http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/1578/28 is an appreciation of the role of the recently deceased FBI snitch Mark Felt, who turned out to be the 1960's Watergate source known as "Deep Throat". What is of interest here is the side-note quoted below. But this will remain a historical observation. No real boss today entrusts keyboarding to an underling. Right? -- Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY)
==QUOTE== Yet, as the unveiling of Deep Throat confirms, Tricky Dick’s downfall was mostly an accumulation of trivial errors. Earlier this year, I chanced to look at both the transcripts of the original Nixon tapes, typed up by his long-time secretary Rose Mary Woods, and the later material released in the Nineties, typed up by researchers and scholars who understood the historical significance of what they were dealing with. The latter fellows left in the “ers” and “ums”, the stumbles and mumbles; when you read the conversations, the sense is of an Administration floundering to stay on top of things. Unfortunately, when Miss Woods typed up the first Nixon tapes, she approached it as any good secretary would: she cleaned up the stumbles and “ers” and put everything into proper complete sentences. That’s what you want in a secretary if you’re dictating a letter to the chairman of the Rotary Club. But it was a disaster for Nixon: the cool clinical precision of the language makes the President’s inner circle sound far more conspiratorial, ruthless and viciously forensic than the incoherent burble of the actual conversation. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Persons posting messages to not_honyaku assume all responsibility for their messages. The list owner does not review messages, and accepts no responsibility for the content of messages posted. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
