When I was a small child in 1952, the political slogan was, “I like Ike.” I asked my mother whether she liked Ike. She told me that Eisenhower was okay, but that vice presidential nominee Nixon was a crook, so she was voting for Stevenson. 22 years later she had ice cold revenge. Now that she is 99 y.o., his name is sure to get a venomous response.
In 1972 I had my first letter to the editor published, and it was about the Watergate break-in. Published five days later, I suggested it was a “Mission Impossible” type operation, and I included the television tag line, “As you know, if you are caught, the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your activities.”
History shows that I was as right then as my mother had been 20 years before. I followed the scandal obsessively for the next two years.
I have been staying with my mother, who has mobility issues but no cognitive issues, and rooting through her files, I came on a book on the Watergate scandal.
Looking through it, I realized that the current scandal is following that one almost like a remake of the same script. Not in the details, but in the tactics and strategy use by the White House to defend a criminal act.
Remember the term “modified limited hangout?” My first rule of political reporting is that whatever they are willing to admit to, reality is a lot worse. Nothing is admitted to, of course, until it has been proven by the presentation of new evidence.
Here we find the similarity between the Ukraine event(s) and Watergate. We know from the accidental delivery of talking points to Democrats what the strategy is. That would NOT be to produce evidence to support claims, but to use “talking points.” It is the same strategy as Nixon’s, to admit what is already known, and draw a line there. When new evidence destroys that position, back up and find a new explanation . When that explanation falls to new evidence, back up to a new position and repeat, because as long as you can keep moving, “They would NEVER convict me in the Senate.” That’s what Nixon thought, until Republican senators started to think about the upcoming 1974 election.
By my estimation the GOP has reached the “Nixon in April, 1974” stage of grief.