I don’t have anything earthshaking to say today.

I know that admission is classified as a mortal sin in the columnist's handbook. Sorry, I plead guilty.

Like many of our dear readers, I am more than a bit confused about what passes for political discourse in this nation that I love. I suppose it is like the times many of my, (and your) grey-headed classmates experienced long ago. The era between 1968 and 1974 seems to be the closest parallel to today's events. It was the era of turmoil and scandal now known as Watergate.

We first learned of it in June 1972, when police arrested five men for breaking into the Democratic Party headquarters offices in the Washington, D.C. office complex called Watergate.

But in many ways, it began when President Richard Nixon chose Marylands' Spiro Agnew as his vice president. The Baltimore politician rose to fame on the heels of his blistering speeches excoriating long-haired hippies and radical Vietnam war protesters with smarmy insults, including "nattering nabobs of negativism."

Behind the scenes, the FBI discovered Agnew was pocketing bribes from a Baltimore road contractor. The feds squeezed that contractor until he gave them evidence showing the Veep was corrupt. Agnew was a Republican, but the investigation was not a Democratic party/political plot. The case was brought by George Beall, the U.S. Attorney in Maryland. Although Beall was a Republican, the brother of a Republican senator and the son of another Republican senator, he gave the Feds a green light.

Agnew blasted the probe as damned lies, blamed the Feds for leaking information to the press, and said they couldn’t indict a vice president. But, they did. In October 1973, he pleaded guilty to tax evasion as government lawyers showed he had pocketed more than $100,000 while serving as VEEP. As part of his plea bargain, Agnew resigned. A few days later, President Nixon appointed Gerald Ford as his successor.

Meanwhile, a Senate committee (prodded by newspaper reports in the Washington Post and New York Times) began probing the Watergate break-in. They soon discovered Nixon had bugged himself by installing a tape recording device in the Oval Office that captured incriminating conversations. Nixon resigned after the courts ordered him to give up the tapes.

Today, stories about state and federal agencies probing the conduct of the 45th president dominate our national news. Even though we might try to tune out the bloviating windbags on all sides, we can’t duck the verbal shrapnel blasted out of our TV sets.

Most agree the Atlanta district attorney, Fani T. Willis, is getting ready to indict the 45th in connection with his alleged interference in Georgia's 2020 election. On the federal side, Jack Smith, the special prosecutor, has notified the former president he is a target of a grand jury examining the events of January 6, 2021.

It is tough for ordinary citizens to cut through the incendiary rhetoric to understand what is going on. By law, federal and state grand juries meet behind closed doors. We don’t know the details of their deliberations, but that has not stopped either side from trumpeting that they are right and the other side is wrong or worse.

Those of us who are long in the tooth, losing our hair and sport wrinkles in spots we used to display with pride, remember the days when Agnew's defenders and detractors beat the war drums for their side. Anyone who dared to challenge them risked being labeled a Commie or Nazi or worse.

In the 1970s, supporters proclaimed their allegiance in letters to newspaper editors, in public speeches, and TV interviews. Today, we are flooded with noise from opinion shows where alleged experts and self-proclaimed insiders opine on their version of the supposed facts. It is worse on the Internet. From Facebook to NewsMax and beyond, there is no room for an opposing opinion.

None of these experts has a clue as to what is going on behind the closed and locked grand jury doors. But that seems to be on the cusp of changing. As alleged experts chew on this nugget or that detail proving their side is on the side of the angels, they agree that the Atlanta DA and the federal special prosecutor are ready to open the grand jury doors and lay their cards on the table.

And when that happens, look for all sides to supercharge their rhetoric in a desperate attempt to gin up followers and change minds for the 2024 election. For the political class and their myrmidons, truth is irrelevant. To them, the only thing that matters is grabbing and holding onto power. Dear readers, I fear it will be a bumpy ride. Please fasten your seat belts.

May God bless the USA.