From Hart Williams at The Moderate Voice:
Dean was calm, level headed, clearly nervous and under a great deal of stress. And he came forward and outed the whole Nixon gang. He showed that rarest of qualities, moral courage.
It is curious – curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare. ‑ Mark Twain
From that point onwards, Watergate kept getting bigger, moving along as a historical drama, almost of its own accord. But it was big, and it turns out that no matter how bad you though old Tricky Dick was, he was worse. And that was the John Dean moment.
John Dean testified the next two days, but I could only catch the newspaper accounts. I worked from 7 am to 2 PM and then 5 pm to 2 AM the other six days. (The food was great and I didn’t have any time to spend my paychecks. The wizened salad lady cooked us a northern New Mexican meal before our shift started, an amazingly good, private restaurant.)
But that John Dean moment had opened up a can of worms that was much bigger than anyone to that moment realized. And the drama played out over the next year and change.
Dean’s testimony continued to rock the nation while I cracked eggs, cleaned shrimp, made croutons, cut endless tomatoes, lettuce, chopped garlic, etc. I still use what I learned in that kitchen, long ago, working for minimum wage, each and every day of my cooking life.
Watergate, though, faded.
Watching Ambassador Sondland testify today, I sensed many — though not all — of the conflicts and pressures that John Dean had felt. And I also felt that veil ripped asunder.
There’s a thing I half remember called Zymurgy’s Law which posits that once you open a can of worms, you always need a BIGGER can to get them back into.
Today’s link in the chain was the direct link back to Trump. And the whole gang knew about it.
That pop you heard was a BIG can of worms opening.