“Unprecedented” is a word that is tossed around a lot in Washington these days. And it’s no wonder: by the standards of recent history (that is, in the adult memory of most voters), the past two years have delivered some truly extraordinary melodrama. 

Just think of Donald Trump’s tweets, his war on the media, the White House infighting, the special investigation by Robert Mueller and, most recently, the Senate questioning of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh — broadcast live on television — over allegations of sexual assault.

For proper historical perspective — and a sense of déjà vu — it is worth taking a look at a timely new documentary that opened last weekend at the New York Film Festival. Watergate — Or How We Learned to Stop an Out-Of-Control President, is directed by Charles Ferguson, an entrepreneur-turned-documentarian who earned an Oscar back in 2011 for a film about the great financial crisis, Inside Job (disclosure: I appeared in that movie), after making an earlier documentary about the Iraq war.