“I Am Not A Crook” -Oh Yes You Were

Over forty years ago the nation was shaken by allegations that the Watergate complex was broken into and the trail led back to the President of the United States, Richard Nixon.

From the Washington Post 1973:

Declaring that “I am not a crook,” President Nixon vigorously defended his record in the Watergate case tonight and said he had never profited from his public service.

“I have earned every cent. And in all of my years of public life I have never obstructed justice,” Mr. Nixon said.

“People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook. I’ve earned everything I’ve got.”

So how did that turn out?

With that, the beleaguered commander-in-chief painted himself into a corner from which resignation offered his only escape less than a year later.

It was Hoover’s death in 1972 that led directly to Nixon’s downfall. He felt helpless and alone with Hoover gone. He no longer had access to either the Director or the Director’s bank of Personal Files on almost everybody in Washington.

For Nixon, the loss of Hoover led inevitably to the disaster of Watergate. It meant hiring a New Director — who turned out to be an unfortunate pick named L. Patrick Gray, who squealed like a pig in hot oil the first time Nixon leaned on him. Gray panicked and fingered White House Counsel John Dean, who refused to take the rap and rolled over, instead, on Nixon, who was trapped like a rat by Dean’s relentless, vengeful testimony and went all to pieces right in front of our eyes on TV.

It is not new to have a President act in shameful ways.

The opinions in this blog are those of Tom Knuppel