They happened fifty years apart. One concerned a morally corrupt president, who was a master of foreign policy, using a unit that reported to the executive branch to gain info on his opponent. The other was a completely corrupt president using a unit that reported to the executive branch to gain info on his opponent. But whether it was Watergate or Mar-a-Lago, the corruption remains essentially the same. They are stories of administrations run amok in their desire to destroy their opponents at all costs.

The weird thing about the Watergate break in was that it was absolutely unnecessary. That year, 1972, was the first time I ever volunteered for a campaign. I was 11 years old and a total geek. I thought politics was a place I could find other political geeks to talk to. I was right, even to this day. Plus, I lived in South Florida and the GOP convention was in Miami Beach that year. So I got to go to it for a couple of days and do grunt work. It was the most fun I had ever had. I was hooked. But, I digress.

Nobody was going to beat incumbent President Richard Nixon in 1972. He was liberal enough domestically, yet realistically conservative in national security, that most intelligent Americans favored a second term for him. His first four years had been a triumph and even the already left wing media gave him grudging admiration for some aspects of it.

Combine that with the Vietnam draw down, the moon landing, and a decent economy and the writing was on the wall. He could coast to victory. Plus, the Dems had nominated Senator George McGovern, an ultra liberal holdover from the radical 60s left whose platform Nixon’s campaign termed as “Amnesty, Abortion, and Acid.” The “amnesty” referred to amnesty for Vietnam draft dodgers.

However, as likely as his reelection was, Nixon had a paranoid streak a mile wide that caused him to see disaster and conspiracy under every bed. It came from decades of being pummeled by an unfair liberal press. That attitude permeated the upper echelons of the White House.

So some of his White House aides and reelection team lackeys came up with a wacky plan to burglarize the DNC. They got caught. Nixon didn’t know or authorize the break in, but he covered it up. The rest is sad history.

Biden, on the other hand, is no master of policy gliding to reelection. And it wasn’t just some knuckleheads in the West Wing and Dem apparatchiks who planned the break in at Mar-a-Lago, but the entire DOJ using the FBI as their bully boys. Different scenarios to a point, but the essential corruption remains the same. Political hacks using official resources to target their political opponents, as they go on a fishing expedition for useful intel to use against the opposition. Biden’s is worse because he has slimed more of the Department of Justice and the FBI in the process.

Will Biden have to resign as a consequence, as Nixon did? Unlikely, as press outrage is still highly selective and thus there will be no general outcry for his head. Pity. Because in a constitutional republic, this kind of thing, no matter who the target, should get you ridden out of town on a rail.