Excerpt shows courage of press -- and wackiness of Nixon

The Daily Beast has a gripping excerpt from Mark Feldstein's book Poisoning the Press, detailed the paranoia, arrogance and totalitarian mindset of the Nixon White House in the months before Watergate toppled that presidency.

Nixon and his Oval Office advisers actually proposed and considered assassinating investigative reporter Jack Anderson, a syndicated columnist.

"We examined all of the alternatives and very quickly came to the conclusion [that] the only way you're going to be able to stop him is to kill him,” said G. Gordon Liddy, ex-Republican campaign operative and future right-wing talk-radio host.

It was a close call, Feldstein shows.