Quote:
Originally Posted by DeltAlum
Your comment about Carl Albert prodded me to do some Googling as well. Albert's career in the Senate ended with his retirement in 1976. Watergate was around 73-74, so I suspect he saw the end of his career in the not so distant future anyway.
Albert was a Democrat. There's no way, short of Nixon's unexpected death before Ford was appointed and confirmed, that he (Nixon) would have allowed a situation where a Democrat would ascend to the Oval Office.
I remember Watergate well, but I think that any speculation that Nixon and Ford had made a deal was just that -- speculation. It was certainly never proved.
Could it have happened? Yes. Another thing we'll probably never know.
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Albert being a Democrat was central to my point (faced with a similar situation, Pelosi or Gingrich would have been trying to accelerate the impeachment process, it seems to me), but you may be right that Albert knew his concerns and commentary were unlikely to be put to the test.
It seems that he got caught up in a scandal of his own, so that might have expedited his retirement so quickly after being speaker of the house.
ETA: I realize what I was missing was the completely separate nature of Agnew's resignation from the full-blown Watergate scandal. When you look them up, it appears more likely that both positions could have been vacant at the same it actually was. Until the tapes surfaced, Nixon probably expected to ride it out. So even without a VP, Albert really didn't need to fret about being a caretaker. I still can't imagine any recent Speaker not using the opportunity to try to seize power away from the other party, and his concerns seem much more noble.
AND: I salute you for your signature. I says it all for all of us, with GLO substitution, of course.
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