"Why doesn't anybody have enough anymore?"

One of the questions we've been discussing on and off for a while now is how the Republican Party has changed since Watergate, and what the implications of those changes might be as the Trump administration continues a seemingly inevitable spiral of scandal. With recent events, the question is even more relevant.

A few hours before the Comey firing, Charles Pierce (who knows a thing or two on the subject) provided us with and illustrative clip.




And a characteristically sharp commentary.

That's Senator Lowell Weicker, Republican of Connecticut, telling John Ehrlichman, a thug in the employ of the Nixon White House, that, whatever alibis Ehrlichman had concocted to excuse himself and his boss for their blatant criminality, Weicker wasn't having it any more. This was in July of 1973, a full year-plus before Nixon finally was run out of power. At this point, there was no telling whether the White House stonewall was going to hold or not. (The number who knew was pretty much limited to the guilty, and the shell-mouthed operatives of the Watergate Special Prosecutor's office.) Being an independent-minded Republican still carried a considerable political risk. Weicker did not care. He'd had enough. Why doesn't anybody have enough anymore?