(09-02-2014 07:56 AM)CardFan1 Wrote: The Decline started when Democrats thought it best to bring down Nixon over a small scandal that becamed inflamed when the Democrats smelled Blood in the Watergate.
Nixon was months away from possibly winning the Vietnam War and after having a landslide election victory. The Dems couldn't afford such Success for a Republican President to achieve. The Liberal media made a circus out of it while Nixon didn't destroy taped conversations…
It is unclear who destroyed the tape with the infamous "18-1/2 minute gap". It may well have been Nixon himself who did that, although there are other, equally-plausible explanations.
At any rate, I have closely studied the hodgepodge of events collectively known as "Watergate" for more than 20 years, and I agree it's absurd that any American president was faced with the choice of impeachment-or-resignation over that matter. "Watergate" wasn't a total nothing, but it was close. The ability of Nixon's enemies to manufacture a full-blown national crisis out of that episode remains a sobering lesson, even four decades later. Still and all, the fact that Nixon could so incompetently allow himself to get drawn into that position says a lot about
him and his capacity (or lack thereof) for executive leadership. How did it happen? From April 1973, the American people waited for him to answer that question, and from then until April 1994 (when Nixon died), he never did. Didn't really even try to, as far as his public statements are concerned. RIP.
Since then, we have had three presidents -- Reagan, Clinton, and Bush/43 -- whose political enemies claimed committed misdeeds that were "worse than Watergate." Yet none of those three was removed from office, and really none of them were in too much danger of that happening to them (Clinton sort of, the other two not at all). I think, at some level, that reflects an unspoken consensus on the part of the American people that Watergate was a molehill-made-into-a-mountain, and they have no desire to repeat that experience if they can possibly help it.