Follow Up: It Ain’t Watergate

In this earlier post, I suggested John Hitt might have something to hide because he seemed to be protesting too loudly that UCF’s illegal loans to UCF athletics were not like Watergate. To save the reader from reading the full report, I’ve encapsulated the legal issue surrounding these 7.4 million dollar loans into a dramatic conversation between John Hitt (JH) and Ted Sauerbeck (TS).

TS: You have no statutory authority to loan this money to UCF Athletics.
JH: My authority can be implied from the statute, bitch.
TS: No, bitch – you can only make loans for which you have specified authority.
JH: You are wrong, but I’ll stop.

When he suggested the issue wasn’t like Watergate, I think John was using a straw man technique. Rather than just admit he fucked up, he made up a non-existent oppositional argument – that these illegal loans were akin to the Watergate break in – with which it is possible to reasonably disagree.