Happy 80th Birthday, G. Gordon Liddy!

Today marks a milestone — the 80th birthday of G. Gordon Liddy. While any biographical reference to Liddy invariably leads with his role in the Nixon administration’s Watergate scandal — and subsequent prison time — it’s important to say also that the man’s life has transcended that historical moment. It’s a life that has been rich and full and adventurous.  I know him best in his reinvention as a top radio political talk show host, The G. Gordon Liddy Show on Radio America, where, since 1992, he has daily featured outstanding topics and guests and skewered the folly and misdeeds of the Left.

What many may not know about Liddy is that he’s appeared as an actor in movies and television — including Miami Vice, Airwolf, MacGyver, The Highwayman, and as himself (!) in Oliver Stone’s 1995 movie Nixon.  Also, he’s a big fan of ABBA. (Yes, that 1970s disco band from Sweden.)

On a more serious note, Liddy had impressive, formidable accomplishments long before his Watergate downfall.  He earned a law degree from Fordham Law School, graduating as an editor of The Fordham Law Review.  And then he served two years as an Army artillery officer during the Korean War.  And then, still in his 20s, served in the FBI as a Special Agent, earning multiple commendations from J. Edgar Hoover.  By age 29, Liddy became the youngest Bureau Supervisor at FBI national headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Oh, and in his spare time, he was rated by the Treasury Department as a pistol expert and is an FAA-licensed pilot.

But perhaps the aspect of G. Gordon Liddy that I admire most is his self-described fierceness and fearlessness.  “Defeat the fear of death and welcome the death of fear,” he once famously declared.  It must be a truly liberating way to live.