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Watergate would not have played out the same way today because Congress no longer performs its oversight role, said Carl Bernstein, one of the journalists famous for uncovering the story. “The difference with today is that the system did its job. The press did its job. The court did its job. The Senate committee did its job,” Bernstein said Saturday. “There’s been great reporting on this president. But there’s been no oversight. We have a Democratic Congress now and there’s still no oversight.” Bernstein also said that “35 years of ideological warfare” could also change how the public would react to such a scandal. “We live in a very different atmosphere today,” Bernstein said. “With Watergate, eventually the people of this country looked around and decided Nixon was a criminal president. I’m not sure the same chain of events would have taken place today.” Bernstein spoke at a 35-year retrospective on the notorious break-in and subsequent investigation that forced the resignation of President Richard Nixon. The session was part of the 2007 Society of Professional Journalists National Convention. Scott Armstrong, who investigated Watergate for the Senate Watergate Committee and participated in Saturday’s forum, said it is not entirely accurate that the institutions of Washington worked properly. He said the government’s investigation wound down before it exposed the full extent of payments to Nixon by billionaire Howard Hughes. Because of that, Armstrong said, “Nixon was able to rehabilitate himself and become the great statesman.” “One lesson of Watergate is that cover-ups work,” said Armstrong, now the executive director of Information Trust. “The system worked well enough that that a president resigned. But it did not work well enough that we knew what happened.” Bernstein’s reporting partner Bob Woodward disagreed with the idea that Nixon’s image was ever rehabilitated, saying, “If you go around the country, there are no Richard Nixon High Schools.” Woodward and Bernstein’s executive editor at The Washington Post, Ben Bradlee, said the media will always have an incentive to after stories like Watergate. “Publishers know it’s good business to tackle something like this and get it right,” Bradlee said. “I can’t see anyone backing off now.” Pressed about media mogul and Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch buying the Wall Street Journal, Bradlee said “Look, Murdoch’s gonna make the Post a perfectly good paper.” Woodward tapped him on the arm and Bradlee corrected the name of the publication amid laughter.” Seated in canvas-backed director’s chairs with several other participants, Bradlee, Woodward and Bernstein got the rock-star treatment from the standing room only crowd in the ballroom of the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill. A host of digital cameras shot up from the crowd as they arrived, and afterward they were surrounded by autograph seekers. Bernstein also quipped about why the identity of Mark Felt, a source famously known as “Deep Throat,” stayed secret for so long. Said Bernstein, “None of us told our first wives.” |
