Who's for Whom

In the political warfare raging in Washington under the name Watergate, there have been some startling shifts of viewpoint. Conservative Sage Barry Goldwater produced one of the first surprises when he turned against Richard Nixon and declared that the Watergate mess "smells." Goldwater was wryly saluted by Columnist William Safire, a former Nixon speechwriter, as "the liberals' favorite conservative." Not so. J. Edgar Hoover now looks upright and independent by comparison to L. Patrick Gray III. Even Vice President Agnew inspired the Washington Post to contemplate the prospect of a Nixon retirement and observe that his successor might not be so bad: "Many Democrats [might support] him out of resignation or relief."

The confusions of Watergate can even become mildly fratricidal. When Senator James Buckley of New York tried to dismiss the whole affair as "morbid cynicism," he prompted a public protest from his younger brother Bill, who accused Nixon of "taking the Fifth Amendment" on the problem.

Watergate has not provided many serendipitous benefits, but if liberals and conservatives were to reconsider their old habits and regard each other in new ways, that might be one of them.

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