What forced Nixon's registration was the certain knowledge that he was guilty, had been caught red-handed, and was certain to be impeached,convicted, and possibly jailed. Not "the Republican Party". Gingrich and Livingston resigned because their bombast and hypocricy, once made plain, left them without any credibility. Had "the Republican Party" a real moral sense they would not still be claiming that Tricky Dick was a martyr who got a raw deal a quarter-century after the event.

You'll have to excuse me now-I have to go take a Nixon ( as Kinky Friedman, a good Texas Boy, would say.)