Nixon's treason on Vietnam ably reported in The President's Club. Not a BBC scoop. And here we go again, yes we did on Iraq. Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam, so read this old lady's bumper sticker. More Executive Branch liars. They had plenty of media help, so thanks for pointing this out.

Thanks for the commentary on Richard Nixon's act of treason in negotiating with a foreign government to subvert the foreign policy of the US during the election campaign of 1968 (just days before the election) to prevent the South Viet Namese government from participating in the six nation peace talks plus a cease fire. However, it would be very relevant to point out that this is exactly what Ronald Reagan did through his political people in October of 1980 to prevent the Iranian government from releasing the US hostages to the Carter government just before the election. Reagan's people promised a better deal if the Iranians didn't free the hostages before the election. That deal included missiles and arms which were traded for the hostages as well as a lot of money that was used illegally to black ops operations and providing weapons for the Nicaraguan Contras who were engaged in a war against the democratically elected Sandinista President, Manuel Ortega. Both Nixon and Reagan were guilty of treason as defined by the US Constitution (a capital offense) - and both got away with it! The similarities are so remarkable that they should have been mentioned especially in light of Rachel's statement that we need to make sure that this treason is well known so it couldn't happen again! It did happen again in October of 1980. Both treasons were perpetrated by Republican candidates in the last days leading up to a presidential election that the Republican candidates ended up winning as a result of their treasonous acts! It is totally outrageous that, up until now, both candidates (two of the three worst presidents ever - LBJ being the third) got away with it. Please point out the remarkable similarities between these two acts of treason in a future broadcast - you owe it to the American people.

P.S. Rachel Maddow is absolutely my favorite political commentator and I urge her to one day run for President!

Why do you have these R's on this program. Why do you let them lie. What is up with this. You know better. These guys are lying. I am tired of the false comparison. Please have some solid demos like Bernie S. What am I missing.

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I am a Democrat and support Democratic candidates, but I do have to say that I thought it was a little slanted to talk about how horrible and reprehensible it was for Nixon to do what he did and very little to criticize Johnson for not explaining what he knew. It was pointed out that he knew and that he didn't talk because he didn't want to reveal that they were illegally tapping the S Vietnamese phones, but it didn't seem like there was much condemnation of him that he kept quiet about the lie and allowed all those people to die in the 5 more years of war because he didn't want to tarnish his administration and it wasn't HIS election at stake. And he could have said something a couple months or a year later after his term was done and it was clear that the peace had not gone the way it was intended, but again he chose not to speak up. Why? to save himself!

maddow, I love you, but you are too kind to these nut jobs.

I have to go. I am sick and tired of the same old people on MSNBC. Fake demos like the guy from penn. Ed R. he is loathsome. Steve S. etc. I am out.

Defense and war spending may be an underhanded way the Conservatives can stimulate the economy "without stimulating the economy". as result of their budgets and reap the rewards and the stimulative effects of Gov. spending and at the same time be wildly against all types of Gov. spending. They also can control who profits from the stimulative dollars (insider Defense contractors "already rich guys" ) rather than lower and middle income americans and smaller business owners. They get to have it both ways, as they try to on many issues: They have the appearance of being against all types of Gov. spending and entitlement spending while in reality they are spending money through the defense budget that will help the overall economic stats. and growth. That is how they try to pull off the appearance of economic growth without any spending or taxes. The problem here is that this funnels the $ to the money hoarders instead of to the lower and middle class who will spend it.

Rachel, thank you for the report about Richard Nixon. I despised this man when he ran for the Oval office in 1968 and remember asking what his "secret plan to end the war in Viet Nam" was about. I think I knew then at the ripe old age of 19 that he had no plan at all. When he ran the second time to the slogan "In your heart you know he's right," well, some of us knew how wrong he was. Even with the knowledge of Nixon's character flaws at the time, I still found myself to be absolutely shocked and a little nauseated by the revelations I heard on your show this evening. How will the presidential historians handle this man now that they know this about him?

Rachel, know that I greatly respect your qualities as a television journalist, even in the face of network bosses who allocate some one-third of your hour long news program every night to commercial advertisement rather than to news reporting and discussion. However, you can lose your journalistic objectivity and, therefore, a measure of your quality when you get on your high horse about wrong wars and stopping existing wars immediately. As a policy, you may be right and I may agree with you. But, tonight for example, you showed a chart poll intended to show that the public opinion on the War in Vietnam changed over the years to show increasingly a public not supportive of continuing that war. For the middle years, the non-support grew to around 47% of the public, with an approximately equal proportion in favor of continuing the war to what they thought would be a successful conclusion, if fully prosecuted. By the time you were talking about (October 1968) the chart showed 54% no longer supporting continuing the war. That figure indicates the deep division in the American public then: almost half the people opposed continuing the war and almost half the people supported continuing it. Even at 54-46, the margin is not huge. Yet, you spoke several times in the following sentences that "everybody" in America opposed the war [not true even in October 1968] and that Johnson's Thursday night TV speech before the election would have "ended" the war that night [not true: it would still have taken some months and negotiations to effectuate that]. Re-read the actual transcript if you think I have mischaracterized what you said. If these were just intended as "euphemisms" for "well, very many people opposed the war" and for "well, his speech would certainly have started the process of ending the war, are you justified as a journalist using words as euphemisms like that when their literal meaning is so far from the truth you claim to be enunciating? Regain your journalistic balance, Rachel, in these moments of obsessive exuberance for the point you are trying to make. You will be no less effective persuading thoughtful viewers and you will avoid making out and out misstatements of fact as a journalist.

These last two weeks have been a fascinating study in contrasts. Scott Prouty comes forward with information he feels that the American people must know and he does so without expecting reward.

I realize LBJ got the information illegally but it was still information that the American people needed and the President couldn't dredge up the nerve to reveal it. I guess being the most powerful person in the world doesn't always give you the backbone to make the choice to save human lives. Of course, he would have been accused of trying to influence the election and, yes, there's nothing ethical about this situation.

Twenty-two thousand people would not have died if the war had ended five year earlier(that's the number from the BBC) and no one was water-boarded to get the information.

My conscience keeps screaming, "All those people . . ."

Hey Rachel, it's good to see that you finally found that Johnson tape. It's unfortunate, though, that you had to go to a British publication to find it. Thom Hartman has been playing that tape for years, ever since they were released. So much for the power of the liberal media. Rush Limbaugh's farts get more coverage.

I would have been nice to follow along with Hartmann's suggestion that Eisenhower was the last legitimately elected republican president. Ever since Nixon got away with it, these dirty tricks have become the staple of republican campaign strategy.

You have the best show on TV, in my opinion.