Ducking Donald

Ducking Donald

Oops, I am going to have to disagree with Donald Trump. He said that the Hillary email scandal is as bad as Watergate. Whoa. Wait a minute. I respectfully disagree.

Watergate was a two-bit political espionage caper carried out by some pretty inept operatives. The goal was to ferret out the strategy of eventual landslide loser McGovern in the 1972 election. It had virtually no effect on the election. The only significance to it was the coverup that was initiated after the fact.

Nixon was largely innocent of any wrong doing until he started interfering with the investigation. Does anyone remember the infamous, missing 18 minutes? His secretary “accidentally” erased 18 minutes of what the investigators suspected was damning conversation about the subsequent activities to obscure the truth.

Missing minutes? Does that sound familiar? Yes, except the Watergate caper did not expose national secrets to any foreign power, friendly or hostile. It did not endanger, or even cost innocent lives. Once the fat hit the fire or fan or whatever, the wheels of justice ground inexorably to the proper conclusion. “I am not a crook,” notwithstanding.

So to equate the current “missing material” and subsequent coverup with the innocuous Watergate is a grave misstatement. But you know how circumspect Mr. Trump is. He did not want to over exaggerate his statement.

Is it 30,000 emails or 15,000 more, now 45K, or more? We do not know the extent of the exposure, let alone the damage. No wonder Hillary is running so hard for the Presidency. She wants to postpone the accounting for four or eight years.

At least Nixon is off the hook for being the biggest crook in American politics.