I started this post while I was watching what I thought were the live Jan 6 hearings Thursday. I was watching on YouTube, but I also followed the Twitter feed on the hearings and people were commenting on things I wasn't seeing. In the long run, that's good, because what I was watching was not what I would expect after the committee hired a consultant to help them make the hearings more compelling.
Turns out what I was watching was live in July 2021. For anyone objecting to the committee getting professional help, just watch the old hearing. You'll be thankful. Same sort of thing - four law enforcement officers telling their stories, comments by committee members - but dragged on too long and was repetitive.
Then I found rerun of Thursday's hearing and things made sense. It was significantly tighter and more compelling that the first one.
But, it still was a very different experience than the Watergate hearings. Those hearings had both Democrats and Republicans (a lot more even numbers) who took turns questioning witnesses. Yes, like most committee hearings, they had already questioned the witnesses in private and pretty much knew what they were going to say. But Republicans were able to do a sort of cross examination of the witnesses, softening the edges of those testifying against Nixon and bringing out more context in general.
Also, revelations came out over time. While the committee knew what was coming each day, often they only learned things a day or two before. Like when Alexander Butterfield revealed that Nixon had a secret recording system in his office. That was a blockbuster discovery. It meant everything that people testified had been said could actually be checked on tapes. Nixon went to the Supreme Court to prevent the release of the tapes claiming executive privilege. No one knew what the Court would say. But when they said the tapes weren't protected, it was pretty much over for Nixon once they started comparing the testimony against the tapes. Lots of lying about what people knew and when they knew it. Here's the part where Butterfield reveals the existence of the tapes.
This looks more like Trump impeachment hearings than the Jan 6 hearings, except the Republicans weren't stonewalling the whole event. The interrogator in the clip is Fred Thompson, on the Republican staff, and later a GOP Senator from Tennessee. In those days GOP staffers and members of Congress who helped investigate the GOP president weren't shunned by their party. And I don't recall any women or people of color involved. Lots of Southerners, who were mostly Democrats in those days.
The event Thursday night seemed more like the prosecution making their opening or closing argument before the jury. Lots of gushing over the witnesses. It was a strong, logical, evidence backed argument, but I can understand why GOP viewers might think it was partisan. The tone of the Watergate hearings was much more formal. While witnesses were thanked, they weren't fawned over.
I'd also note the timing of the events.
- The break-in occurred May 28, 1972 (50 years ago last month).
- Nixon was reelected in November 1972
- Alexander Butterfield testified before the Watergate Committee on July 16, 1973.
- Nixon resigned August 9, 1974.
These events just plodded along. Here's a detailed timeline.
The break-in didn't happen on national television like the insurrection did, but it took over two years before Nixon left office. He resigned rather than be impeached. Had he not resigned, it would have taken much longer.
Two years for our current scandal will be January 2023. And while Nixon supporters stayed loyal until the end, when it became clear he had lied to the American public, House and Senate Republicans did NOT rally to support him. (A few did, but most let him know he was going to be impeached if he didn't resign.)
[I realize as I write this there could be readers who don't know details beyond the word "Watergate." The Watergate housed a then new luxury hotel and office space and apartments. The Democratic National Committee had an office there and Nixon operatives broke into those offices to spy on the Democratic campaign headquarters. Sort of like breaking into the Democratic National Committee's computers in 2016]
Of course the other big difference between then and now is the audience at home. The testimony in the Watergate hearings both saddened and shocked much of the viewing audience. My sense of things now is that much of the American public is far less invested in the testimony than in 1973.
ReplyDeleteI hear way too many people who should know better justify the events of Jan 6.
Steve - I don't have enough info to evaluate the current audience. The Watergate hearings were mostly on during the day - long hearings, many hours if not all day. People were at work and had to listen to news reports in the evening. No ability to listen to Youtube videos whenever you had the time. What's clearly different this time is the well funded and well coordinated disinformation campaign going on. There were lots of skeptics in 1972-74, but nothing like what we have now.
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