Not Watergate, Not Yet

Related Link Donald Trump, Richard Nixon and Watergate: What's the same and what's different?

Inevitably, John Dean is again beckoned for pundit's duty after President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.

It's because the media can resemble Peter Sellers' wacko ex-German scientist in "Dr. Strangelove" who keeps lapsing into a Nazi salute. The press reflex during periods of White House chicanery, big or small, is to invoke "Watergate."

It's happening again, even as popular understanding of President Richard Nixon and his crimes gets more tenuous in the historical haze.

Be it broadcast, cable, print, digital or social media, you hear it. Even solid historians like Michael Beschloss use the analogy in a matter-of-fact manner, as he did with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Tuesday evening, when they might know just a bit better.

Indeed, it took the rare cameo by Tom Brokaw, 77 and once king of the NBC hill, to caution that such talk "by my friend Michael" was a bit loose and premature at this point.