Nixon’s resignation needs a new legacy

On August 9, 1974, President Richard Nixon deviated from his usual health-conscious breakfast of wheat germ, cottage cheese and fruit and instead ordered up an unctuous spread of corned beef hash with a poached egg. Bleary-eyed from lack of sleep — he had spent the night calling old friends and fine-tuning his farewell speech — he decided to indulge one final time. Then he traded his fork for a pen and signed his last document as president, a one-line note that read, “I hereby resign the office of President of the United States.”

After farewell remarks to his staff and an incongruous victory salute to the nation, he ducked into Marine One, then boarded Air Force One. The plane’s call sign changed somewhere over Missouri, signaling that the man aboard was no longer president.

In resigning from the presidency 50 years ago this week, Nixon did more than make history — he created a template for presidential scandal that has stuck in the American mind. Corrupt deeds unfolding in secret and exposed by dogged journalists, “smoking-gun” evidence revealed in dramatic courtroom scenes, bipartisan agreement that the president must go. In the aftermath of Watergate, this became the framework for understanding presidential malfeasance — one that has left the country especially ill-equipped for the presidential wrongdoing that has followed.