Richard Nixon

Noteworthy events from our common experience

 

Next year marks the 40 th anniversary of the culmination of the Watergate scandal, which ended in the summer of 1974 when Richard Nixon defiantly boarded a helicopter on the White House lawn and left his presidency - and the American public's trust in their government - smoldering on the ground…

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is plenty upset. The leak of a surreptitious recording of one of his reelection campaign's strategy sessions captures McConnell and his aides discussing possible attacks on actress Ashley Judd - at the time a potential Democratic opponent - over her…

Sen. George S. McGovern is remembered mostly as an opponent of the Vietnam War and as the ill-fated Democratic presidential nominee in 1972. After a campaign marred by mishaps - from an out-of-control national party convention schedule to revelations that his vice presidential pick, Thomas…

In striking down major portions of federal campaign finance law  in 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court opened the floodgates for unlimited "independent" expenditures on behalf of presidential candidates. As long as the groups doing the spending - and the donors that bankroll them - don't directly…

Can it really be 40 years ago this weekend that the bungled "third-rate burglary" at the Watergate Hotel marked the beginning of the end for a President of the United States?