# Charles Colson Dead At 80 **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 22, 2012, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charles-colson-dead-at-80/619558 "2012-04-22T03:57:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charles-colson-dead-at-80/619558/1 "2012-04-22T03:57:09Z")
[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/us/politics/charles-w-colson-watergate-felon-who-became-evangelical-leader-dies-at-80.html?pagewanted=all](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/us/politics/charles-w-colson-watergate-felon-who-became-evangelical-leader-dies-at-80.html?pagewanted=all) Another great man has left us now. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charles-colson-dead-at-80/619558/2 "2012-04-22T04:33:28Z")
Oh, _you_. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charles-colson-dead-at-80/619558/3 "2012-04-22T04:40:17Z")
Fuck him. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charles-colson-dead-at-80/619558/4 "2012-04-22T04:42:23Z")
> [@](#): > > Watergate Felon Who Became Evangelical Leader Ah; he went from being one kind of scum to another. An enemy of humanity. Too bad he lived so long. ---
**Author:** ![Katriona](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/katriona/32/113_2.png) [@Katriona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katriona)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charles-colson-dead-at-80/619558/5 "2012-04-22T04:56:34Z")
May he rot in the hell in which he allegedly believed with the rest of his traitorous cronies. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charles-colson-dead-at-80/619558/6 "2012-04-22T04:57:52Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Fuck him. Why exactly (other than “I disagree with his politics and religion”)? :rolleyes: Otherwise feel free to go to the BBQ Pit thread. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Ah; he went from being one kind of scum to another. An enemy of humanity. Too bad he lived so long. Ah yes. Never mind all the work he did in helping out and reaching out to prisoners. Obviously if you’re religious you deserve to die. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charles-colson-dead-at-80/619558/7 "2012-04-22T05:06:01Z")
Except, he still continued to claim that he was a victim. Sorry, if he was truly repentant, wouldn’t he have thanked Felt for turning him in, so he could turn his life around? Nope, sorry. Yeah, he did some good work, but it sounds like he still wasn’t sorry for what he did. Watergate was one of the worst crimes of the U.S. government, and I don’t buy he was sorry for a moment. Felt was, in my mind, a hero. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charles-colson-dead-at-80/619558/8 "2012-04-22T05:13:38Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Why exactly (other than “I disagree with his politics and religion”)? :rolleyes: Because he did his best to subvert democracy and the rule of law: • alleged to have sought to hire Teamsters thugs to beat up anti-war demonstrators; • proposed firebombing the Brookings Institution and stealing politically damaging documents while firefighters put the fire out; • as a member of CREEP, agreed to spend $250,000 to set up the plumbers unit, which eventually burglarised the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist; • leaked information from Ellsberg’s FBI file to the press; • heavily involved in the Watergate cover-up from June, 1972 onwards; • pled guilty to obstruction of justice. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charles-colson-dead-at-80/619558/9 "2012-04-22T05:35:52Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/us/politics/charles-w-colson-watergate-felon-who-became-evangelical-leader-dies-at-80.html?pagewanted=all](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/us/politics/charles-w-colson-watergate-felon-who-became-evangelical-leader-dies-at-80.html?pagewanted=all) > > Another great man has left us now. ☹ I’d never heard of this guy before today. After having read your link, I find my self moved to ask: what exactly made him great? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charles-colson-dead-at-80/619558/10 "2012-04-22T05:39:07Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Ah yes. Never mind all the work he did in helping out and reaching out to prisoners. Trying to convert them to conservative Christianity and into the loony Republican base is helping neither them nor the country. He was a Republican operative who switched from one scummy method of supporting the party, to an even more vile way. ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charles-colson-dead-at-80/619558/11 "2012-04-22T05:54:35Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > feel free to go to the BBQ Pit thread. I got a better idea, you go there and defend him by telling us how he was great. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charles-colson-dead-at-80/619558/12 "2012-04-22T06:02:51Z")
I have a hard time seeing Colson as a “great man”. Okay, he may have embraced Christianity and found redemption for his past misdeeds. That’s nice for him and it puts him a step ahead of his fellow criminals like Ehrlichman, Haldeman, and Liddy who are unredeemed. But as far as I’m concerned, it puts him a step below all of the people who don’t need that kind of redemption because they have never committed that kind of crime. It’s like saying Albert Speer was a better man than Heinrich Himmler or Joseph Goebbels. Probably true, but he was still a Nazi. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charles-colson-dead-at-80/619558/13 "2012-04-22T06:11:11Z")
Only the good die young. ---
**Author:** ![Enginerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bcef8e/32.png) [@Enginerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enginerd)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charles-colson-dead-at-80/619558/14 "2012-04-22T12:44:19Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > • alleged to have sought to hire Teamsters thugs to beat up anti-war demonstrators; He’d be drummed out of the current Republican party for being a union sympathizer. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charles-colson-dead-at-80/619558/15 "2012-04-22T15:03:41Z")
From the article cited in OP: > [@](#): > > Mr. Colson and his colleagues “started vying for favor on Nixon’s dark side,” Bryce Harlow, a former counselor to the president, said in an oral history. “Colson started talking about trampling his grandmother’s grave for Nixon and showing he was as mean as they come.” > > Few played political hardball more fiercely than Mr. Colson. When a deluded janitor from Milwaukee shot Gov. George C. Wallace of Alabama on the presidential campaign trail in Maryland in May 1972, Nixon asked about the suspect’s politics. Mr. Colson replied, “Well, he’s going to be a left-winger by the time we get through.” He proposed a political frame-up: planting leftist pamphlets in the would-be killer’s apartment. “Good,” the president said, as recorded on a White House tape. “Keep at that.” I don’t know what shows more desperation by right-wingers: Calling Colson a “great man” or, as in another thread, trying to embrace Martin L. King, Jr., who _was_ a truly great man, as “conservative.” Anid I don’t know which is more hilarious: the hilarious claims made by right-wingers, or the fact they don’t even seeem to sense their own hilarity. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charles-colson-dead-at-80/619558/16 "2012-04-22T15:22:42Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > And I don’t know which is more hilarious: the hilarious claims made by right-wingers, or the fact they don’t even seem to sense their own hilarity. If you don’t love the taste of kool-aid, there’s a limit to how many gallons of it you can drink. The ongoing Republican policy of telling lies is driving everyone who has a concern for reality out of the party. The only ones who are left are the ones who enjoy the lies. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charles-colson-dead-at-80/619558/17 "2012-04-22T16:10:07Z")
> [@The\_Tooth](#): > > I’d never heard of this guy before today. After having read your link, I find my self moved to ask: what exactly made him great? The fact that most people on this board who’ve heard of him, don’t like him. I’d guess. I mean, that’s all it takes to be a conservative hero these days, doesn’t it? Not for any actual accomplishment, but just that people you can identify as liberals don’t like you. Or so I’ve gathered. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charles-colson-dead-at-80/619558/18 "2012-04-22T21:55:10Z")
I think the OP has suffered a relapse. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2012, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charles-colson-dead-at-80/619558/19 "2012-04-22T23:22:19Z")
_slight hijack_ The other day, as I took my son to school, I saw a Black Honda Odyssey Minivan Hearse. I noticed that it had a sliding side door too. And all the while I was looking at it, I was thinking that This is just So Wrong. First, Hearses should Not have sliding side doors. Who in this world is So Hard Up or so deserving of disrespect that they’re going to make Granma call “Shotgun”? For years the reason why Cadillacs & Lincolns were used was because the family (or the deceased) deserved a quiet & dignified final ride. Not one where you have to slide the back seat forward to let someone out. And if it was for the Final Ride, just Who would want to load & unload a coffin through a sliding side door? Seriously, is it for when they’re running late? Do they gun the engine mid-cemetery, side open that cargo-van door and give a good shove as they drive by? “You’re All Clear, Kid…!” _Whumpa-thump __sliiiiiide__ Crunch-a-Thunk!_ [Dead Guy Deposited- 15,000 points](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=qfDxiVpgjiM#t=104s) And for what…the first spot in line at the bar at the luncheon after? I couldn’t help but think about what kind of slime-ball would actually deserve that kind of a send-off… And then, today, as I was reading the SDMB, I read that Charles Colson, Hatchet man for Tricky-Dick Nixon had died at 80…and for some reason…it brought back all those thoughts… _/slight hijack_ ---
**Author:** ![Beastly\_Rotter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@Beastly\_Rotter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beastly_Rotter)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2012, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charles-colson-dead-at-80/619558/20 "2012-04-23T03:52:55Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > Oh, _you_. Stay tuned to Keepin’ It Qin-Shi, Tuesday nights on Fox. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charles-colson-dead-at-80/619558.md?page=2)