I was watching "All The President's Men" last night...

[stpalm]

Great movie. Anyway, near the end, Ben Bradlee is talking to Woodward and Bernstein. This is just after they had established links to Haldemann in the WH. Bradlee says:

Ben Bradlee: You know the results of the latest Gallup Poll? Half the country never even heard of the word Watergate. Nobody gives a shit. You guys are probably pretty tired, right? Well, you should be. Go on home, get a nice hot bath. Rest up... 15 minutes. Then get your asses back in gear. We're under a lot of pressure, you know, and you put us there. Nothing's riding on this except the, uh, first amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press, and maybe the future of the country. Not that any of that matters, but if you guys fuck up again, I'm going to get mad. Goodnight.

Persistence paid off for those guys.

So the Downing Street Memo- the Rove/Plame stuff- Talk about it! These stories could be it!

[im10ashus]

1. Exactly!

I saw that again about a month or so ago. It TOTALLY parallels what is happening today. Only worse, IMHO!

[endarkenment]

2. the differences are very significant

At the time there was a clear split in the establishment over the war. A Democratic congress faced a Republican president. The SCOTUS was way liberal compared to today. There was a huge organized anti-war movement that was capable of putting 100,000s on the street and shutting down the university systems. While there were fewer media outlets, the ones that existed were actually independent.

The right retreated to their caves and did their homework. They are very well prepared and are in control of just about everything except the internet.

[housewolf]

3. Did you see Bob Wordward on c-cpan's interview last night?

It was an hour-long interview, good in-depth interview. The subject came up about the lock-down of the executive branch going on now, and the question arose as to whether Bob (or someone) would be able to find out everything today that they found out about Watergate. "I hope so" is what he said, and they talked for a few minutes about WH sources and Woodward gave out his email address, saying he hoped that if illegal and abusive things were going on that someone would have the courage to come forward. Quite interesting.