dupe James Rosen, Or Did Rosen Dupe ‘Merka?