Watergate Revisited

Amazing as it may seem, the Watergate scandal is almost a half century behind us.  Nonetheless, its reverberations continue to haunt us.  As a flexion point in our political history, it remains a model of how democracy can be perverted.

Richard Nixon was clearly caught with his hand in the cookie jar.  Incontrovertible evidence of wrongdoing ultimately forced him out of the presidency.  For liberals, this was a victory of epic proportions.  They were thus able to portray themselves as champions of our constitutional heritage.

Initially it had been thought that Nixon ordered the Watergate break-in to spy on his political foes.  But when it came out that he hadn’t, the focus shifted to the “cover-up.”  Proof that he had attempted protect his underlings from criminal prosecution was eventually forthcoming.  This was enough to seal his fate.

The Woodward and Bernstein revelations were able to convert “tricky Dick” into a modern Benedict Arnold.  Democrats could now crow about how they had been right in branding him a “crook.”  Soon thereafter, they would indulge in a decade of curtain calls for defending our liberties.

So ingrained was this reputation for securing justice that once Donald Trump was elected president, the machinery needed to expel him from office was taken out of storage.  This political clown was obviously worse than his devious predecessor and hence deserved to be impeached.

But a funny thing happened on the way to a repeat performance.  The Russian collusion scandal that was supposed to expose Trump’s attack on our democratic traditions did not roll out as scheduled.  Neither did the stand-by accusation of interfering with a criminal investigation.

Instead the tables got reversed.  Just as Hillary Clinton’s electoral victory turned out not to be inevitable, so the anti-Trump findings of the Mueller team got delayed.  Now it is the special prosecutors who are suspected of misconduct.  They are, as of this moment, distrusted for their partisan agenda.

Some observers do not yet appreciate where this about-face may lead.  They are, for instance, unaware that the Watergate outrages took a year to unfold.  Nor are they cognizant of the comparative scope of the two affairs.  They therefore assume that the former must have been worse than the current imbroglio.

In fact, they are wrong.  The contemporary liberal shenanigans are more serious.  Their extent, and the danger they pose to our democratic habits, are more alarming.  Nixon and company only sought an electoral advantage.  The present-day villains hope to undermine our republican traditions.

First, the Nixonian transgressions were circumscribed.  There was a single break-in, the purposes of which were limited.  As for the cover-up, it was a strictly White House affair.  Even the alleged attempts to use the IRS to punish political opponents came to naught.  The bureaucrats would not cooperate.

Today the span of felonious activity is far greater.  Scoundrels were (and are) to be found among Obama’s advisors, lurking at the IRS, at the helm of the intelligence agencies, in many regulatory bureaus, running the State Department, overseeing the Department of Justice, and debasing the FBI.

This is not always a conscious conspiracy.  Like lone wolf terrorists, many of the players do not need outside instructions to replicate the Watergate guidebook.  They are so committed to a neo-Marxist ideology that they are prepared to sacrifice their careers for the cause.

Worse yet, the erstwhile guardians of our national integrity are orchestrating an immense cover-up.  Whereas once it was members of the media who ferreted out lies and corruption, today investigative reporting has been replaced by political grandstanding.  Much of the news really is fake.

As for the judges, FBI agents, and Justice Department lawyers who are supposed to identify and penalize illegal activities, they are often its authors.  They care not one whit about protecting the law if it conflicts with their ideological allegiances.  These folks are so sanctimonious they assume they are doing good.

But the icing on the cake is that millions of Americans do not realize their liberties are in jeopardy.  They have been so routinely bamboozled that they can longer distinguish truth from fiction.

But wait!  As revelations of left-wing treachery continue to accumulate, the threat to our freedom will be impossible to ignore.  When that happens, it might finally be possible to drain the Washington swamp.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University