At some point in Tuesday's carnival of cowardice, the folks out at the Richard M. Nixon Library did some master-class trolling on the electric Twitter machine.

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FUN FACT: President Nixon never fired the Director of the FBI #FBIDirector #notNixonian pic.twitter.com/PatArKOZlk — RichardNixonLibrary (@NixonLibrary) May 9, 2017

No. What Nixon did was hang poor L. Patrick Gray out to dry. Remember, the "smoking gun" tape involves Nixon and H.R. Haldeman concocting a scheme to have the CIA scare off the exceedingly dim FBI director. Gray's situation eventually became so dire that his deputy director, Mark Felt, went into business for himself, meeting Bob Woodward in parking garages and gradually transforming himself into Hal Holbrook for the movies. I mention all this just to make sure that you and I and history are all on the same page. We continue with a list.

In 1972, five men were arrested trying to wiretap the Democratic National Committee's offices, located in a Washington hotel/office complex called the Watergate. The case fell to a tough federal judge named John J. Sirica, Jr. The men were convicted and sentenced before the judge nicknamed "Maximum John." On March 10, 1973, one of the burglars, a former CIA man named James McCord, got scared and wrote Sirica a letter saying that pressure had been applied to keep him and his fellow burglars quiet, and to urge them to commit perjury. It read, in part:

There are further considerations which are not to be lightly taken. Several members of my family have expressed fear for my life if I disclose knowledge of the facts in this matter, either publicly or to any government representative. Whereas I do not share their concerns to the same degree, nevertheless, I do believe that retaliatory measures will be taken against me, my family, and my friends should I disclose such facts. Such retaliation could destroy careers, income, and reputations of persons who are innocent of any guilt whatever.

Sirica read the letter in open court.

On June 29, 1973, a senator from Tennessee named Howard Baker was sitting on the special Senate committee that had been set up to investigate what was by then known as the Watergate scandal. A White House lawyer, John Dean, in a deadly, poison monotone, had laid out a bill of particulars that brought the scandal into the anteroom of the Oval Office. Baker began his examination of Dean with a question that has echoed down through the years.

"My primary thesis is still, what did the president know, and when did he know it?

On October 20, 1973, Richard Nixon told his attorney general, a Harvard man named Eliot Richardson, to fire the Watergate special prosecutor, a Harvard man named Archibald Cox, on the grounds that Cox was trying too hard to pry loose evidence of the president's involvement—to wit, the White House tapes, the existence of which had been revealed before the Senate committee by an aide named Alexander Butterfield under questioning by the committee's minority counsel, one J. Fred Thompson. Richardson refused and resigned. His deputy, William Ruckelshaus, also refused and was fired.

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In December of 1973, the House Judiciary Committee hired an incredibly brave lawyer named John Doar as its lead counsel in the matter of the possible impeachment of Richard Nixon. Doar hired a staff and ground away for months, patiently building his case. On July 12, 1974, Doar presented his findings to the committee. They ran to almost 4000 pages.

On July 25,1974, the House Judiciary Committee opened debate on the articles of impeachment. A congressman named M. Caldwell Butler said:

"For years we… have campaigned against corruption and misconduct…But Watergate is our shame."

And a congressman named Lawrence Hogan said:

"After reading the transcripts, it was sobering: the number of untruths, the deception and the immoral attitudes. By any standard of proof demanded, we had to bind him over for trial and removal by the Senate."

And a congressman named William Cohen said:

"I have been faced with the terrible responsibility of assessing the conduct of a President that I voted for, believed to be the best man to lead this country, who has made significant and lasting contributions toward securing peace in this country, throughout the world, but a President who in the process by actor acquiescence allowed the rule of law and the Constitution to slip under the boots of indifference and arrogance and abuse."

And a congressman named Thomas Railsback said:

"I wish the President could do something to absolve himself."

And a congressman named Walter Flowers said:

"This is something we just cannot walk away from. It happened, and now we've got to deal with it."

All of these congressmen voted to send the articles of impeachment to the full House.

On August 7, 1974, two senators named Hugh Scott and Barry Goldwater, along with a congressman named John Rhodes, went to the White House and told Richard Nixon that his removal from office was inevitable. Nixon resigned the next day. Now, looking back from the swamp in which we currently find ourselves, there is one remarkable thing about all the people whose actions in that perilous time showed what stuff of which they and the country were made.

They were all Republicans.

Every damn one of them, from Sirica to Goldwater and back again. They all did their duty, as best they saw that duty and, as a result, a Republican president was forced to give up an office he'd won in a landslide only one year earlier.

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Now, in 2017, an even more erratic and maniacal authoritarian is in that same office. On Tuesday, he fired the director of the FBI in a transparent attempt to short-circuit an investigation into the ties between his campaign and administration and the government of Russia. At the FBI, he found a second banana willing to sign off on a preposterous memo that argued that the action had been taken because the FBI had been mean to the president's opponent in the 2016 presidential election. In response to this strongman ploy, the following things were said:

A senator named Richard Burr pronounced himself "troubled."

A senator named John McCain pronounced himself "disappointed."

A senator named Bob Corker opined that events "will raise questions."

A senator named Jeff Flake mourned that he just couldn't find a way that firing the FBI director made sense.

A senator named Lindsey Graham said that the FBI deserved a "fresh start."

A senator named Susan Collins said any suspicion that firing the FBI director had anything to do with the investigation regarding the president, his campaign, and the Russians was "misplaced."

All of these people have one thing in common. They're all Republicans.

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Really, unless a fresh crop of spines suddenly sprouts within the Republican congressional majorities, nothing is going to happen. Unless a fresh crop of balls suddenly sprouts within the federal bureaucracy—hey, there are even more parking garages in D.C. now than there were in 1973—the odds are that the White House is going to skate on this. It is up to Congress to force the appointment of a Patrick Fitzgerald-ish special prosecutor. It is up to them to fund that office and then to leave it alone to do its job and to let the chips fall. It is up to them to do something with whatever the special prosecutor finds. The ball is almost completely in their court and the early reactions are not promising.

(A special prosecutor is infinitely superior to a special commission because the latter almost guarantees that the worst of what it finds will be soft-pedalled through a depthless marsh of Beltwayspeak. See: the Tower Commission on Iran-Contra and the 9/11 commission. Or the Warren Commission, for all that. One guy, with the resources to do what it takes.)

The modern Republican party controls all three branches of government, and it is demonstrating quite clearly that it is not up to even the most essential task of protecting the institutions it controls from the ravings of a wild man. Those are institutions that belong to all of us. The Republicans have the burden of maintaining the constitutional order on behalf of the entire country. This, as Hyman Roth put it, is the business they have chosen. John Sirica knew that. Eliot Richardson and Bill Ruckelshaus knew that. Howard Baker, and John Doar, and Tom Railsback, and Barry Goldwater knew that. Their obligations stretch far beyond passing tax cuts and gutting Medicaid.

This, as Hyman Roth put it, is the business they have chosen.

Where are they? Seriously, where in the fck are they? I don't care how troubled they are, or how deeply the president* has harshed their mellows, or how profoundly Lindsey Graham feels that the FBI director deserved it. Donald Trump is a legitimate threat to a government that belongs to all of us. Where's Paul Ryan? Where's Mitch McConnell?

Oh, here he is, on Wednesday morning, opening the Senate for the working day.

Now on one final matter, whatever one thinks that the manner in which director James Comey handled the investigation into Secretary Clinton's unauthorized use of a private server and her mishandling of classified information, it is clear what our Democratic colleagues thought of it both at that time and consistently thereafter. Last year the current democratic leader said it appeared to be an appalling act, one that he said goes against the tradition of prosecutors at every level of government. And the prior Democratic leader, when I asked if James Comey should resign given his conduct of the legislation, he replied of course. Yes. It's also clear what our Democratic colleagues think of the man who evaluated Mr. Comey's professional conduct and concluded that the bureau needed a change in leadership. The democratic leader just a few weeks ago praised Mr. Rosenstein for his independence and said he had developed a reputation for integrity this is what we have now, Mr. President. Our Democratic colleagues are complaining about the removal of an FBI director whom they themselves repeatedly and sharply criticized. That removal being done by a man, Ron Rosenstein, who they repeatedly and effuse civilly praised.

Patriotism no longer is the last refuge of scoundrels. Talking points are. These scoundrels run from patriotism as though it were a jail cell.

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