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You are here: Home / Politics / “I just couldn’t bring myself…”

“I just couldn’t bring myself…”

October 6th, 2019 by Sallie Bingham in Politics 4 Comments

Watergate Revisited

Image of President Nixon's cabinet

Still from Charles Ferguson’s documentary, Watergate — Or, How We Learned to Stop an Out-of-Control President

I’m feeling the earth move, or at last quiver, now that the Democratic Party under the wise leadership of Nancy Pelosi has started the impeachment inquiry into the actions of President Trump. This country, I believe, will gradually come to support this effort, Democrats, Republicans, Independents and everyone else, as this country did as the evidence unfolded that forced President Nixon to resign in 1974.

The country wasn’t behind the impeachment process at first, as Charles Ferguson’s four-hour documentary, Watergate — Or, How We Learned to Stop an Out-of-Control President makes clear. But as layer after layer of perfidy on the part of Nixon and his aids was peeled back, what at first might have been dismissed by some as a burglary gone wrong began to show clearly as a transgression of the principles of the U.S. Constitution. Only after months of testimony, much of it initially blocked by the White House, did members of the Republican Party inform Nixon that they could no longer support him.

This will happen to Trump, as well, I believe. There are sensible people in the Republican Party, some of whom will be running for re-election to vulnerable seats, and they will not go down with the sinking ship. Even the rats will finally jump overboard…

I was oblivious to a lot of the Nixon drama, perhaps because my family seldom or never looked at television, in spite of their ownership of Kentucky’s newspapers, and may have been tempted to dismiss Nixon’s very real threat to the Constitution as merely the ridiculous misbehavings of a lower-class man—a convenient explanation for just about everything in those days.

It's a badge of honor, as well as proof of membership in a certain group, bound together by familiarity and a shared ethic.

But I do remember seeing, if not actually meeting, the special prosecutor Nixon labored to fire, Archibald Cox, a hero to liberal Democrats because of his refusal to bow to the president’s threats.

But it wasn’t only Archie, as he was called, the privacy-seeking tall, slender middle-aged white man I saw in a New England resort. The other prosecutors on his team, threatened by the president, also refused to be cowed, even after Archie himself had been forced off the scene.

“I just couldn’t bring myself to,” the man Nixon had tried to pressure into firing Cox said—an expression not heard much these days, “I just couldn’t bring myself to” refers to a code of personal honor all of these men—and they were almost entirely men—seemed to find familiar, basic, essential to their self-esteem.

Now as the men’s club of politics is replaced by a group of legislators much more representative of this country, is it possible we have lost the code of personal ethics that seemed to bind that long-ago band to a concept of honor?

I hesitate to suggest it. But when a group loses power, it takes away with it certain standards and expectations. It may even be that we women, who often condone or excuse questionable behavior on the part of the men we love, may be less eager to condemn the same kind of behavior on the part of powerful men.

“I just couldn’t bring myself to…” It’s a badge of honor, as well as proof of membership in a certain group, bound together by familiarity and a shared ethic.

The Masons, the Rotatarians, the Shriners—all these secretive men’s groups are gone, taking with them standards of behavior we may find we still need.

Nevertheless, I believe the country as a whole will come to say, “I just couldn’t bring myself to…”

…re-elect the man who has betrayed us.

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In Politics Donald Trump 20 Favorites of 2019

A long and fruitful career as a writer began in 1960 with the publication of Sallie Bingham's novel, After Such Knowledge. This was followed by 15 collections of short stories in addition to novels, memoirs and plays, as well as the 2020 biography The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke.

Her latest book, Taken by the Shawnee, is a work of historical fiction published by Turtle Point Press in June of 2024. Her previous memoir, Little Brother, was published by Sarabande Books in 2022. Her short story, "What I Learned From Fat Annie" won the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize in 2023 and the story "How Daddy Lost His Ear," from her forthcoming short story collection How Daddy Lost His Ear and Other Stories (September 23, 2025), received second prize in the 2023 Sean O’Faolain Short Story Competition.

She is an active and involved feminist, working for women’s empowerment, who founded the Kentucky Foundation for Women, which gives grants to Kentucky artists and writers who are feminists, The Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture at Duke University, and the Women’s Project and Productions in New York City. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Sallie's complete biography is available here.

Comments

  1. Carol M. Johnson says

    October 6th, 2019 at 4:18 pm

    We can only hope…..a sense of honor and justice will prevail.

    Reply
  2. Robert N. Will says

    October 9th, 2019 at 6:43 pm

    I do hope you are right about this, but I am very troubled that Lindsey Graham and others are so resolute in supporting Trump. I don’t see any sign of their wavering. If the Senate does not vote to convict, then Trump may actually gain from the move to impeach. Oh woe.

    Reply
  3. James Voyles says

    December 15th, 2019 at 2:02 pm

    I agree, Sallie, and may we both be right!

    Reply
  4. Vickie says

    May 2nd, 2024 at 2:56 pm

    Only when God reveals all the lies & dishonesties, not to mention election stealing will we see honor & justice. The left screwed over President Richard Nixon with their schemes & lies, now known as “lawfare” they have been doing it for years with President Donald Trump. Soon everyone of them will be exposed because none has been punished yet! “God doesn’t settle up every Saturday night, but He always settles up!” G. Copeland

    Reply

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Taken By The Shawnee

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