Fifty years later, Watergate has remained the scandal by which subsequent ones are measured. Why does it stand the test of time, still provoke interest, still lead us every five or 10 years to look at it anew?
. But we still talk about political smoking guns; the Enemies List and the Saturday Night Massacre remain reference points in our political cultures; and we continue to name new scandals with the suffix “-gate.” Watergate has remained the scandal by which subsequent ones are measured. Textbooks and high school teachers still explain it as the defining event of the Nixon years — and, indeed, a watershed in American public life that put an end to our heroic view of the presidency.
Why? How come Watergate stands the test of time, still provokes interest, still leads us every five or 10 years to look at it anew? One way to answer the question is to think of Watergate as a classic novel — and like many great novels, it has a gripping plot, larger-than-life characters, and a timeless theme.
Workmen remove a desk from a Democratic National Committee office in the Watergate complex in Washington on April 20, 1973. | AP Photo
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