17 November—The night of 20 October 1973 President Richard Nixon ordered Attorney General Eliot Richardson to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox. Richardson refused and resigned forthwith. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox. Ruckelshaus also refused and resigned forthwith.

Finally, Nixon ordered Solicitor General Robert Bork, the third-most-senior official at the Justice Department, to fire Cox. Bork complied but expressed his intention to resign thereafter. He changed his mind, though, having been persuaded by Richardson and Ruckelshaus to stay on for the good of the DOJ. (Fourteen years later President Ronald Reagan nominated Bork, by that time a judge on the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, for a seat on the Supreme Court. But he was Borked. For good reason, to be sure. Most important, he lives to this day as a verb.)

That was the infamous Saturday Night Massacre of blessed memory.

So on 17 November 1973, 51 years ago today and 17 days after the impeachment process had been initiated in the House of Representatives, Tricky Dick grudgingly told America, “People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook.” So he assured us, “Well, I’m not a crook.”

What crook admits it?

Anyway, it’s safe to say that very few people believed him. So even though it took the better part of a year for Nixon to wake up and smell the sewage, on 8 August 1974 he rationalized from the Oval Office, “I have concluded that because of the Watergate matter I might not have the support of the Congress that I would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry out the duties of this office in the way the interests of the nation would require.”

Might not have the support of the Congress?

Nixon further dissembled that by resigning, “I will have hastened the start of that process of healing which is so desperately needed in America.” Surprisingly (make that strategically), Nixon expressed contrition. He admitted that some of his judgements “were wrong” and added: “I deeply regret any injuries that may have been done in the course of the events that led to this decision.” Aw gee.

Unsurprisingly, he didn’t explicitly mention the pending impeachment.

The next day Nixon submitted his letter of resignation to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, making Tricky Dick the only U.S. president to resign from office. As yet. Vice President Gerald Ford succeeded to the presidency. It’s worth noting that Kissinger, although a willing and loyal enabler and accomplice to Nixon till the bitter end, regarded him as a “drunken lunatic” who would have blown up the world. Had it not been for Kissinger, of course. And he may just have a point.

To digress, Kissinger observed that Donald Trump was “centrally focused on one person.” Guess who. Kissinger also observed that Trump turned issues into confrontations. Moreover, “For an American president to challenge the constitutional system and to try to overthrow the constitutional system is a grave matter,” Dr. Kissinger opined, adding, “I find no excuse for that.” And he has a point.

Having cleverly segued to Trump, then, the volunteer P&Z chairman in Canaan just resigned even though he probably shouldn’t have. Trump comes into it because Tim Abbott wrote in his letter of resignation that he had tried “to act with integrity, honor and propriety.”

Three words and concepts that mean absolutely nothing to Donald Trump. And, not unlikely, most of his appointees . . .