For example, the congressional seniority system was turned on its head.  Before the Watergate Babies, the congressman with the most seniority was always chairman of a committee. The new congressmen ousted some of the committee chairmen from their positions and the seniority rules were changed.

Watergate also created a generation of journalists who were not willing to accept politicians at their word. If the two journalists who helped uncover the scandal, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, could expose the crimes of a president, then certainly there were crooked politicians elsewhere. Those journalists believed in investigative reporting and became watchdogs who attempted to keep politicians honest.