Commentary on Excerpt D

In excerpt D, Frank and Dave entertain a possible analogy. The analogy is muddled in that it conflates the bugging of Democratic Campaign headquarters with the bugging by presidents of their own phones and offices, but the pertinent similarity is that these tapings are done without the knowledge or consent of the persons being recorded. Still, Frank is able to underscore a significant dissimilarity, that Tape 1 was intended only for Laura and himself. The exchange clarifies these issues in the conversation and also raises others that will resurface later on. It also contributes to the climate of give-and-take by effectively managing the dialectic of expressiveness and protectiveness, introduced earlier. Frank concedes that Dave was not alone is raising the Watergate analogy; also, that he had tricked Laura, in a sense. Dave concedes that Tape 1 and Watergate were in some ways dissimilar; also, that the question of fairness toward Laura may be complicated by Frank's own more benign attitude toward being taped.