There is an old adage that says that history is always written by the winners. Although this is not always the case, it is true that people’s sense of historical events is often influenced by the viewpoints of the historians who write about them. During the Watergate scandal in 1974, many policy pundits wrote columns demanding that President Richard Nixon resign from the presidency because he was, in their view, clearly culpable for the Watergate break-ins. Not all pundits felt this way, however. The following analysis will look at two articles written by different authors depicting different views on the pertinent issue as well as how each of the author’s views impact the reader’s understanding of the Watergate crisis.
According to “The Unfinished Business” article, the president is painted in bad light for having taken part in the water-gate scandal. Additionally, he is given the character of an escapist for seeming to distance himself from the matter and instead handing it to the courts claiming that it was the institution mandated with prosecution of criminal violations (The Washington Post, 1973). A closer look at the turn of events show that the criminal violations claimed had not been narrowed down to identify whether the officials in the president’s high office had actually engaged in the violations. Additionally, there was need to establish whether the said officials had “met certain minimum standards of decency, propriety and honor”. The writer points out that the important thing was not just putting the public confidence at highest priority but also ensuring that the law was not broken. He states that the public is entitled to information on the integrity of top government officials in shunning lies, cheating and corruption in the government’s institutions.
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He faults the president for having put remedies that could not restore trust in the public. Instead, he says that the president only instituted minimum reforms in showing his seriousness in dealing with the Watergate corruption stating “The President was determined to do no more than the least that is required by the pressures of each new spasm of revelations; it is as if he were continuing to probe to find that level of public tolerance which would oblige him to concede the least” (The Washington Post, 1973).
An analysis of a different article, “In defense of Richard Nixon” shows contrary opinions to those of the previous article. The author faults the opinion of the Chicago editorial that called for the president to resign, deeming it as regrettable for two reasons (Burch, 1974). Firstly, the newspaper had a huge bearing on the people’s views and secondly, majority of editors working in the newspaper company were personally known by the president. He goes ahead and questions the reasoning behind their verdict of asking the president to resign. He points out that The Tribune claimed that through the scandal, Richard Nixon had been revealed as an individual, totally different from the one they knew. The harsh reasoning is laid on the one ugly incident that had occurred, abandoning the many things that the president had done for the public. In other words, he points it as a case of the society behaving like a donkey kicking its benefactor.
He justifies the president’s actions in handling the Watergate scandal as a means of achieving balance in the society, right from the command of law to the reputations and lives of his aides. Notably, he states that the president had been faced with a hard situation that required him to get his corrupt officials prosecuted and at the same time preserve the presidency which would be saving the nation from a larger crisis (Burch, 1974). Therefore, on answering whether Richard Nixon did any wrong, he out rightly states that “The president responded to emerging internal crisis in the manner of any man at the pinnacle of leadership”. He justifies this opinion by stating that although the matter was shocking to some people, those who knew the officials at the white house were not shocked. The tough nature of the president’s work is depicted as the main driving force in ensuring that the nation did not topple due to a single scandal. Moreover, the president having been elected by the people had a mandate of ensuring the survival of a nation. He highlights all the achievements that the president had made and ends in a statement that “Like all great presidents, he is not perfect. But he is not thus to be impeached” (Burch, 1974).
The Watergate events changed American views toward politics and politicians. The media covered the matter to look like the president was covering the corrupt in his administration. This painted all politicians in bad light as being out on a looting spree. In my view, these events changed the press coverage of politicians, making it extensive. The press was able to capture the actual speech by the president on the matter as well as the opinions of members of the congress. Additionally, the media coverage went to the extent of criticizing and giving views about political matters.
In speculating about how the Watergate event coverage might have been different in the age of social media and smartphones, my view is that it would be worse. It would also have lasted for a shorter time than it did since social media makes such events go viral in a short duration and the hype dies down after several weeks. From this, innovations in technology can be deemed to be harmful to the way that people understand current events. The focus is usually on spreading information without considering its credibility. Moreover, the social media does not consider a deeper analysis of the event making it to be shallowly or even wrongly understood.
References
Burch, D. (1974). The Harvard Crimson: In defense of Richard Nixon. Retrieved on December 4, 2016 http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1974/5/14/in-defense-of-richard-nixon-pithe/
The Washington Post. (1973). Editorial: Watergate: The unfinished business. Retrieved on December 4, 2016 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpsrv/national/longterm/watergate/articles/0501732.htm
