Watergate: No myth like an old myth

The “heroic journalist” narrative is nowhere as long-lasting or as duplicitous as the idea that the Democrat house-organ WaPo’s Watergate reporting brought down Republican President Nixon.

It focused attention on it, sure enough, as the newspaper would never have done to a Democrat president (think its dereliction with Wormtongue and the ongoing IRS scandal), but Nixon brought himself down when his audio-tapes were forcibly exposed, as historian W. Joseph Campbell makes plain.

Indeed, if Woodward and Bernstein had brought a similar story about Jimmy Carter or, heaven forfend, the immaculate-Yankee-Democrat JFK, their newly deceased editor Ben Bradlee would have immediately assigned both of them to writing wedding anouncements.

Via Instapundit.