Nixon resignation stands as best modern test of enduring quality of American democracy
No fiction could match the real-life challenge to American democracy represented by the Watergate break-in, the subsequent cover-up โ and the two-year odyssey of journalistic and congressional investigations that ultimately led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon 40 years ago today. That real-life soap opera makes the tawdry Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky White House tainting seem like a minor, cancelled TV series by comparison. It all began during the stretch drive of Nixonโs 1972 march toward landslide reelection for a…