RIP

[Dr Sardonicus]

Egil "Bud" Krogh

Egil "Bud" Krogh Jr., a lawyer and Nixon aide who co-chaired the secret White House "Plumbers" unit and was sentenced to prison after approving a break-in at the office of Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist, died Jan. 18 at a hospital in Washington. He was 80.
<snip>
According to Mr. Krogh, Hunt soon proposed digging up damaging information about Ellsberg through his psychiatrist, Fielding. A proposal from Mr. Krogh and Young called for "a covert operation . . . to examine all the medical files still held by Ellsberg's psychoanalyst." It was approved by Ehrlichman, who added in a note that it could go ahead "if done under your assurance that it is not traceable."

While Hunt and Liddy kept watch, a team of three burglars broke into Fielding's office on Sept. 3, 1971, using a crowbar to open his file cabinet. They trashed the office in what Mr. Krogh described as an effort to disguise the burglary as a botched attempt to steal drugs and apparently found nothing useful. Mr. Krogh was dismissed from the Plumbers unit three months later, after he refused to back the use of a warrantless wiretap on another suspected leaker.

"In May 1973," Mr. Krogh later wrote in his memoir, "the ice cracked open and I fell through." With Ellsberg on trial for disclosing the Pentagon Papers, the Fielding break-in became public, and Mr. Krogh submitted an affidavit explaining his role. He was indicted in federal and state courts on burglary, conspiracy and perjury charges and pleaded not guilty before experiencing a change of heart — realizing, he later wrote, that he and his fellow Plumbers had "crossed the Rubicon into the realm of lawbreakers."

Mr. Krogh pleaded guilty to "conspiracy against rights of citizens" (other charges were dropped) and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in their investigation of the Watergate scandal, an affair that resulted in prison sentences for Hunt, Liddy and Ehrlichman, among others. He received a sentence of two to six years, ultimately serving 4 1/2 months.

What a quaint notion -- an acolyte of a Great Leader subsequently having second thoughts and feeling remorse over what he has done. Mr. Krogh's passing may be seen as the disappearance of one of the last remnants of a bygone era.

The adherents of the personality cult of the Very Stable Genius now in the White House, obviously will not be troubled by second thoughts, since having second thoughts requires having had first thoughts. And remorse requires having a conscience and a sense of ethics. Such things have disappeared from the political landscape like smoke vanishing in the breeze, without leaving so much as a wrack behind.

[Xyzzy]

Terry Jones

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/22/enter...ntl/index.html

[tServo]

Originally Posted by Xyzzy

Terry Jones

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/22/enter...ntl/index.html

OH no!!

He gave us so many laughs in his career!

No one EXPECTS the Spanish Inquisition !!

[xilman]

Originally Posted by tServo

OH no!!

Settle down. He was not the Messiah, he was a very naughty boy.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by xilman

Settle down. He was not the Messiah, he was a very naughty boy.

The AP obituary contains the following:

In 2014, more than three decades after their last live performance, the five surviving Pythons reunited for a string of stage shows that revived their old skits for adoring audiences.

Palin would recall that during the stage run, Jones struggled for the first time with remembering lines. Two years later, Jones's family announced he had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, which gradually robbed him of the ability to write and speak.

Palin said in 2016 that losing the ability to speak was "the cruelest thing that could befall someone to whom words, ideas, arguments, jokes and stories were once the stuff of life."

The news of his diagnosis came just after the Welsh film and TV industry group Bafta Cymru announced that Jones had been given a special award for his outstanding contribution to film and television.

Palin presented the award to a tearful Jones, who was helped onto the stage by his son to a standing ovation. All he could say was "Quieten down."

[Batalov]

Originally Posted by xilman

Settle down. He was not the Messiah, he was a very naughty boy.

Cleese tweeted: “Two down, four to go,” a reference to the six members of the troupe. Chapman died of cancer in 1989.

(this shows that even Cleese softens with years. Remember the eulogy he did for Chapman?)

Sad day, though.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by Batalov

(this shows that even Cleese softens with years. Remember the eulogy he did for Chapman?)

Sad day, though.

If you include Neil Innes and Carol Cleveland, and many do, it is three down, five to go.

The eulogy was superb and I remember it well. If anyone's memory is failing, it is available at

[ewmayer]

Sad day for Python fans - besides the already-mentioned classic line from Life of Brian, I always crack up when I recall his turn as the young, effeminate and song-prone son, Prince Herbert, of the lord of Swamp Castle [played by Palin] in Holy Grail, the one who shoots the arrow with the "Help! My father has imprisoned me against my will..." message out the window of the tower, which impales Launcelot [Cleese]'s valet Concord [Idle], who dies nobly ... wait, not quite dead yet ... he thinks he might pull through after all. Cleese eventually sets off to rescue the damsel in distress ... anyhow, the line that really cracks me up is earlier, as the Lord of Swamp Castle takes his town to look out the tower window:

Father [beckoning out window]: Someday, son, all this will be yours.
Prince Herbert: Wot, the cuhhh-tains?

RIP indeed.

[And I agree with Paul re. added members - I always thought it a bit rotten of the Pythons to not include at least the wonderful Carol Cleveland as an official troupe member.]

Edit: Cleese's 1989 eulogy for Chapman is of course funniest in video form, but here is a transcript, in case anyone is interested.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Jim Lehrer

For Lehrer, and for his friend and longtime partner Robert MacNeil, broadcast journalism was a service, with public understanding of events and issues its primary goal.

"We both believed the American people were not as stupid as some of the folks publishing and programming for them believed," Lehrer wrote in his 1992 memoir, "A Bus of My Own."

"We were convinced they cared about the significant matters of human events. ... And we were certain they could and would hang in there more than 35 seconds for information about those subjects if given a chance."

[Spherical Cow]

Originally Posted by xilman

If you include Neil Innes and Carol Cleveland, and many do, it is three down, five to go.]

Agreed- five to go. All those brilliant lines will live on though. Absolute classics.

[rudy235]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

Jim Lehrer

I "grew up" (actually it was one of the first PBS programs I enjoyed) watching the MacNeil Lehrer News Hour.

I used to sit down and wait for it at 2:59 PM. I liked a lot some sort of animated cartoon by Ranan Laurie which to me looked like the best (and only possible) culmination of the totally informative and way cool News Hour. Just to clear any misunderstanding the Newscaster on the TV screen is not Jim Lehrer but his partner in crime Robin MacNeil.