When Nancy Pelosi said she didn’t think it was time to impeach Donald Trump, my memories went back to 1973. In particular, they went back to July 2, 1973, and the quote above by, of all people, Gary Hart, about the ongoing Watergate revelations. It was published in the News Summary section of the New York Times along with the murder of Israeli military attache Josef Alon. The other big Watergate news was “Coast left-wing group reports G.O.P. aid.” The more things change and all that.
There was talk of impeachment in the air. This was the summer when people would stop in front of public television sets to watch, John Dean testifying that President Nixon knew about the Watergate break in and the cover up. People would talk about the hearings in the streets which were kind of an old fashioned version of Facebook or Twitter. You didn’t even have to loathe Richard Nixon to think he deserved being impeached. The facts were speaking for themselves.
Richard Nixon was never impeached. A bit over thirteen months later he resigned. Richard Nixon was a criminal and a slime. He deserved to be impeached, but the slow drip, drip, drip of revelations through the Watergate hearings were a more effective weapon. I watched a bit of the hearings, but they were horribly boring. The golden nuggets were few and far between, buried in mounds of formality and verbiage. The men testifying were no angels. Most of them were working for Richard Nixon. At best, they hoped to get off with a light sentence or perhaps even avoid prosecution. Meanwhile, they sang, and the nation listened.
Most people remember Gary Hart for challenging the press to prove he was having an extramarital affair and then getting caught out on a boat called “Monkey Business”, but he was an effective enough politician in his day. He understood that letting the Republicans stew while the entire nation watched Nixon’s criminal behavior become increasingly hard to deny or countenance. If you’ve ever wondered how a man like Jimmy Carter could get elected president, think of these hearings as his campaign ads. Jimmy Carter would never hang around with goons like John Dean or order the burglary of rival’s headquarters. It’s a marvel he was elected governor of Georgia.
Nancy Pelosi is old enough to remember Watergate. Impeachment is not the only way to bring down a president and permanently tar his wretched legacy. Let the venom drip for a while. Watch the squirming. Republicans will try to put their best face on it, but they’ll squirm. Raising the impeachment banner would just rally them. Most impeachments were just political maneuvering. That’s easy to fight. In fact, the Republicans are real good at it. Better to let them, as John Ehrlichman, one of Nixon’s advisors put it, “twist slowly, twist slowly in the wind”.