A whole generation of scandal enthusiasts were spoiled by this one.  It appears the only way we'll be satisfied now is if a scandal results in the downfall of the President and most everyone who worked for him going to jail.  Sadly we can't have that every time.

Nixon apologists want this one to be watered down or lesson somehow in the scope of history and they go through bizarre and desperate swipes ("the leftist media are to blame") but the more they try the dumber they look. . .

The mere fact that "gate" has come to be the suffix of virtually all political scandals that have followed it, surely puts this one at the top of the list.

Watergate was, indeed, 'a third-rate burglary' pulled off without presidential authorization by a handful of idiot spook cowboys (most notably G. Gordon Liddy). And it was the cover-up, indeed, that doomed Nixon to resignation and lasting ignominy. These facts have been used by Republicans (together with examples of earlier abuses of power, notably by LBJ) to excuse Nixon's acts: They were 'nothing out of the ordinary' he was 'brought down by others' and 'all presidents break the law'. With the release of the Nixon tapes, however, it is now clear that Nixon was in a class of his own: a paranoid, dishonest, vindictive creep with no respect for the US system of government, civil rights or the separation of powers. Unlike Grant or Harding, Nixon was not the passive victim of a crooked cabinet. On the contrary: Nixon surrounded himself with amoral lackeys and cronies (Halderman, Ehrlichman, Kissinger) willing to carry out his orders (legal and otherwise) without question. Watergate does not refer to just one particular crime. It is shorthand for the legacy of crimes and abuse of power that was the Nixon administration-by far, the worst political scandal in American History.

ORIGINAL COMMENT 7/29/04: What was the crux of Watergate? Everyone knows that it was the name of the office complex where the DNC HQ was located that the plumbers (including G. Gordon Liddy) broke into, right? The long and short of it is they were caught, and traced all the way back to the president who, in his paranoia, wasn't content with the most one-sided landslide victory in the history of the two party system. A president so despised by the mainstream press, that he resigned in disgrace over the cover-up that he engineered. Hillary Rodham was, of course, a staffer for the Senate Committee investigating Watergate, right? She learned a lot about how to handle scandals from that experience. UPDATE: Specifically to mag, I don't mean to imply that Hillary was in some way responsible for Nixon's downfall, only that she was well schooled in how a smear campaign is conducted and should be reacted to. The American press doesn't deserve the same disclaimer, though. This is a scandal fueled and kept alive by the press, sometimes on little more than hunches and hatred. Woodstein did some great investigative reporting, but not many newspapers could dedicate two reporters for 18 straight months to little more than one story. My own theory is that Woodward knew the whole story from the beginning and fabricated the character Deep Throat so that it looked like an evolution of discovery. Nixon's paranoia kept him from reacting properly to the initial story, and he definitely obstructed justice and attempted to cover up the activities of his re-election campaign. Interestingly, he didn't lie into the camera, or lie under oath. He resigned in disgrace before it got to that, unlike a subsequent president with lower moral standards. UPDATE: Well now, see that? I was wrong about Deep Throat. Mark Felt (who served time in prison for ordering wiretaps of Americans, unrelated to Watergate), Deputy Director of the FBI under Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, had been groomed by the viciously vindictive J. Edgar Hoover to be his replacement when he died. The press coverage of his coming out at age 91 has been nothing less than pom-pom pumping. This man violated his oath, surreptitiously divulged sensitive information to a newspaper reporter who had been unable to discover the truth on his own and single-handedly caused the impeachment of an American President. Now, you can hate Nixon all you want (as I certainly did), and you can assure me that the truth ultimately came out (which it didn't) but what this man did was and is despicable. And he did it, not in the interest of truth but out of a capricious vengeance at not being appointed FBI Director by Nixon, who said he passed over him and other career FBI cronies in an attempt to clean up the FBI after Hoover's corrupt tenure. Would it have been so honorable had Felt done the same thing to Bill Clinton? Or Jimmy Carter? How would your viewpoint have changed then? At least Ken Starr had been appointed by Janet Reno to do exactly what he did do. She could have fired him at any time if his investigation was out of order. I know Felt is an old man and I wouldn't seek punishment or prosecution, but the fawning press, who always hated Nixon so much and is very appreciative to this man for being so helpful to them, could at least call his deeds by the right names. Is that so much to ask?

the initial break-in would have probably been national news for two weeks at the most, but the cover-up was what did nixon and his minions in.

Brought about an enormous loss of faith, even moreso than before, in the competency of our government and the presidency. Not that they were particularly well-regarded before, but Watergate definitely made things worse.

To me, Watergate is the ultimate symbol of presidential abuse of power and disrespect to the office of the President. And no Eschew Obfuscation, I don't think you can blame Hillary or the liberal media for this one.