Various Beltway power players and national TV ads are calling today’s scheduled Senate Intelligence Committee Hearing testimony, by former FBI director James Comey, either a vanity appearance by “just another DC insider” or a political event so important, “Watergate pales” in comparison. Its significance, at least as evaluated by the mass media, is measured by its availability as a live TV event. Not only will it be covered on live TV by the 24-hour cable news networks, but by the broadcast networks as well, beginning at 10 a.m. ET. And here, too, in this hearing that will touch on presidential influence and possible criminal involvement, and an alleged political cover-up, Watergate offers a parallel. Back in May 1973, the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (a.k.a. the Watergate hearings) began, and ran every weekday until August. That summer, in those pre-cable-news days, the three broadcast networks settled, after the opening week of coverage, on a rotating daily coverage schedule, with PBS providing a convenient, and welcome, nightly unedited “rerun,” hosted by the newly teamed Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer. After opening week, the big-boy networks all provided simultaneous coverage of Senate testimony on only two occasions: when former White House counsel John Dean gave his side of the story, detailing specific allegations of cover-up activities and comments by then-President Richard Nixon and all the president’s men, and when former White House aide Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of Nixon’s secret White House recording system. What Comey will say today, and if and how President Donald Trump will respond, is unknown until it happens – but today’s live telecast is bound to be one of the most widely viewed and discussed Senate TV hearings in more than 40 years.