Lessons from Watergate

On July 4, 1826, as citizens celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of America's freedom, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died in their respective homes. From that day forward, historians have enjoyed imbuing the men's synchronized passing with a kind of other-worldly irony, inspiring them to look both forward and backward in assessing the legacy of these Founding Fathers.

A similar event transpired last weekend, when two symbols of American justice and presidential politics died on the same day, just as the nation was gearing up for Memorial Day. To be sure, the simultaneous passing of Archibald Cox and Sam Dash will not be remembered with the same providential reverence as the Jefferson-Adams deaths, but rather as one of those fluky bits of timing.

All the same, in remembering the feats both men performed during a time of unprecedented domestic turbulence, one can't help but recognize how far we have come as a nation, and yet -- as always -- how history is doomed to repeat itself.

As chief counsel for the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign activities -- otherwise known as the Watergate Committee -- Sam Dash oversaw the legal machinations of the Congressional inquiry, a painful proceeding that would ultimately lead to the first and only resignation of an American president.

Archibald Cox, meanwhile, occupied a stormier perch in the Watergate scandal. Appointed as the government's special prosecutor into the affair, Cox was one of three high-ranking officials (including the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General) who lost their jobs on what became known as the "Saturday Night Massacre" -- simply for doing what they believed was right for the American people.

While the deaths of Dash and Cox have induced a predictable spate of Watergate nostalgia in the media, a more valuable lesson hides between the lines of their obituaries. Recalling their actions during the convulsive days of Watergate, I couldn't help but recognize how the very quest for justice both men pursued 30 years ago, and the bedrock principles of democracy that informed those efforts, are still alive and well in the current debate over the performance of our 43rd President.

Take Archibald Cox. Before his egregious dismissal from his job as chief prosecutor, Cox had been nothing less than thorough in teasing out the seedier back-story to the Watergate fiasco. Lurking among the darker corners of the Nixon Administration, Cox helped uncover financial shenanigans within the Nixon re-election campaign, as well as damning evidence of conspiracy and cover-up within the highest reaches of the White House. And, of course, it was Cox's unyielding demand that Nixon turn over secret tape recordings made in the Oval Office that led to his firing.

In hindsight, Cox's doggedness in pursuit of the truth now seems not only justified but downright commendable, considering the outcome. So why do supporters of the current President insist that similar probes are out of bounds and unpatriotic?

Is it such a reach to compare the investigation of Nixon's notorious slush fund to the ongoing questions over the Bush Administration's chronic back-channeling of contracts and tax-breaks to former oil and business cronies? Were the Watergate conspiracy and cover-up any less murky than the ever-unfolding story of the Administration's secret ramp-up to the war in Iraq? And, frankly, how different was Cox's demand for the White House tapes from the ongoing pleas by journalists and legislators for the Bush Administration to hand over similarly vital evidence? It is unsettling, to say the least, that Nixon's stonewalling is now perceived as a fatal flaw, and yet the current administration has demonstrated the same kind of stubborn secrecy when petitioned for any number of documents -- from pre-9/11 memos, to early revelations about the Abu Ghraib mess, to the still-undisclosed details of the Vice President's Energy Task Force.