Bag Man: Full Season
January 13, 2019 9:42 PM - Subscribe

Is it possible for an American Vice President to carry out a criminal enterprise inside the White House and have nobody remember? Rachel Maddow's Bag Man refreshes our memories.
posted by latkes (3 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
This was a cleanly produced and generally fascinating ride through totally neglected recent history. I had no idea what the hell the story of Spiro Agnew was before I listened to this, and now I'm pretty sure I understand it inside out. There were a few annoying breathless moments of, "And now... for the first time ever.. we will reveal..." but for the most part this just went over the facts of history with some great interviews with primary sources and curated it into a clear rundown of a bonkers criminal case of soliciting bribes by a vice president. Makes a great companion to Slow Burn Season 1.
posted by latkes at 9:48 PM on January 13, 2019 [1 favorite]


I had always been under the the impression that the Agnew resignation was connected in some way with Watergate and not his own insane unrelated scandal. This was a great and entertaining corrective to that idea.

I didn't mind the breathless reveals, but I did think they hit the parallels to our current political environment pretty heavily and with a lot of unsubtle winking on the part of Maddow. We get it, he's attacking the press and the Justice department and his supporters are lapping it up, just like you-know-who.

That minor quibble aside, this was a must-listen.
posted by Jugwine at 8:36 AM on January 15, 2019 [3 favorites]


This was really good.

There were a few annoying breathless moments of, "And now... for the first time ever.. we will reveal..."

It had a bit of that LOUD VOICES OF US-STYLE NETWORK NEWS HAMMERING ON THE SELF-EVIDENT tone that was a bit grating at times, but otherwise it was riveting.

I had always been under the the impression that the Agnew resignation was connected in some way with Watergate and not his own insane unrelated scandal.

Me too!

I guess the shadow of Nixon sort of obscures the degree to which Agnew was a piece of shit completely independent of him.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:53 AM on January 21, 2019 [1 favorite]


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