New Delhi, June 26 -- YORBA LINDA, Calif. - A sitting vice president does not often choose the library of a president who resigned in disgrace for a book tour. JD Vance chose it Thursday, and used the occasion to argue that the crime that ended Richard Nixon's presidency would today be a 12-hour distraction.

"If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story," Vance said during his appearance at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, California. "The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy." He was promoting his new book, Communion, which examines American identity and political culture.

Vance went further, drawing a direct line between the forces that drove Nixon from office in 1974 ...