Posted by: e w on 2009-12-02, 21:20:54

A lying, crooked President and his staff syping on the opposition.

Posted by: Huh? on 2009-12-02, 21:27:24

It started when burglars broke into the Watergate Hotel and Office Complex where the Democratic National Headquarters where. They were going to bug the headquarters but got caught by a security guard. The efforts of reporters from the Washington Post and the New York Times traced money that the burglars received back to the Nixon reelection committee. The resulting investigation lead to the exposing of a system of dirty tricks and misuse of the FBI, CIA and IRS to investigate the President's political opponents and illegal payoffs to try to cover up these activities. Eventually the investigation implicated the President in the cover-ups making him allegedly guilty of obstruction of justice, a felony. He resigned to avoid an impeachment and President Ford gave Nixon a pardon. Several high ranking officials did go to jail, including the attorney general.

Posted by: John W on 2009-12-02, 21:32:02

Nixon was paranoid and had "plumbers" break into democratic offices to see if there was any dirt on him. They were caught and Nixon resigned before he would have been impeached. President Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon. It is amazing with what the Clintons got away with. Hillary got hold of some FBI files that were incriminating to Bill Clinton. This was known as "Filegate" - Hillary was never prosecuted despite her fingerprints all over the files. Then there was Bergergate where former Clinton administrator Sandy Berger(AKA Burgular) was caught stealing documents from the Bush WH with documents stuffed in his socks and under his shirt. Berger was never prosecuted.

Posted by: James E Lewis AKA choteau on 2009-12-02, 23:37:05

The Republicans under Richard M Nixon's orders broke into the Democrat Headquarters in the WaterGate Hotel and planted bugs and copied files. And they were caught by WaterGate Hotel Security who brought in the Press and the Police. In other words they got caught doing what the Republicans always do.

Posted by: lienot on 2009-12-03, 07:04:11

Most were correct except"James E" who post more opinions that fact. This "watergate" break in was to find a list of known people that the democratic party had been proving prostitutes for. This has always been suppressed and Woodward & Bernstein where 2 reporters who HATED Nixon along with most of the media. To illustrate how bias Woodward was and still is during the Clinton administrations many debacles "filegate" , "travelgate" and all the others Woodward who is said to be the investigative reporter of the century wrote another book on "watergate" shows how bias he really was and is. Nixon was guilty mainly of trying to protect the advisers who really screwed up but unlike Kennedy's "bay of Pigs" invasion of Cuba which the press glossed over "watergate" has always been blown totally out of proportion