Watergate's Clearest Lesson

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Compared with Watergate, a scandal like Teapot Dome was onedimensional, a routine political corruption played out at high levels. Watergate was crucially different. It was not a grab for mon ey, but for power; that distinction, in a democracy, is everything. Moneygrubbing is unsavory. Power grabbing, the plot to steal an election (which, weirdly enough, was already safely assured), was infinitely more serious. It was an attack on the American idea. That is important because if America loses its idea, it becomes merely sordid and fallen and dangerous.

—By Lance Morrow