To us ole watergate veterans, doesn't it feel like about mid-june of '74

right when many of us were thinking what is it going to take to get rid of this vermin tricky dick and then things little by little started coming together and by summers end we were shed of nixon and his merry band of crooks. It's hard for me, because of my experience back then, to not be feeling a little jubilant today. bushco* does not hold the upper hand any longer and that was/is their last grasp.

I was just saying this to my father the other day.

I thought their days were numbered after I saw Farenheit 9/11.

America is on the mend and will do whats right by this, we're much stronger that a two-bit tenhorn dictator. I'll either be proven right on this or I'll be going to my grave whenever that is as a mad assed okie.

The only problem is that our DOJ back then was a real DOJ. bush's DOJ is part of the crime. There is no one who can make them stop except congressional impeachment and they are chicken.

That's why they needed not 1, but 2 special prosecutors in sequence. It was finally Congress in the person of Sam Ervin who sewed Nixon in the bag.

That was a hell of a summer.

I was only 4 in '74 so I really don't remember much of Watergate. I do remember asking my Mom what a "Watergate" was. I thought it was a gate in a river. :)

It seems like our situation today is much more complex and serious than anything Nixon did. John Dean certainly agrees, I hope he releases a new version of his book.. "Worse-er Than Watergate"

back with the dickster so they have honed it down to a pretty sharp edge but they forget we have a lot of people who are very scared that we are loosing our constitution and will fight to keep it if thats what it takes. America is on track to take back what is ours to begin with, the bush* cabal will meet Miss Justice and soon

to get him outta there.

My mom threw a party the day he resigned. :)

went on to have one hell of a party afterwards that pretty much lasted the whole weekend. we won or something like that was our battle cry IIRC

I remember playing "Lincoln Logs" on the floor in front of the T.V. set while the hearings were going on..

It might be time to invest in some more "Lincoln Logs"...

WH panicking. News getting really really, juicey. Threats of constitutional crises looming on the horizon. Interesting time.

there are no new Plymouths or Oldsmobiles. But we still have a crook in the White House, and there are lots of investigations underway that could lead to impeachment/resignation. Who knows.

But yes, suddenly it's 1974 again...

to overthrow our government and get away with it. if he is not brought to justice then we are no longer the same country with the same government we used to have any longer

it feels like Vietnam is still going on, and an imminent invasion of Cambodia is in the works!

However, the Supreme Court could be counted on to uphold the Constitution back then. It was US v. Nixon that forced him to release the Oval Office tapes. I'm not sure we can count on SCOTUS this time. Depends on Kennedy, and he's been pretty loopy lately.

when I realized 70% of Americans supported Clinton and realized the crazy right wing nut bags were crazy.

I remember thinking at that time that Americans were basically decent people and even with the media pushing Monica 24/7, 70% of us "got it".

Sure took us a long time to "get it" this time but I think part of it was 9/11. We need to remember how vulnerable we all felt that day and recognize that vulnerability is debilitating.

At any rate, we're back.

(Although I was old enough in 1974, my parents were living in Scotland and I went to see them that summer. I remember waiting for the ferry to come home we got a paper saying something about the tapes and showing it to my dad and saying "now don't you think he should resign?" He said "yes." He resigned that night. It was Reagan though turned my dad into a raving liberal but I think he started to see the light then. There aren't so many now but during those times there were lots of Republicans who were decent people. Dean is the perfect example. Where is Bush's John Dean?)

and watching the hearings. They were fascinating. If it weren't for Richard Nixon, I probably wouldn't be here today.

and developing a crush on--John Dean.

Who knew he would be prominent this time as well?

was cool back then, he has evolved into such a classy, handsome, so very intelligent hotty. Sorry, I've always had a little crush on him also.

one on Donny Osmond, so go figure! :rofl:

Bush has got Al Q lined up for him. Did Nixon have a diversion?

I remember Watergate fairly well as my parents believed (correctly) that Nixon was pure evil, but still took no glee in his resignation. I was 16 during the summer of '74, so I was also interested in cars and girls, although not necesssarily in that order. But Watergate did rivet the nation. But, we had different reporters back then, people who actually wanted to get to the bottom of stories. And Cheney and co. were just cutting their political teeth then as well. They have lying and cheating down to an art form now.

By mid- June 1974, the following already had occurred: The Senate Select Committee hearings (authorized Feb. 73, held May 1973), the appointment of Archibald Cox as special prosecutor (May 1973); the revelation of the WH taping system (July 1973), the Saturday Night Massacre (October 1973), the nearly unanimous bi-partisan vote (410-4) authorizing the House Judiciary Committee to commence an impeachment investigation and inquiry (Feb 1974), and those Judiciary Committee hearings had started (May 1974).

I'm afraid we're much farther back in the process than things were in mid-June 1974.

You did not have Fox News & CNN to spout off Karl Rove's talking points that have been circulated around RW talk radio, which was also not around back then, either.

I hope I'm wrong, but I think the RW echo chamber will help to deflect the impact of any major congressional investigations.

keeping viewers and telling us the truth or take a chance on alienating themselves moreso than they already have.

Because of Watergate, they learned to deny everything and fight 'tooth and nail' every effort to reign in corruption. They learned to secret/block witnesses, refuse to cooperate with Congress, destroy all evidence, and lie as a first option about everything that could open them up to liability.

In the end they believe that Nixon was forced from office because he underestimated his opponents and was not ruthless enough in carrying out the coverup and destroying evidence.

Plus, the MSM was not owned by them in 1974.

This is going to be an all out fight to the death. Do not expect Bush/Rove/Cheney/Gonzo and their NeoCon pals to admit anything and to be ruthless in silencing those inside the Administration.

It is going to take someone on the 'inside' to bring them down. And that someone is going to have to be one brave patriot to step forward.

There needs to be severe punishment this time or we will fight this same battle over and over. Anyone familiar with Watergate and Iran/Contra should have learned that lesson.

I just pray--literally--that the Legislative branches know what we know and that the RRRs in them realize that W and the cabal doesn't care anymore about them than they do about the Dems.

The Legislative body is their collective enemy and I don't think anyone gets that yet.

An all powerful Executive Branch promotes what many conservatives fear, an all powerful dictatorial government.

I am not pretending that the RW Conservative Appointees to the Courts are changing their spots and leaning left now. However, the Courts realize that Bush is headed straight for a 'marginalized' Judicial Branch, and if they cede that to him they might as well hang up their robes and stay at home.

These are conservative judges, no question. However, they have lifetime appointments and they will not give up their turf to a 'little dictator' who espouses Republican values only to consolidate his power.

We no longer have Sam Ervin's who value Nation above party. The Supreme Court are in BushCo's pocket. We have a very powerful media which is nothing more than a propaganda arm of the ruling party (a few stalwarts such as Bill Moyers and Keith Olbermann are just not enough as opposition). The media propaganda barrage is now relentless and 24/7 instead of one half-hour nightly with Walter Cronkite at dinner hour. A much greater portion of the public doesn't know (and weren't taught) their "civics", their Constitution, and their rights. (Sadly, I suspect that holds true for a good percentage of congress critters as well.) Bush, Cheney and Rove are WAY FURTHER down the road to supreme Presidential power than Nixon ever even fantazized about.

However, in '74 media was not controlled by the neocons, and most members of the House and Senate placed a high value on integrity.

to me at all. Bush has too many of his cronies in all the right places. Back in 1974 there were (believe it, or not) many honorable politicians who did have a moral co,mpass, and who were Americans first, and republicans second. I see little or none of that today. I feel increasingly convinced that Bush will not go the way of Nixon or Clinton. I wish with all my heart to be wrong. The bastard and Cheney both need to be impeached, tried by a real court of law and imprisoned. I do not believe anything will happen to either of them, though.

and that the wheels are seemingly coming off their cart. the one thing that bushco* can't have and that is any semblence of oversight which they are getting now and are fighting so hard against. Americans are waking up just like Americans did in the summer of '74 and once that 800 pound gorilla starts rattling cages and making noises our elected officials will take a new liking to their jobs and do what they should have already done. What you're saying is right about the cronies and embeds and all but the mood of today has swung to the mood of the days in discussions.

because in my youth I was a (gasp) republican.

I hated LBJ with a passion, for promising "ah won't send uhmuricun boahs to faht in some ayzhun woah" while Goldwater was pilloried as out to exterminate old people, and then once elected ramping up as fast as he could, telling the generals 'ah'll give you yo' woah"

LBJ was like ghouliani - an opportunist grabbing the country's sympathy over a tragedy and using it for personal gain, with deceit and chicanery that might even rival bush's.

So against that backdrop, I bought Nixon's "secret plan to end the war" bullshit. I actually liked him for a long time. I thought he was more of a straight talker than LBJ. I liked Humphrey, but was so turned off by LBJ that, had I then been in Chicago, there might have been a "Chicago 9."

So I was then what the diehard bushies are now. I tried to tell myself Watergate was "just" overzealous political chicanery - that the perps were caught and now lets move on. I WANTED my guy not to be a crook. I remember taking a walk with a coworker in October, '72; we had just passed the White House, were crossing the Ellipse toward the Washington Monument. The election came up; I said I supported Nixon; he said he was voting for McGovern - that he thought "there is more to this Watergate thing than meets the eye." That conversation haunted me for a long time. I worked in a company that was largely very right-wing types. That this engineer (also a conservative demographic) was thinking this way caused me to do some soul-searching. I opened my eyes and ears a bit, started actually thinking, rather than just reacting to the slogans, stereotypes, and prejudices. I was pretty devastated when Nixon resigned - oh, by that time I knew he was the amoral crook he had turned out to be - that the Presidency had been so degraded. I voted for Ford in 76, then for John Anderson in '80 (my transitional year) and for Democrats ever since then.

Looking back, I can't believe I failed to cast votes for McGovern and Carter. I now understand how right they both were.

What we need more than anything is to lower the voices and do what people like Waxman, Conyers, Leahy are doing. Shine the light on things. Get even more of the diehards to have that epiphany I had, starting with that walk across the ellipse. If we can reduce the combativeness and get more people to think - to use reason - then making wholesale change will be a whole lot easier.

although to me that day was when they killed JFK, in my mind on that day there was no way it could have happened the way it did and I still feel that way. What you say there at the last is so very much what we need to continue to do. Please don't give up cause I truly believe America as a whole is much stronger than the criminal cabal who have us by the short hairs now.

the real Day the Music Died.

I have said many a time that I think everything since JFK's assassination has been a bad dream.

But ironically, although I was raised in a Republican household - I think my dad thought the world had ended when Kennedy won, that event did not turn me away from the Republicans; Johnson managed to reverse what had been a drift leftward.

I was a boy scout in 1960; we acted as reporters for the local TV station. Went to a polling place, got the tally after the poll closed, and phoned it in to the station so they could report trends.

My particular polling place went for Kennedy. I recall being somewhat conflicted; I knew Dad hated that that happened - that I had to report such a travesty - but I secretly kind of liked the guy. I was really warming to him by the time he was killed. Then LBJ undid all that.

and you are right, this is just about the after days of the Saturday Night Massacre

People finally GOT It... but the congress is still wavering

I know damn history degree

;-)