Woodward and Bernstein Ride Again

Actually, journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein have been riding for 50 years and never stepped back since their breaking investigative reporting helped expose the Watergate scandal that led to the downfall of a President. That work encouraged many students to take up journalism in the 1970s and 1980s, elevating a profession that had not been nearly as popular before Watergate. Both writers have continued journalism and are authors of multiple books, some among the best seller lists.

But today (Sunday, June 5) they are co-authors of an op-ed in the Washington Post (see Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein thought Richard Nixon defined corruption. Then came Donald Trump.), the newspaper that backed, supported, and published their findings about Watergate during the Nixon years. Here’s the opening of that op-ed:

President George Washington, in his celebrated 1796 Farewell Address, cautioned that American democracy was fragile. “Cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government,” he warned.

Two of his successors — Richard Nixon and Donald Trump — demonstrate the shocking genius of our first president’s foresight.

As reporters, we had studied Nixon and written about him for nearly half a century, during which we believed with great conviction that never again would America have a president who would trample the national interest and undermine democracy through the audacious pursuit of personal and political self-interest.

And then along came Trump.

The Watergate scandal defined much of my youth. (Tonight on CNN at 9pm, catch Watergate: Blueprint for a Scandal.) Woodward and Bernstein were defiant in chasing the story, devoting all their investigative skills and contacts into the fraud that led to the downfall of U.S. Republican President Richard Nixon.

Today they are back with their op-ed warning about former Republican President Donald J. Trump. During a joint appearance Sunday morning on CNN, they talked about the comparisons of Watergate and January 6.

Perhaps the biggest difference they pointed out between Watergate and January 6 was the courageous Republicans during Nixon’s White House years who upheld the constitution and held their party accountable. Congressional Republican leadership had marched to the White House and told Nixon the charges against him were overwhelming and he would not be acquitted by Congress if it came to a vote, eventually leading to Nixon’s resignation.

The January 6 scandal, however, shows a Republican leadership that has fallen in step with the violators, walking lock-step with Trump instead of holding him accountable, and they have refused to participate in the January 6 hearings.

The difference between the courage of GOP leadership in 1974, and the shameless GOP leadership in 2022, is stunning. Today, their myopic driving force is reelection and holding onto the reins of power including in my own very red area of western Virginia.

But it wasn’t always like this in western Virginia. During Watergate, 6th District Republican Congressman Caldwell Butler, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, voted to impeach Nixon and is said to have wept afterward.

Sadly, we don’t have that pragmatic country-over-party leadership in the 6th these days. Indeed, our current congressman was one of the 147 Republicans who voted to overturn the January 6, 2021, certification of the 2020 presidential election results …

… after the violent insurrection had taken place at the U.S. Capitol;

… after violent Trump supporters had erected gallows on the Capitol lawn and hunted for Vice President Pence in the hallways chanting, “Hang Mike Pence!”

… after members of Congress – his colleagues – had scrambled for safety by hiding in dark offices, closets, and anywhere they could find to be safe from the mob;

… after the mob had breached the Senate chamber.

GOP leadership between the Watergate years and January 6 has shown an ocean of difference in how the scandals have been handled … 1974 vs 2022.

In the closing words of Woodward and Bernstein’s op-ed, “As Washington warned in his Farewell Address more than 225 years ago, unprincipled leaders could create ‘permanent despotism,’ ‘the ruins of public liberty,’ and ‘riot and insurrection.’ ”

Cover photo: screen shot from CNN