Thread by @SethCotlar

One difference between our current moment and Watergate is that in the 1970s there were at least some Republicans who were more loyal to empirical truth and the rule of law than they were to their president. We remember those anti-Bill Barrs positively.
washingtonpost.com/national-secur…

Go back and listen to Slow Burn season 1 and Bag Man. Nixon and Agnew were willing to do all kinds of crazy sh*t to stay in power, the difference was there were a few people around them and Republicans in positions of power with the courage to say "enough."

Part of our current problem is a problem of faulty historical memory. In my experience, many boomers (and even Gen Xers too) drew an understandable but ultimately only partially correct lesson from Watergate--that all politicians are crooks and all institutions are corrupt.

But what if Watergate was a success story, the lesson of which is that the press and political institutions, though imperfect, worked...they did their job of holding a powerful person accountable for their abuses.

But what if Watergate was a success story, the lesson of which is that the press and political institutions, though imperfect, worked...they did their job of holding a powerful person accountable for their abuses.

Our political culture would be healthier if, when we talked about Watergate, we spent less time talking about Nixon and the crooks and more time talking about Elliot Richardson and George Beall.

Beall and Richardson were genuine heroes...simply because they did their f-ing jobs in the face of tremendous harassment at the hands of a morally unhinged and vindictive GOP POTUS.

Carrying water for a conspiracy obsessed POTUS is J Edgar Hoover level stuff. Bill Barr is angling to have his name associated more with the Hoovers and Roy Cohns of US History, not the Elliot Richardsons. Sad.

This is merely one of many lessons we can draw from Watergate. Not meant to be exhaustive, just suggestive.