 "Photo: Peter Franklin")
Every year journalism students learn about the Watergate scandal as one of the most important events in the history of their future profession.
On Friday, the two Washington Post journalists who tore down the Nixon administration with their investigative reporting in the 1970s, put the historic lessons learned during the infamous scandal into context with what they see as the failings of the current presidency. In front of a packed McCullough Theater on the UT Campus, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward made comparisons between Richard Nixon and President Bush.
Bernstein said both presidents share a fundamental "psychological unfitness for the presidency" during a three-hour, two-part panel discussion titled "The Legacy of Watergate: Why It Still Matters."
Watergate was a turning point in American history that made Americans conscious of the possibility for corruption and abuse of power in the White House. A generation later, the result of the recent mid-term elections show Americans recognize that the current administration has withheld information from American citizens about the war in Iraq, Woodward said.
"What we see today is an abuse of power that is even more egregious than in the Nixon administration," Bernstein said to an applauding audience.
The largely Watergate-era-aged crowd laughed and applauded at many of the statements made, mostly by Bernstein, about the far reaching consequences of a dishonest and secretive president.
"It's better to have a criminal president than an incompetent president," Woodward said. Nixon was impeached because his actions were criminal, while the actions of many incompetent presidents do far worse damage, but aren't grounds for legal action, he said.
Topics during the first discussion included the questions of why presidents abuse power, the federal government's neglect of Hurricane Katrina victims and specific stories about the political climate during the Watergate scandal, namely the Vietnam War.
"Vietnam and Watergate together caused millions of Americans to lose their trust in government," UT government professor Bruce Buchanan said in an e-mail. Buchanan moderated the first part of Friday's discussion. "People now tell pollsters that what they consider most important in presidential candidates is honesty, reflecting the hope (though no longer the expectation) of being able to trust the president."
During the panel, Woodward and Bernstein's banter was characteristic of two old friends, and personified their yin-and-yang dynamic, which is described in many introductory journalism textbooks.
"We'll never agree," Woodward said laughing after he and Bernstein argued about the reason for the original break-in at the Watergate Hotel during a question and answer session before the official discussion. At The Washington Post, Woodward was known as more conservative in his reporting style and political beliefs than Bernstein.
"This is why we were able to work well with each other," Bernstein said. "Because we had such different approaches."
In the first part of the discussion, Woodward joked about Bernstein's relationship with a Washington Post copy-girl, and told the audience that he and Bernstein still listen to the Nixon cassettes in their cars. Berstein added that the tapes are "better than hip-hop," which elicited laughter from younger audience members.
The second half of the discussion included a heated discussion about confidential sources, in which Austin American-Statesman editor Rich Oppel found himself pitted against the duo in his negative opinion on the use of unnamed sources. Woodward and Bernstein agreed that confidential sources often result in the best stories, and that sometimes they are the only way to know that officials on the record aren't being truthful.
"You're naive if you think people are going to go on the record," Woodward said. "We need more unnamed sources, because people who are on the record are lying."
Woodward and Bernstein's views on the current state and future of quality journalism are optimistic, in comparison to some other accomplished journalists. The press should be given credit for uncovering what we now know about Iraq, because the government has been so secretive, Bernstein said.
"People have a reason to keep secrets," he said. "But that's not only what journalism is about. It's about context and trying to find out what real existing life is all about."
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