{"id":5871,"date":"2017-05-15T13:28:57","date_gmt":"2017-05-15T18:28:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/?p=5871"},"modified":"2017-05-15T13:29:37","modified_gmt":"2017-05-15T18:29:37","slug":"the-comey-firing-is-worse-than-watergate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/the-comey-firing-is-worse-than-watergate\/","title":{"rendered":"The Comey Firing is Worse Than Watergate"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">This isn\u2019t remotely like Watergate. During Watergate, honorable people in government resigned rather than be associated with improper acts.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 David Frum (@davidfrum) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/davidfrum\/status\/863385704814051328\">May 13, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As so often, James Fallows explains, clearly and patiently, reminding us what Watergate was and was about, and exploring how the current goings-on are like &#8211; and unlike &#8211; that precedent.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2017\/05\/comey-watergate\/526443\/\">Five Reasons the Comey Affair Is Worse Than Watergate<\/a><\/h2>\n<div id=\"attachment_5872\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/SamErvin-Watergate.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"5872\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/the-comey-firing-is-worse-than-watergate\/samervin-watergate\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/SamErvin-Watergate.jpg?fit=960%2C640&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"960,640\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"SamErvin-Watergate\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/SamErvin-Watergate.jpg?fit=300%2C200&amp;ssl=1\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/SamErvin-Watergate.jpg?fit=960%2C640&amp;ssl=1\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5872\" class=\"wp-image-5872 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/SamErvin-Watergate-300x200.jpg?resize=300%2C200\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/SamErvin-Watergate.jpg?resize=300%2C200&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/SamErvin-Watergate.jpg?resize=768%2C512&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/SamErvin-Watergate.jpg?w=960&amp;ssl=1 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-5872\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Senate Watergate Committee members and staff gather around Chairman Sam Ervin<\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The tangled affair now known as Watergate began 45 years ago, before most of today\u2019s U.S. population had even been born. (The median age of Americans is about 38, so most people in the country were born in 1979 or thereafter.) Thus for most people \u201cWatergate\u201d is a historical allusion\u2014obviously negative in its implications, since it led to the only presidential resignation in American history, but probably hazy in its details.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">For me, Watergate is anything but hazy. I\u2019d left graduate school and begun my first magazine job, with The Washington Monthly, in the fall of 1972, as news of the scandal emerged. Over the next two years, until Richard Nixon\u2019s resignation, I was living in D.C. and tracking the daily progress in clue-following and domino-toppling via stories in The Washington Post and elsewhere\u2014and then the riveting, televised Watergate hearings that made national celebrities of politicians like Senators <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=p0sNwyV_fEM\">Howard Baker<\/a> and Sam Ervin, and of White House aides like Alexander Butterfield (who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=MeQXopJ5U-Q\">revealed the existence<\/a> of Nixon\u2019s secret system for taping White House conversations) and John Dean (who as White House counsel <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=w3PVIlT6Ars\">had told Nixon<\/a>, \u201cthere is a cancer on the presidency\u201d). Anyone of conscious age in that time can probably remember the jolts to national sentiment that the near-daily revelations evoked.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">So I\u2019ve been thinking about comparisons between Watergate and the murky, fast-changing Comey-Russia-Flynn-Trump affair. As with anything involving Donald Trump, we have no idea where this will lead, what is \u201ctrue,\u201d and when the next bombshell will go off.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">But based simply on what is known so far, this scandal looks worse than Watergate. Worse for and about the president. Worse for the overall national interest. Worse in what it suggests about the American democratic system\u2019s ability to defend itself. Here is a summary of some reasons why:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The underlying offense<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>&lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2017\/05\/comey-watergate\/526443\/\">click through to the full James Fallows argument<\/a>&gt;\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;&#8230;the worst version of what Nixon and his allies were attempting to do\u2014namely, to find incriminating or embarrassing information about political adversaries ranging from Democratic Party Chairman Lawrence O\u2019Brien to Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg\u2014was not as bad as what came afterward. &#8230;\u00a0what is alleged this time? Nothing less than attacks by an authoritarian foreign government on the fundamentals of American democracy, by interfering with an election &#8230;&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>The blatancy of the interference<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>&lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2017\/05\/comey-watergate\/526443\/\">click through<\/a>&gt;\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;&#8230;Nixon\u2019s private comments could be vile, but nothing he said in public is comparable to Trump\u2019s dismissing James Comey as a \u201cshowboat,\u201d or the thuggishly menacing tweet that Trump sent out&#8230;&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>The nature of the president<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>&lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2017\/05\/comey-watergate\/526443\/\">click through<\/a>&gt;\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;&#8230;Richard Nixon was a dark but complex figure. &#8230;\u00a0Donald Trump, by contrast\u2014well, read the transcripts of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/Trumptranscript\">his two<\/a> most <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/politics-news\/fact-checking-donald-trump-s-interview-nbc-s-lester-holt-n757981\">recent interviews<\/a>, and weep. He is impulsive, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2017\/05\/trump-knows-nothing-and-doesnt-care-to-learn-it\/526308\/\">ignorant<\/a>, and apparently beyond the reach of any control, even his own.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>The resiliency of the fabric of American institutions<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>&lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2017\/05\/comey-watergate\/526443\/\">click through<\/a>&gt;\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;&#8230;What would it take for today\u2019s institutions to show that they are as healthy and resilient as they were even during the troubled Watergate era?&#8230;&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>The cravenness of party leaders<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>&lt;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2017\/05\/comey-watergate\/526443\/\">click through<\/a>&gt;\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;The Republicans of the Watergate era stuck with Richard Nixon as long as they could, but they acted all along as if larger principles were at stake. &#8230;\u00a0On the merits, this era\u2019s Republican president has done far more to justify investigation than Richard Nixon did. Yet this era\u2019s Republican senators and members of congress have, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/john-cassidy\/donald-trumps-craven-republican-enablers\">cravenly<\/a>, done far less. A few have grumbled about \u201cconcerns\u201d and so on, but they have stuck with Trump where it counts, in votes, and since Comey\u2019s firing they have been stunning in their silence. &#8230;&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Additional Reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/s2\/favicons?domain=nymag.com\" \/>\u00a0<a class=\"clickable\" href=\"http:\/\/nymag.com\/daily\/intelligencer\/2017\/05\/trump-firing-comey-biggest-political-crisis-since-watergate.html?mid=full-rss-nymag\">This Is the Biggest Political Crisis Since Watergate<\/a><\/li>\n<li><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/s2\/favicons?domain=talkingpointsmemo.com\" \/>\u00a0<a class=\"clickable\" href=\"http:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/edblog\/trump-i-am-the-state-i-am-the-boss\">Trump: I Am The State, I Am The Boss \u2013 Talking Points Memo<\/a><\/li>\n<li><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/s2\/favicons?domain=nymag.com\" \/>\u00a0<a class=\"clickable\" href=\"http:\/\/nymag.com\/daily\/intelligencer\/2017\/05\/trump-just-incriminated-himself.html?mid=full-rss-di\">Trump Just Incriminated Himself<\/a><\/li>\n<li><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/s2\/favicons?domain=nymag.com\" \/>\u00a0<a class=\"clickable\" href=\"http:\/\/nymag.com\/daily\/intelligencer\/2017\/05\/trump-is-trying-to-control-the-fbi-its-time-to-freak-out.html?mid=full-rss-nymag\">Trump Is Trying to Control the FBI. It\u2019s Time to Freak Out.<\/a><\/li>\n<li><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/s2\/favicons?domain=www.washingtonpost.com\" \/>\u00a0<a class=\"clickable\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/compost\/wp\/2017\/05\/12\/this-is-not-a-crisis-republicans-say-as-a-large-spider-slowly-devours-them\/?utm_term=.d36986887c41\">This is not a crisis, Republicans say as a large spider slowly devours them &#8211; The Washington Post<\/a><\/li>\n<li><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/s2\/favicons?domain=whatever.scalzi.com\" \/>\u00a0<a class=\"clickable\" href=\"http:\/\/whatever.scalzi.com\/2017\/05\/13\/that-james-comey-thing\/\">That James Comey Thing \u2013 Whatever<\/a><\/li>\n<li><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/s2\/favicons?domain=www.washingtonpost.com\" \/>\u00a0<a class=\"clickable\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/plum-line\/wp\/2017\/05\/15\/republicans-who-are-complicit-in-trumps-abuse-of-power-will-soon-have-a-big-problem\/?utm_term=.824b974bac1e\">Republicans who are complicit in Trump\u2019s abuse of power will soon have a big problem &#8211; The Washington Post\u00a0<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<!-- sktbuilder starter --><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/wp-content\/plugins\/skt-builder\/sktbuilder\/sktbuilder-frontend-starter.js\"><\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/wp-content\/plugins\/skt-builder\/sktbuilder-wordpress-driver.js\"><\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> var starter = new SktbuilderStarter({\"mode\": \"prod\", \"skip\":[\"jquery\",\"underscore\",\"backbone\"],\"sktbuilderUrl\": \"https:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/wp-content\/plugins\/skt-builder\/sktbuilder\/\", \"driver\": new SktbuilderWordpressDriver({\"ajaxUrl\": \"https:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/wp-admin\/admin-ajax.php\", \"iframeUrl\": \"https:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/the-comey-firing-is-worse-than-watergate\/?sktbuilder=true\", \"pageId\": 5871,  \"nonce\": \"66f80202bc\", \"pages\": [{\"title\":\"NTD Officers\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/napervilledemocrats.org\\\/ntdo\\\/wp-admin\\\/post.php?post=475&action=sktbuilder\"},{\"title\":\"2022 Election\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/napervilledemocrats.org\\\/ntdo\\\/wp-admin\\\/post.php?post=11490&action=sktbuilder\"}], \"page\": \"The Comey Firing is Worse Than Watergate\" }) });<\/script><!-- end sktbuilder starter -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This isn\u2019t remotely like Watergate. During Watergate, honorable people in government resigned rather than be associated with improper acts. \u2014 David Frum (@davidfrum) May 13, 2017 As so often, James<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/the-comey-firing-is-worse-than-watergate\/\">+ Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[164,76,24,171,209],"class_list":["post-5871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-democracy","tag-dysfunctional-government","tag-extremist-gop-2","tag-trump","tag-trump-corruption"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/SamErvin-Watergate.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BzCg-1wH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5871"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5875,"href":"https:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5871\/revisions\/5875"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/napervilledemocrats.org\/ntdo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}