The Reflecting Pool (thread 16), Episode 4: Spiro Agnew Would Love This: The Canoeist Conspiracy

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Well, moving right along in our American Seance's thread on the developing Reflecting
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Pool saga, we're moving a little deeper into the 20th century, a little more modern.
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And we're bringing in another voice, no stranger to controversy,
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another voice that we've never spoken about before.
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And he would be Spiro Agnew.
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Well imagine Spiro Agnew has been briefed on the controversy he's impressed,
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not by the renovation the renovation appears to have been a complete disaster,
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not by the investigation well that seems to have gone rather badly too,
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not even by the decision to paint the bottom of the reflecting pool American
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flag blue which actually strikes Agnew as the sort of patriotic flourish he
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might have enthusiastically defended on television in 1970. No, not that either.
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Spiro Agnew is impressed by the canoeist.
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You've got a canoeist, he would ask? Yes. An actual canoeist?
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Yeah, a former Olympic canoeist.
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You could just imagine Agnew leaning forward. Now, why are you wasting time
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talking about contractors, he would ask. Well, that's Spiro Agnew for you.
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Spiro Theodore Agnew, 39th president of the United States, governor of Maryland,
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Baltimore County executive, scourge of liberals, tormentor of journalists,
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enthusiast of alliteration,
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the recipient of many shady envelopes, and one of the few men in American history
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to resign the vice presidency because the Justice Department was closing in on him,
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while simultaneously serving under a president who was also being investigated
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by the Justice Department.
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That is like an extraordinary achievement.
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This was at a time when the Nixon administration was producing constitutional
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crises faster than the Constitution could process them.
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And yet Agnew had a gift.
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When confronted with accusations, He possessed an almost supernatural ability
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to identify the true victim, who was naturally Spiro Agnew.
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So he would understand the reflecting pool saga immediately.
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Someone would explain it to him. President Trump wanted the pool renovated. Fine.
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He wanted the bottom painted blue. Well, that's patriotic.
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The project was rushed for the 4th of July. Totally understandable.
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The coating began peeling. Agnew would hold up his hand. Stop. Wait. Everyone stops.
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This is where you're making your mistake, he would say.
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The contractor? No. The coding? No. The deadline? Absolutely not.
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Agnew would lean back in his chair. You're still talking about what happened.
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Awkward silence? Well, what should we be talking about, you might ask?
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Agnew smiles and says, well, you should be talking about who did it to you.
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This is Spiro Agnew's area of political expertise.
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By 1973, federal prosecutors in Maryland were investigating corruption involving
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contractors and public officials.
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The investigation eventually reached Agnew.
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And the allegations were not trivial. Investigators developed evidence that
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Agnew had received payments from engineers and contractors doing business with
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Baltimore County while he was county executive.
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Then while he was governor.
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And according to the government's case, even after he became vice president of the United States.
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Interesting. Agnew allegedly did not merely arrive in Washington carrying the
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habits of Maryland politics.
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He brought the subscription service with him.
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Federal investigators believed payments continued while he occupied the second
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highest office in the country.
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Agnew obviously denied all wrongdoing aggressively. He insisted he was innocent.
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He attacked the investigation. He attacked the prosecutors. He attacked the press.
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He suggested political motives.
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He portrayed himself as the target of powerful forces trying to destroy him.
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It sounds awfully familiar. This is also familiar territory to Agnew.
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He had built much of his a national political identity attacking enemies,
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college radicals, anti-war demonstrators, liberals, television networks,
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newspapers, intellectuals, commentators, people who used words like systemic and corruption.
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Agnew's most famous attacks were often written by Nixon speechwriters like William
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Sapphire and Pat Buchanan, but Agnew delivered them beautifully.
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He attacked critics as nattering nabops of negatism.
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He denounced an effet core of impudent snobs.
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He complained about the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.
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By the way, these are real lines. These are real quotes.
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This guy was an absolute pro at alliteration, like competitive alliteration.
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If Agnew had been born 50 years later, cable television would have constructed
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a studio around this guy.
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So when somebody tells him that the reflecting pool coding failed and the administration
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blamed vandalism, Agnew would not see a problem at all. He would see an opening.
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You would need a name, he would say. Well, we have David Hearn. No, go for the group.
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What group? Well, the people attacking the pool.
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Well, there isn't a group. Agnew would sigh. Well, that's never stopped me before,
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when he would begin pacing.
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How about paddling provocateurs? Someone would write that down.
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How about aquatic anarchists?
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The pusillanimous pool peelers of the Potomac. Trump would look up at that one.
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He might even say that's good.
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Agnew would nod and say, yeah, that is good.
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And suddenly the entire strategy becomes crystal clear. Don't talk about the paint.
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The paint's dangerous. The paint leads to questions.
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Kind of coding? Who selected it?
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Who installed it? How was the surface prepared? How was the work rushed?
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Who imposed the deadline? These are all dumb questions.
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Why is the government now spending millions more for repairing it?
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Oh, nothing good happens down that road. Don't ask those questions.
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Eventually, someone asked the most dangerous question in Washington.
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Whose idea was this? No, absolutely not. No.
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Talk about the canoeist. The canoeist is magnificent.
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The canoeist is specific. The canoeist has a face. The canoeist has a name.
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Most importantly, the canoeist is not a procurement document.
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Agnew can't believe his luck.
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Then somebody tells him that federal prosecutors dropped the vandalism case
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after they found out there wasn't any evidence and after evidence increasingly
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pointed toward problems with the renovation itself.
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Agnew's expression would change.
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His face would drop. You let the prosecutors do what, he might ask?
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Well, they dropped the charges. They had to. Why?
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Well, because of the evidence. No, no, no, he would cut in. Agnew would wave
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this way. You're thinking like lawyers.
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This is particularly funny coming from Spiro Agnew, because lawyers did eventually
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become a major problem for him.
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As the Maryland investigation tightened around him in 1973, Agnew tried to fight it on multiple fronts.
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He publicly denounced the accusations. He challenged the investigation.
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He argued that a sitting vice president could not be criminally prosecuted before impeachment.
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His lawyers went to federal court attempting to stop the grand jury proceedings.
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The Justice Department disagreed.
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Solicitor General Robert Bork argued that civil officers other than the president
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remained subject to ordinary federal criminal process.
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In other words, no.
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Being vice president did not come with the complimentary get-out-of-grand-jury-free card.
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This placed Agnew in an increasingly uncomfortable position.
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The evidence was accumulating. Prosecutors were not disappearing.
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His constitutional argument was not rescuing him.
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And his boss had developed certain legal difficulties of his own, you might say.
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Agnew, nevertheless, kept attacking. And that's, I guess, the most important part.
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Because Agnew understood something powerful about political scandals.
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If you can't win the argument over the evidence, you can sometimes change the
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argument into one about the people presenting the evidence.
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Are the prosecutors biased? Is the press hostile?
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Are bureaucrats conspiring? Are political enemies exploiting the situation?
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Why are they coming after me?
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Now everyone is discussing motive instead of conduct. The accusation itself
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becomes evidence of persecution, and the person being investigated becomes the
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victim of the investigation.
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Agnew didn't invent this maneuver. American politicians have been doing something
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like it for generations.
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He was just unusually enthusiastic about it, which is why he would love the
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reflecting pool affair. This is so comfortable for him.
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The original question is painfully simple. Why is the coating coming off?
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Agnew understands that this is the wrong question.
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The correct question is, who attacked America's reflecting pool? It's much better.
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See, now we have patriotism, vandalism, crime, national monuments, disrespect, radicals.
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Agnew's pulse would quicken.
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Well, can we turn the vandals into radicals?
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Yeah, we have no evidence for that.
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You keep saying that word, he would say, evidence.
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And he'd say, yeah, it's killing the momentum.
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Well, here's the thing about that. Unfortunately for Spiro Agnew,
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evidence ultimately killed quite a bit of his momentum in 1973.
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On October 10th, the vice president entered a federal courtroom in Baltimore.
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He pleaded no contest to a charge of federal income tax evasion.
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He was fined $10,000. He received a suspended prison sentence and he resigned the vice presidency.
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The Justice Department later described the investigation as uncovering evidence
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of bribes paid to Agnew as Baltimore County Executive, Governor of Maryland, and Vice President.
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Spiro Agnew had spent months insisting that he was being persecuted.
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Then Spiro Agnew left office as part of a negotiated resolution with federal prosecutors.
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This did not improve his opinion of federal prosecutors.
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So imagine his delight when he learns that the reflecting pool controversy involves Jeanine Pirro.
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Pirro's office dropped the case against Hearn after the evidence developed.
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Trump publicly attacked the decision.
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And now the White House has reportedly asked the Justice Department to examine
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whether new charges can be brought.
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Agnew would turn around slowly, very excitedly. Wait, you can do that?
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Well, apparently they're exploring it. Well, Agnew looks genuinely moved.
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For perhaps the first time since his death, Spiro Agnew believes America has progressed.
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So the prosecutor dropped the case? Yes. And the White House wants another one? Yes.
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Against the canoeist? Potentially.
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Agnew, you could almost imagine Agnew wiping away an imaginary tear.
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What a country, he would say.
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Someone tries to explain that this raises rather serious questions about the
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relationship between presidential power and federal prosecution.
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But Agnew stopped listening. He has found a whiteboard, and at the top he writes,
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Rule one, never discuss the contractor.
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Rule two, always have a villain.
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Rule three, if the evidence changes, change the subject. Rule four, attack the prosecutor.
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Someone clears their throat. Mr. Agnew? Yes. Well, you may want to rethink that last one.
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Agnew stares at it. Fair point. He crosses it out.
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The problem, of course, is that none of this actually repairs the reflecting
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pool. This is a limitation, obviously, of Agnewism.
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It's excellent at explaining why someone else should be angry.
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It's less effective at applying the correct sealant.
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So the pool remains damaged. The contractor questions remain. The costs remain.
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The timeline remains. The evidence remains. All sorts of stuff remain.
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You can change the subject. You can't change the coding.
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Eventually, unfortunately for Agnew and Agnewism, eventually reality does have
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an irritating habit of returning to the conversation.
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Agnew discovered this in 73.
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The accusations he denounced didn't disappear because he denounced the people making them.
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The grand jury didn't dissolve because he called the investigation political.
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The evidence continued mounting.
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And finally, the man who had spent years attacking America's critics,
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found himself sitting in a Baltimore courtroom listening while prosecutors described his conduct.
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Perhaps there is a lesson here. Agnew doesn't want to hear it, but there is one.
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Scapegoats are politically useful precisely because they simplify complicated failures.
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They convert systems into villains. Bad decisions become attacks.
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Administrative incompetence becomes sabotage. Evidence becomes politics.
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Responsibility moves magically downward until it lands on someone with less power.
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From a contractor to a bureaucrat to a protester to a canoeist.
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Anyone except the person at the top.
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Well, anyway, Agnew is gathering his papers. Trump stops him. Wait. Agnew turns.
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I still think the canoeist did it. And Agnew smiles.
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There's almost affection. in the expression.
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Mr. President, he walks back toward the table, you're making one critical mistake.
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And what would that be, Trump might ask. You're still trying to prove the canoeist did it.
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Trump looks confused. He did. Agnew shakes his head. Doesn't matter.
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What do you mean? Agnew picks up his hat.
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You don't need everyone to believe the canoeist did it, heading for the door.
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You just need them arguing about the canoeist.