Right, and Watergate was the Press’ opening. And the Press was responsible for everything that followed. They would not let go of it until Nixon was thoroughly destroyed. It ever resonated beyond Ford, and was what gave us Carter.
You are living in a dream world, if you think it had nothing to do with making the MSM unhappy.
In part it was that Nixon was betrayed by his own people. We now know that “Deep Throat” was the asst. FBI director who knew all the dirt and revealed it to these two hacks. I think we also know that the Wash Post has involved all sorts of illegal activities. But Nixon’s main problem all along with that the Establishment hated him and refused to let him cover his tracks. The Pentagon Papers episode was telling. Previous presidents had committed worse, but it never got out. The MSM draws its power from the fact that it speaks for the elite in our country, by which I do not mean the top 1% but the top 20%. Want to assign blame: the left-wing capture of academia and the popular culture. On every social and even many economic issue, the top 20% is liberal. They actually believe that if the right person gets in office that the welfare state can be made efficient. It’s the old myth of the philosopher king. Never mind that when Plato got to try out his theory in Syracuse(sicily) that it founded on the reef of human nature. Nixon said it best if cryptically: never hand your enemies a sword if you want to survive. He was slain by his own desire to be accepted by his enemies on his terms.