“Just Follow the Money”*

As veteran political commentator Daniel Schorr reminded us this morning on National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition, today is the 35th anniversary of the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C.’s Watergate Hotel--a crime perpetrated by members of Republican President Richard M. Nixon’s White House staff, which led to Nixon becoming the only U.S. president to resign from office.

In the spirit of those crimes, you might want to spend some time today either watching a great political thriller on film (GreenCine contributor Steve Goldstein offers here an extensive list of options--from The Manchurian Candidate (1962) to Spartan (2004), or else reading a good novel about legislative or executive conspiracies (the Sachem Public Library in Holbrook, New York, has put together a pretty extensive list of those opportunities).

READ MORE: “Watergate’s 35th Anniversary: Would That Story Have Been Broken Today?” by Joe Strupp (Editor & Publisher); “Nixon Knows Best,” by Allen Barra (Salon); “Uncovering Hunt’s Past,” by J. Kingston Pierce (The Rap Sheet); “E. Howard Hunt’s Final Confession,” by A.L. Bardach (Slate).

* Quoted from the 1976 film All the President’s Men, one of my own all-time-favorite political thrillers.