Ben Bradlee would never have done to JFK what he did to Nixon

Byron York's Ben Bradlee: A cautionary tale of Kennedy's courtier is a cautionary tale indeed.

The legendary Ben Bradlee gets credited along with Woodward and Bernstein with swaying public opinion to the point that Richard Nixon felt compelled to resign the presidency. But those of us who have followed the news in the last few years have noticed something. Those bad things only happen to Republicans. Democrats get a pass.

Byron York tells us that Bradlee was infatuated with John F. Kennedy. And when they took him into their circle he became more than a friend. He became loyal lackey. Here are some excerpts:

Bradlee's book, Conversations with Kennedy, told the story of his, and his wife Tony's, friendship with John and Jacqueline Kennedy from its beginning in 1958 until the JFK assassination in 1963.

For much of the book Bradlee seemed impossibly star-struck. ...

Bradlee didn't tiptoe up to the line of journalistic propriety in his relationship with Kennedy; he stomped all over it. Not content to write glowing accounts of Kennedy's campaign, Bradlee also gave JFK private intel on the opposition.

Bradlee stayed close to Kennedy as the new president took office. There were fun dinners, frequent phone calls, trips to the country. White House dances were "dazzling," Bradlee wrote: "The crowd is always young. The women are always gorgeous, and you have to pinch yourself to realize that you are in the Green Room of the White House." ...

Bradlee's admirers revere him as a man not afraid to stand up to power. But that depended on who was in power; his is a mixed legacy.

Had a Democrat done the things Nixon did we would have never heard about it. Looked at another way, what if a Republican had done the things Obama did? Man-o-man. There'd be hell to pay.