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The Watergate burglary was 40 years ago. Thirty-nine years ago, a freshman senator from Connecticut wound up on the investigative committee. Lowell Weicker was the first from his party to begin openly questioning the involvement of President Nixon, not only in the burglary but in a thicket of clandestine operations that became the meat of the scandal.
For his trouble, Weicker became a pariah among some Republicans and so began his long journey of questioning his own role in the party and the very nature of the party itself. The divorce was a long time coming, but you could easily argue that it all began with Watergate.
Today Weicker joins me in one of our occasional long conversations about the shape of modern American politics. And once again, the Republican party may be perched on the cusp of another conversation about its soul and its future. Could there ever be room for a guy like Weicker again?
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