Watergate was an American original. It had everything from bumbling burglars to meetings in ominous parking garages to a paranoid president who wrecked himself and damaged the country.
These days, bland spin doctors conjure their versions of Watergate at every opportunity. They do this by attaching the word "gate" to any supposed scandal or suspected skulduggery.
State Republican Party Chairman Steve Pearce believes his enemies deserve the gate. His most frequent target is Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.
“First it was Jewelry Gate, then Grocery Gate and now Cosmetics Gate. This Governor thinks she’s above the law and can do what she wants,” Pearce said this week.
Give him an F for style points but an A for redundancy.
If Pearce wants to puncture Lujan Grisham with a political dart, he should try something more original, like calling her "Gov. However."
As in, Gov. Lujan Grisham empathizes with the tens of thousands of New Mexicans who are in pain financially. However, the governor gave hefty raises to her staff members because they worked hard while others sat idle during the pandemic.
Insiders such as Pearce have spent more than 40 years trying to come up with a catchword as lasting as Watergate. It stuck like glue for factual reasons.
Watergate was the name of the office building that Nixon's burglars broke into with the hope of bugging national Democratic Party headquarters. It made sense to name the scandal for the place where a crime occurred. All the other "gates" that followed were a stretch or outright failure.
Koreagate was the first big scandal after Watergate. Most have forgotten Koreagate, though it spawned an investigation by the Justice Department lasting two years.
The federal government accused 31 members of Congress of taking a total of $850,000 from South Korean agent Tongsun Park. Two congressmen were tried and one was convicted. A 36-count indictment of Park was dismissed in return for his cooperation, proving he knew how to make a deal.
Billygate in the early 1980s was named for then-President Jimmy Carter's underachieving younger brother. Billy Carter accepted a $220,000 "loan" from Libya.
Many critics claimed Billy took the money in exchange for influence peddling. Almost as many wondered if the younger Carter, known for the failed brand Billy Beer, could even gain entry to the West Wing.
Irangate carried higher stakes and was a low point of Ronald Reagan's presidency. His underlings traded missiles and other weapons to terrorists in Lebanon in exchange for hostages. The term Irangate only took away attention from Reagan and his charges.
Whitewater-gate focused on President Bill Clinton's maneuvers when he was governor of Arkansas.
Clinton had partnered with one James McDougal on a real estate development known as Whitewater. McDougal also was president of a state Savings and Loan that catered to political insiders even after federal regulators declared it insolvent.
Monicagate was another Clinton scandal, one easier to follow than murky Whitewater.
Clinton's sexual exploitation of a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, led to his impeachment. Clinton's defenders included Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler magazine.
The U.S. Senate was more important than Flynt or anyone else in a rooting section. Senators acquitted Clinton.
Steroidgate was a case of muscle-bound baseball players slugging home runs at a pace befitting a video game. Barry Bonds' statistics seemed unbelievable for any clean-living mortal — and they were. He attracted the attention of publicity-seeking U.S. senators.
The Senate, of course, had more important work to do than questioning power hitters. But debates on ethanol subsidies couldn't compete with the interrogation of first baseman Mark McGwire.
Other scandals have more memorable names than all those "gates."
Enron is a one-word description for corporate corruption that ruined the lives of thousands of rank-and-file employees and small investors.
Teapot Dome, a bribery scheme of the 1920s, proves presidents don't always learn from history.
Crooked television producers who fed answers to dishonest contestants are known for the quiz show scandals. Had the cheating occurred in the 1980s instead of the 1950s, the scandal almost certainly would have been mangled into quizgate.
Pearce and a hundred other copycats will add the same suffix to every scandal, whether real or imagined.
There's a better alternative. Give 'em the gate and spare the country from another cliché.
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Give 'em the gate: Insiders can't resist hackneyed line - Santa Fe New Mexican
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