Happy Watergate Break-in Day. Forty years ago today, security guard Frank Wills noticed duct tape on a door near the offices of the Democratic National Committee, and a little over two years later, Richard Nixon resigned.
Those of us who care about the abuse of power and the rule of law owe a big debt to Mr. Wills, who unfortunately is no longer around to collect it. But we take comfort in the knowledge that only in America can a black man working the $80-a-week graveyard shift end up bringing down an entire Republican administration.
Mr. Wills didn't do that himself, of course. He had a lot of help from Woodward and Bernstein, The Washington Post, Mark Felt, John Dean, Alexander Butterworth and Nixon himself. But if Mr. Wills had been unobservant or too careless to call the police that night, who knows what else Nixon, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell and Colson could have gotten away with?
We cats are sure you'll be treated to a ton of Watergate retrospectives over the coming months, but today belongs to Frank. So we PURR in his direction, and say thanks for doing what Richard Nixon swore to but never did — preserving, protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States.
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