Watergate and Plamegate: Deja Vu of a "Tipping Point" to Mass Indictments

[Dunvegan]

...when I volunteered to stump the streets on Election Day from my university's Demo Party "get out the vote" effort during Nixon Redux.

I kept arguing to Repubs "Are you really going to vote for a man who'll be indicted and will probably have to step down during his second term?"

And to a voter, they looked at me with a total blank.

It took forever for Watergate to finally and fully come to fruition.

But, if anyone remembers the closing sequence of the movie "All the President's Men" you see how slowly these things take to build...until the reporting and investigative tipping point catapults the events to excape velocity speed.

The movie's final scene comes down fast...rapid fire...headline, after headline, after headline...and Woodward and Bernstein typing and typing and typing...(for me this resonates with the current crises' "blogger chatter")...until the final "fade to black" for the Nixon White House:



Somehow I believe I remember that the final headline was "Nixon Resigns" in the film.

It felt like it took forever in real life, as I recall.

But when it broke...it broke like a tsumani.

[longship]

1. Watergate took over two years

between the burglary and Nixon's resignation. But it was only three days between the discovery of the smoking gun and Nixon's resignation. On Aug 5, when it became apparent that Nixon had used the CIA to obstruct justice, he was done. The next day Goldwater led a contingent of Republican Congressmen to the White House. The news they relayed was grim. The House would impeach and the Senate would convict; Nixon did not have the votes to prevail. He resigned the next evening.

It happened so quickly that everybody's head was spinning.

But two other important events that turned the country against Nixon happened months earlier.

Saturday, Oct 20, 1973 was the Saturday Night Massacre. Nixon tried to have Indep Prosecutor Archie Cox fired. Solicitor Gen'l Bork fired him after both AG and Deputy AG refused and resigned or were fired. That evening 50,000 telegrams hit congress asking for Nixon's impeachment.

Friday March 1, 1974 was the Watergate indictment day. The GJ indicted the usual criminals from the West Wing (Haldemann, Erlichmann, etc.) but also named Nixon as co-conspirator. Although this was a sealed addenda, the information on it didn't stay secret for long. Press was reporting it right away. This was when much of the country finally realized that Nixon was finished. But it would take five more months for that to happen.

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

2. I remember being frustrated then that the Watergate investigation

was delayed till after the election.

Just like I have been frustrated about how long it has taken for the proverbial sh't to hit the fan in Plamegate, Del'ygate, Fr'stgate, and all the rest. And how buried it was before the election.