In Sunday’s Sun: not the crime, always the cover-up
It’s not the crime; it’s the cover up.
As older generations may recall, that old political axiom can be traced to the Mother of All Scandals, Watergate. Back in June 1972, five Republican operatives — White House “plumbers,” they were called — were caught breaking into the Democratic National Headquarters at Washington’s Watergate complex. It was a third-rate burglary attempt, but by the time it had run its course, it had forced the resignation of president Richard M. Nixon.
The five were connected to the aptly named CREEP — Committee to Re-elect the President — and, a few days later, Nixon discussed the break-in with his senior staff. The discussions were tape recorded, and they later made clear that Nixon wanted his loyalists to intervene in the police investigations into the burglary and cover up the plumbers’ links to the White House.
Nixon was undone by the break-in and his insistence on surreptitiously taping discussions in the Oval Office, of course. The efforts of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward at the Washington Post didn’t help, either. But what ultimately led to his August 1974 resignation was the evidence found on the tapes, which clearly showed that Nixon wanted the CIA to obstruct the FBI’s ongoing investigation into Watergate. The cover -up, not the burglary.
The “cancer on the presidency” can now be seen, in a different context, in both Ottawa and Toronto. The two Conservatives who preside over the largest fiefdoms — Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mayor Rob Ford — are struggling to contain growing scandals that contain odd parallels to Watergate.
Like Nixon, Harper and Ford have been obliged to end their relationships with their most trusted aides, their chiefs of staff. Like Nixon, the two Conservative icons have adopted a self-defeating communications strategy that has pinballed between sullen silence, angry denials, and pathetically transparent attempts to change the channel. Like Nixon, Harper and Ford have shaken the confidence of their conservative core. And, as in Watergate, the media are savaging Harper and Ford in a way they have never done before — as one beast, and without fear or favour. Their adversaries are now poring through statutes, looking for laws to bring down men who once seemed invincible.
In Harper’s case, it was what he knew, and when, about his former chief of staff’s decision to slip $90,000 into the bank account of disgraced Conservative Sen. Mike Duffy. The rules do not permit gifts over $500 to senators, unless they are registered with the ethics officer — something Duffy did not do. If it was a gift, then it was against the Senate’s own conflict of interest code, since giving “a gift or other benefit” was also strictly prohibited. Given his reputation for micro-management, it’s hard to believe Harper’s claims he was unaware of the rule-breaking.
In Ford’s case, the facts are seamier. Reporters insist they have seen a tape of the mayor of North America’s fourth-largest city seemingly smoking crack cocaine. In the wake of that, there have been allegations about drug-peddling by Ford’s circle, and even his brother; dark mutterings about a murder of a young man who was connected to the alleged video; resignations and/or firings of his most senior aides; and — most ominously — reports late in the week raising concerns that records of former Ford staffers had been ordered destroyed, ostensibly to hide the truth. The city denied any records were ordered destroyed.
It isn’t the alleged crack-smoking or the gift-giving, ironically, that have the potential to derail Harper’s and Ford’s respective reigns. All that the pair needed to do was admit to mistakes earlier on, seek public forgiveness and describe steps to prevent reoccurrence. Instead, the two Conservative fishing buddies have been in weeks-long downward spirals of denial and, now, seeming cover-up. If the reports are true, Ford is at risk of being accused of obstruction of justice, as Nixon was, and Harper, apparent abuse of power and contempt of Parliament. Like Nixon.
To partisan Conservatives, the similarities to Watergate may seem a stretch.
But, at the start, Nixon probably thought he was untouchable, too.
