G Gordon Liddy (1930–2021) was the CREEP lawyer
convicted of conspiracy, burglary, and illegal wiretapping for his role in the
Watergate Affair.
Receiving a
20-year sentence, he served over four, paroled after Jimmy Carter (b 1924; POTUS 1977-1981)
commuted the term to eight years.
He was
one of the great characters of the affair.
The practice of using -gate as a suffix
appended to a word to indicate a "scandal involving," is a use abstracted from
Watergate, the building complex in Washington DC, which, in 1972, housed the national headquarters
of the Democratic Party. On 17 June, it was burgled by operatives found later to be associated with Richard Nixon's (1913-1994; VPOTUS 1953-1961 & POTUS 1969-1974) CREEP (Campaign to Re-elect the President committee). Since
Watergate, there have been at least dozens of –gates.
Notable Post-Watergate Gates
Billygate: In 1980, US President Jimmy Carter's
brother, Billy (1937-1988), was found to have represented the Libyan government as a
foreign agent. Cynics noted that, unlike
his brother, Billy at least had a foreign policy.
Crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) has provided the lexicon many "-gates". A marvellous linguistic coincidence gave us Whitewatergate, a confusing package of real estate deals later found technically to be lawful and Futuregate was a reference to some still inexplicable (and profitable) dabbles in her
name in the futures markets. Servergate was the mail server affair which featured mutually
contradictory defenses to various allegations, the Benghazi affair and more. There was also a
minor matter but one which remains emblematic of character. Crooked Hillary Clinton, after years of fudging, was forced to admit she “misspoke” when claiming that to avoid sniper-fire, she and her entourage “…just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base” when landing at a Bosnian airport in 1996. She admitted she “misspoke” only after a video was released of her walking down the airplane’s stairs to be greeted by a little girl who presented her with a bouquet of flowers. Even her admission was constructed with weasel words: “…if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement”. That seemed to clear things up and the matter is now recorded in the long history of crooked Hillary Clinton's untruthfulness as Snipergate. Most bizarre was Pizzagate, a conspiracy theory that circulated during the 2016 US presidential campaign, sparked by WikiLeaks publishing a tranche of emails from within the Democrat Party machine. According to some, encoded in the text of the emails was a series of messages between highly-placed members of the party who were involved in a pedophile ring, even detailing crooked Hillary Clinton’s part in the ritualistic sexual abuse of children in the basement of a certain pizzeria in Washington DC. Among the Hillarygates, pizzagate was unusual in that she was innocent of every allegation made; not even the pizzeria's basement existed.
Closetgate: References the controversy following the 2005 South Park episode "Trapped in the Closet", a parody of the Church of Scientology in which Scientologist film star Tom Cruise (b 1962) refuses to come out of a closet. Not discouraged by the threat of writs, South Park later featured an episode in which the actor worked in a confectionery factory packing fudge.
Grangegate: In Australia in 2014, while giving
evidence to the state's Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC), Barry O'Farrell (b 1959; Premier of New South Wales 2011-2014) forgot he’d been given
a Aus$3,000 bottle of Penfolds Grange (which he drank without disclosing the gift as the rules required). He felt compelled to resign.
Perhaps counterintuitively, a lacuna in the history is there seems
never to have been a Lindsaygate or Lohangate.
In that sense, Lindsay Lohan may be said to have lived a scandal-free
life.
Irangate: Sometimes called contragate, this was
the big scandal of Ronald Reagan's (1911-2004; POTUS 1981-1989) second term. As a back channel operation, the administration had sold weapons to the Islamic Republic of Iran
and diverted the profits to fund the Contra rebels opposing the Sandinista
government of Nicaragua (Congress had earlier cut the funding).
Nipplegate: Sometimes called boobgate, this was a
reaction to singer Janet Jackson’s (b 1966) description of what happened at the
conclusion of her 2004 Superbowl performance as a “wardrobe malfunction”. In Europe, they just didn't get what all the fuss was about.
Monicagate: The most celebrated scandal of President Bill Clinton’s (b 1946; POTUS 1993-2001) second term. Named after White House intern Monica Lewinsky (b 1973), with whom the
president “…did not have sexual relations…”.
1973 Pontiac Trans-Am SD-455.Dieselgate: In 2015, Volkswagen was caught
cheating on emissions tests used to certify for sale some eleven-million VW diesel vehicles by
programming them to enable emissions controls during testing, but not during
real-world driving. Manufacturers had
been known to do this. In 1973 Pontiac
tried to certify their SD-455 (Super Duty) engine with a not dissimilar trick but the EPA (Environmental Protection Authority) wasn't fooled which is why the production SD-455 was rated at 290 HP (horsepower) rather
than 310. Later, manufacturers in the Fourth Reich turned out to be just as guilty and, in that handy phrase from German historiography "they all knew". Including the fines thus far levied, legal fees and the costs associated with product recalls, the affair is estimated so far to have cost VW some US$33 billion but the full accounting won't be complete for some time. Other German manufacturers were also affected but Daimler (maker of Mercedes-Benz) avoided a penalty by snitching on the others.
In Australia, Utegate was a 2009 campaign run by opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull (b 1954; prime-minister of Australia 2015-2018) and his then (they're no longer on speaking terms) henchman, Eric Abetz (b 1958, Liberal Party senator for Tasmania, Australia 1994-2022), in which Dr Kevin Rudd (b 1957; Australian prime-minister 2007-2010 & 2013) was accused of receiving a backhander (a gift given in secret in exchange for a favor) from a car dealer, the matters in question revolving around an old and battered ute (pick-up).
Based on documents forged by Treasury official Godwin Grech (b 1967), it led to
the (first) downfall of Turnbull. Abetz for a time went on to bigger things but Turnbull neither forgot nor forgave, sacking Abetz
during his second coming (which started well but ended badly). Abetz however proved he still has the numbers which matter, gaining preselection and in 2024 winning a seat in the Tasmanian Legislative Assembly (the state's lower house). He now serves as Treasurer as leader of the house in the minority Liberal Party government.
Object of desire: Nutella.
The first
Nutellagate arose at Columbia
University early in 2013 with allegations of organized, large-scale theft by
students of the Nutella provided in the dining halls. Apparently students,
unable to resist the temptation of the newly available nutty spread, were (1)
consuming vast quantities, (2) pilfering it using containers secreted in
back-packs and (3) actually purloining entire jars from the tables.
In the spirit of the investigative journalism
which ultimately brought down Richard Nixon, the Columbia Daily Spectator, breaking the story, reported that based on a leak from their deep throat in the
catering department, the crime was costing some US$5,000 per week, the hungry
students said ravenously to be munching their way through around 100 pounds (37 or 45 KG
(deep throat not specific whether the losses were weighed on the avoirdupois or
troy scale)) of Nutella every seven days.
The newspaper noted the heist was on such a scale that, unless addressed,
the cost to the university would be US$250,000 a year, enough to buy seven jars
for every undergraduate student.The national media picked up the story noting, apart from the criminality, there were concerns about the relationship between the wastage of
food, excessively expensive student services, the exorbitant cost of tuition
fees and a rampant consumer culture. It
seemed a minor moral panic might ensue until the student newspaper (now a blog)
deconstructed the Spectator’s numbers
and worked out the caterers must be paying 70% more for Nutella than that quoted
by local wholesalers, casting some doubt on the matter. The university authorities
responded within days, issuing a press release headed “Nutellagate Exposed: It's
a Smear!" Their audit revealed that
the accounting system had booked US$2,500 against Nutella purchases in the
first week of term but that was the usual practice when stocking inventory and
that consumption was around the budgeted US$450 in subsequent weeks. Deep throat (Nutella edition) lost face and was discredited.
Nutellagate II broke in 2017 when a consumer
protection organization released a report noting the recipe had, without
warning, been changed, the spread now having more sugar and milk powder but
less cocoa and, as a result, was now of a lighter hue. Ferrero’s crisis-management operative responded
on twitter, tweeting “our recipe underwent a fine-tuning and continues to
deliver the Nutella fans know and love with high quality ingredients,”… adding “…sugar,
like other ingredients, can be enjoyed in moderation as part of a balanced
diet.” #Nutellagate soon trended ox X (the known as Twitter) and users expressed displeasure,
many invoking the memory of New Coke or the IBM PS/2, two other products which appeared
also to try to fix something not broken.
The twitterstorm soon subsided, the speculation being that, because it
contained more sugar, consumers would become more addicted and soon forget the fuss. So it proved, sales remaining strong. Nutella though remains controversial because
of the sugar content and the use of palm oil, a product harvested from vast monocultural plantations and associated with social and environmental
damage. Ferrero has now and again
suggested they may be ceasing production but the user base has proved resistant
although, movements in the hazelnut price may test the elasticity of
demand.
Open-Gate Ferraris
The much admired but now almost extinct open-gate gear-shifters were originally purely functional before becoming fetishized. At a time when more primitive transmissions and shifter assemblies were built with linkages and cables operating with rather less precision than would later be achieved, open-gates served as a guidance mechanism, making the throws more uniform and ensuring the correct movement of the controlling lever. Improvements in design made open-gates redundant by at least the 1950s but they'd become so associated with Ferraris, Lamborghinis and such they become part of aesthetic so, given the expectations of buyers and it wasn't hard to persuade the engineers to persist, even though the things had descended to be matters purely of style. A gimmick they may have become but, cut from stainless steel and often secured with exposed screw-heads, they were among the coolest of nostalgia pieces. Reality eventually bit when modern, fast electronics meant automatic transmissions both shifted faster and were programmed always to change ratios at the optimal point and no driver, however skilled, could match that combination. Conceived originally as a means to the end (quick, clean shifts), by the late 1990s, the open-gate had become an impediment to the means and while there were still a few who relished the clicky, tactile experience, such folk were slowly dying off and with sales in rapid decline, manufacturers became increasingly unwilling to indulge them with what had become a low-volume, unprofitable option.
Not all the Ferraris with manual gearboxes used the open-gate fitting, some of the grand-touring cars fitted with a concealing leather boot but both for years became relics, the factory in 2014 officially retiring the manual gearbox because of a lack of demand. The 599 GTB Fiorano (2006-2012) included the option but of the 3200-odd made, only 30 buyers specified the manual. That run of 30 was however mass-production compared with the California (2009-2014), the first Ferrari equipped with a dual-clutch transmission and the last a "true" manual, ending the tradition of open gate-shifters stretched back 65 years. Testing the market, a six-speed manual option had been added to the hard-top convertible in 2010 and the market spoke, the factory dropping it from the order sheet in 2012 after selling just three cars in three seasons. The rarity has however created collectables; on the rare occasions an open gate 599 or California is offered at auction, they attract quite a premium and there's now an after-market converting Ferraris to open gate manuals. It's said to cost up to US$40,000 depending on the model and, predictably, the most highly regarded are those converted using "verified factory parts".
2012 Ferrari California (top) and 2012 Cadillac CTS-V sedan.
So, between 2013 and 2026, at Maranello, it was automatics (technically “automated manual transmission”) all the way and although a consequence of the quest for ultimate performance, it became the factory's dictate only because that was the path to profit; Ferrari is just another business and had customer demand existed at a sustainable level, manual transmissions would continued to have been supplied. However, while there may not have been all that many cross-shoppers, for those looking for an alternative; between 2013 and 2026, although one could not buy a Ferrari with a clutch pedal, one could in a Cadillac showroom find cars so-configured (even in station wagons!). For most of the second half of the twentieth century, few would have thought that juxtaposition anything but improbable or unthinkable.
Ferrari open-gate porn; clockwise from top left: 1971 365 GTB/4; 1968
275 GTB/4 NART Spider; 1965 250 LM; 1984 512 BB; 1995 F50; 1967 330 GTC; 2012
Californian; 1991 Mondial-T.
Ferrari by
1976 had begun to flirt with automatic transmissions in their road cars (GM’s
famously robust Turbo-Hydramatic 400) but until 2004, Cadillac hadn’t needed
the clutch pedal apparatus in their factories since the last "Commercial
Chassis" (used for hearses, ambulances and such) version of the 1953
Series 75 (among the Cadillac crowd the Cimarron (1982-1988) is never spoken of
except obliquely in phrases like “the unpleasantness
of 1982”). However, by the early
twenty-first century, the market for the cars Cadillac had perfected was
shrinking fast so, noting the success of Mercedes-AMG and the M-Series BMWs,
Cadillac entered the fray and the existence of the Chevrolet Corvette’s
transmission in the corporate parts bin meant offering a manual gearbox was
financially viable in a way it wasn’t for the Germans. In the same decade, advances in hydraulics
and electronics meant the earlier inefficiencies and technical disadvantages
attached to automatic transmissions had been overcome to the point where no
car with a manual transmission, however expertly driven, could match their
performance, thus Detroit and Maranello choosing to tread different paths. The Cadillac Blackwing offered the nostalgic
experience from the factory and despite engineers admitting the slight
performance penalty, buyers choose the manual purely for the pleasure and
genuinely the experience was enjoyable and nothing like the old, palm-bruising
Muncie M22 “rock crusher” once used in big block Chevrolets.
2026 Ferrari Luce. This was not a
meme poking fun at the thing; this was an official factory promotional shot.
As early as
2024, rumors circulated hinting Ferrari might "revive" the manual
gearbox as a niche option, probably on a model with the V6 engine because the
torque and power generated by modern V8s & V12s would put too much strain
on the clutch but, surprising many, in 2026, Ferrari announced there would be a
run of 1,499 versions of the 12Cilindri (2024-) with an eight-speed, open-gate
"manuale" gearbox although the semantics of the press release did
demand study, the transmission not a traditional, old-style device but one of
the modern "automated manuals" with some clever engineering and software
to emulate the experience (the gated “manueale mode” limited to controlling six
of the eight installed ratios). Being
Ferrari, few were surprised to learn the model (and it was a separate model
rather than an option) incurred a US$400,500 premium over the “standard” coupé
but what attracted comments was the wry observation of a few the open gate's
return was Ferrari’s “act of atonement” for having released the Luce, a
five-door(!) EV (electric vehicle) that looked something like a large jellybean
with wheels. Usually, the announcement
of a Ferrari rated at 1035 HP (horsepower) would have met general approval but
while most might have forgiven the extra doors, few seemed able to overlook the
Luce’s “ugliness”.
2026 Ferrari 12Cilindri Manuale. To ensure people outside knew the extra US$400K had been paid, the Manuale editions included some detail differences (wheels, external cladding etc).
While, in
the 80-odd years of the company’s existence, some Ferraris have been less attractive
than others, none have ever really been “ugly” (although some coachbuilders did
manage the feat) until the blob-like Luce was shown and whether a “faux
open-gate manual”, however cleverly engineered, will be a sufficient act of
atonement remains to be seen but the very existence of the latter is an
interesting example of “the customer is always right”. For more than a decade, Ferrari’s position
has been leaving gear-changes to humans is a bad idea because it’s less
efficient and thus produces a “slower car”.
As a “fast car” operation, an element in the marque’s mystique is that
things always are done n a way that maximizes performance, thus the clumsy clutch
pedal and open-gate shifter being banished; those “improvements” were just
another “specific efficiency”. With bigger
engines (the V12 now 6.5 litres) generating prodigious power and torque, the
engineers doubtless welcomed the change because it would be no easy task to
create a clutch reliably able to handle the output if operated by a human. Still, whatever might be the motivations (on
both the supply & demand sides), it had become clear demand there was for
at least a niche model with an old-style open-gate assembly, thus the 1,499,
US$1.2 million 12Cilindris and the model is a well-executed piece. While not all recent "retros" have visually been so accomplished, there were in the 12Cilindri enough cues from the old 365 GTB/4 (Daytona, 1968-1973) for the effect to be achieved without becoming labored.
While that
seems expensive, the things would have been more costly still had a traditional
gearbox & clutch been used; apparently, no unit currently available was
suitable so either something would need to have been “beefed-up” or a device developed
from scratch. So, what was done was use
the 12Cilindri’s eight-speed transmission, onto which was “bolted” some
“shift-by-wire” technology (the mechanism a mix of physical connections,
hydraulics, electronics and software) engineered to emulate the look, feel
& sound (the latter a vital aspect) of the old ways. Although computer simulations were of course
involved, there was also literal, “hands on” development, engineered using an
old Ferrari 599 six-speed assembly as a benchmark, the design-brief for the new
system being to as closely as possible transmit to a driver the feel (and
sound) of springs, cogs, rollers & cams moving by a manipulation of
the shifter, just as in days gone by.
Curiously, what turned out to be an even greater challenge was the
clutch, that simulacrum achieved with the use of a hydraulic reservoir,
permitting the “progressive bite” of the plate to be transmitted through pedal
to foot. That also had the benefit of
putting a “fluid cushion” between mechanism and driver, Ferrari claiming this
meant even the “roughest handling” would be unable to inflict harm on the
components and conveniently, the car can be driven in either an automatic or
manual mode and testers were complementary of the latter, claiming the action
was even more refined than the “real thing” once had been. Although a gimmick, one nice touch was that in
“Manuale mode”, the knob’s face switches from white to amber.
Recent experience suggests
Ferrari will not only find 1,499 buyers prepared to pay the US$1.2 million
invoice but the offer likely will be over-subscribed, thus the announcement the
“Manuale” will be sold only to customers in good standing with the factory
(those who already own several Ferraris and at least one of the earlier
“special editions”). The approach
(adopted also by several other manufacturers of high-priced stuff) has created
a genuinely new market segment: series production cars bought not to drive but
to keep in collections and re-sold for profit, a kind of “Ferrari
futures”. The phenomenon has existed for
a while but in years gone by once was serviced by bespoke one-offs or those
produced in tiny runs; cars as instant “collectable commodities” despite being
made in hundreds or even thousands is new and that such a market exists at this
global scale need to be considered in the context of the protests staged in
French cities in October 2026. Those
protests were about the “cost of living crisis”, shortage and affordability of housing, crumbling public
infrastructure, declining education standards, dismal employment prospects and
other pressures. That annually there are
thousands of customers for million dollar Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Porsches and
such while simultaneously what used to be called the “working class” have been
reduced to low-paid, insecure employment and high rents is because in recent
decades there has been an extraordinary shift in the percentage of global
wealth held by a tiny number of the population (the so-called “1%” although the
number involved is more like 5-10%).
Because this 10% like to get richer, those investing their money apply
it to sectors offering the best return and in recent decades that has been
residential housing.
1970 Ferrari 365 GTB/4; the 12Cilindri's stylistic ancestor. What this has done
is increase asset prices meaning rents must also rise. With incomes for renters being effectively
static or (in “real terms”) falling, the percentage they need to spend just for
“a roof over their head” has risen dramatically and this at a time when food and
energy costs have also increased.
Historically, renters were able to adapt by entering the property market
but many are now “priced out” of ownership and nor are governments able to
respond as once was possible. With Western governments heavily in debt, borrowing
costs rising and it being just “too hard” to tax the rich (their "taxable income" something of a gestural in-joke and their wealth politically ring-fenced) or corporations, the
already embedded income & wealth inequalities in societies seem likely to
be exacerbated. Politicians understand they can't fix the problem and are well-aware of their likely fate should they try to re-distribute even a fraction of 1% of wealth down rather than up (the on-going trend). Some though are better than others at “managing the problem” and in Australia, whenever the issue is raised, with confected empathy the politician's script is: “We know people are doing it tough”. That dutifully done, they go back to studying their property portfolio, fretting about some of the rents they're charging not being quite at “market rates”.
Nye Bevan (1897-1960) and Jenni Lee (1904-1988), shortly after their wedding, London, 1934.
For twenty-first century politicians, the “problem” is not the substantive issue but that they're being asked tiresome questions about it. Of course, the “business as usual” approach (tax the middle class) may yet have some life but while so
much attention is focused on the US mid-terms, it may be the success in Serbia
of the “Student List” proves more influential. In his book
In Place of Fear (1952), the Welsh Labour Party politician Aneurin “Nye” Bevan
(1897–1960) pondered: “How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political
freedom to keep wealth in power? Here lies the whole art of Conservative
politics in the twentieth century.” As
political parties came to understand, it was possible to convince the poor to
vote against their own economic interests if the “culture wars” dangled before
their eyes could be made to seem enough of a threat, thus the weaponization in
the US of guns, God, pickup trucks, trans rights, abortion, gay marriage and
much else. For decades that approach has allowed the ruling class to retain control but the system depended on the poor having just enough to survive; if a critical mass falls between that threshold for even a few days, the system becomes unstable and at some point (lower in the West than in places like the Islamic Republic of Iran), not even state-sanctioned violence will be sufficient to contain the pressure.
The high-end manufacturers however continue to plan on the basis the revolution should at least for a while be postponed and richest of the 10% will continue conspicuously to consume, hopefully in the most Veblenesque way. For some of them, few things better convey a “price tag on four wheels” than a bespoke multi-million dollar Porsche, the attraction being even other billionaires can’t buy one because the factory is prepared to accept commissions with a contractually guaranteed exclusivity clause (the prized “one of one”). Porsche’s Sonderwunsch (special wishes) division has existed since 1978 as the factory’s “customizing house” but the operation has assumed a new importance as the company (along with the rest of the Germany car industry) has seen balance sheets soaked in red ink as the simultaneous challenges of US tariffs, rising costs, shifting markets and electrification conspire against what have for decades been profitable business models. Porsche has flagged what the Americans used to call an “agonizing reappraisal” of how things are done and it’s clear the days of wide model ranges straddling market segments can’t in the present (and anticipated) environment be sustained, the new strategy being fewer cars with higher margins, built in a factory by smaller labor force likely further to shrink as robotics and AI (artificial intelligence) agents are refined to achieve “more for less”. The project is serious; whereas not long ago a million dollar car represented the ultimate expression of such things, the new Sonderwunsch range of bespoke creations start at US$2 million with the most expensive an accountant-pleasing US$15 million and if (as is expected) the things quickly sell out, there’s no reason to suspect prices won’t go higher; indeed, economic theory dictates exactly that.
Factory publicity shot of Porsche
Sonderwunsch Flachbau (Slant Nose) RS,
a 935-inspired 911 (991.2) GT2 RS commissioned by a customer on the basis of a “one
of one” build. Neither the invoiced cost nor the identity of the
customer were disclosed and while consumption will continue, after Luigi Mangione’s (b 1998)
practical critique of the excesses of capitalism, there may for a while be a trend to be a little less conspicuous.
The decades
of success enjoyed by Sonderwunsch (and similar ventures by other European manufacturers)
indicate the concept in not new; the origins lie in the 1960s when, for a
variety of reasons, most independent coach-building houses closed and a once-flourishing industry almost vanished. That meant the supply of “custom-built”
cars tightened but residual demand still existed so such things came to be taken “in-house”,
something possible because of economies of scale not available to independent operators. Sonderwunsch
however enjoys its own economies of scale in that while their most expensive
creations are aimed at the billionaires, they’ll continue to cater to millionaires
who will have to be content with “rarities” produced in small runs rather than
having something truly bespoke and the “moving upmarket” flavour seems to be spreading
to Porsche’s whole output, a new top-of-the-range 911 expected soon to be
announced and while the details are vague, what can be assumed is a higher
than average chunk of the increased price will be absorbed in the profit
margin. Around the world, the phrase “cost
of living crisis” has become part of the political narrative but because “the
rich are different”, they have a “cost of spending crisis” in that what’s needed
are amusing ways to display wealth to each-other (mansions, yachts, trips into low-earth orbit etc). Many in this group understand a decent car can't now be bought for less than US$2 million and for them, Sonderwunsch's sales staff will be there to help.
