From WNYKRZZE in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone. Finally, this week, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice

appeared in Congress before the 9-11 Commission and the world. As court TV, it was

alternately dull, contentious, and gripping. Did you tell the president at any time prior to August 6th of the existence of al-Qaeda cells in the United States?

First, let me just make certain...

If you could just answer that question, because I only have a very limited...

I understand, Commissioner, but it's important that I also address...

This weekend, various assessments of Rice's effectiveness

and fending off the charges of former counterterrorism chief Richard Clark, but what about the

overall impact of these televised hearings? Have they changed the medias and the public's

view of the Bush administration,

of the Congress? John Dean, former counsel to President Nixon, testified during the Watergate

hearings, and he watched them closely just as he's watched the 9-11 hearings. Mr. Dean,

welcome back to the show. Thank you. Pleasure to be with you. So could you compare and

contrast these hearings

with the Watergate hearings as a media event? There's no question that the Watergate hearings

were extensive. They were actually even protracted. There was massive media coverage. It was

reality television before reality television. And it really was educational. And that was one of the aims of

the committee and later talking to Sam Dash about it. This is what they hoped to do. They built

their case very slowly and then went public with it. Sam Dash, of course, was chief counsel to the

Senate Watergate Committee. And actually, he told us that he carefully staged the hearings as a detective story,

beginning with the burglaries and bringing out the accusers like yourself and ending with the

...