The Senate hearing into illegal fund-raising in last year's elections has at last got under way but if it was a Broadway show it would have already closed. The critics have panned it, the public is showing little interest and the TV networks are more interested in the Versace murder and even the Mars landing.
It could change if President Clinton can be shown to have got a sack of Chinese money over coffee in the Oval Office but don't hold your breath. This is a long way from Watergate.
But Senator Fred Thompson (57), who is chairing the hearings in Room 216 of the Hart Senate Building, was a key figure in the Watergate hearings which eventually toppled President Richard Nixon. Senator Howard Baker, the leading Republican on that committee, chose Thompson to head his staff. Hillary Clinton was serving on the Democratic staff at the same time.
Thompson, a handsome six-foot-four Tennessee lawyer, arrived on Capitol Hill in a white suit and white patent leather shoes, but soon after Nixon had fallen, his career path took a dramatic change. Thompson the lawyer starred in a case exposing political corruption in Tennessee and then convinced the Hollywood director who wanted to make a film about it that he was the right person to play himself.
This led to 17 more movie roles, often as a lawyer or a menacing southern crook. He also worked as a Washington lobbyist.
In 1994, Thompson ran for the Senate against huge odds, driving around Tennessee in a pickup truck and denouncing the Washington elite. His opponent called him a "Gucci-wearing, Lincoln driving, Perrier-drinking, Grey Poupon-spreading millionaire Washington special-interest lobbyist". In case you did not know, Grey Poupon is an up-market French mustard. But Thompson won and now is seen as a Reaganesque populist figure who could yet win the presidency for the Republicans.
But first he has to make his reputation with these China-gate hearings. He went for a headline grabbing opening when he announced that "the committee believes that high-level Chinese government officials crafted a plan to increase China's influence over the US political process. . . our investigations suggest that the plan continues today". Thompson hinted at more secret information from the intelligence services that could not be made public.
But Thompson's Democratic opposite number, the former astronaut Senator John Glenn immediately took issue with Thompson saying that "I have seen nothing that would lead me to go quite that far." In fact, relations between the two principal figures on the bipartisan committee - they were once squash partners - have become increasingly strained as party-political pressures build up.
The Republicans are determined to exploit the acknowledged abuses in Democratic fundraising for the re-election of President Clinton, especially contributions from Asian-Americans. The Democratic Party has had to return over $2 million in illegal funding, much of it raised by the mysterious Chinese-born John Huang, a former employee of the Indonesian Lippo Group conglomerate, which is said to have strong Chinese links.
But the Democrats are not willing to be sacrificial lambs and have succeeded in getting the committee to investigate not only illegal fund-raising but abuses in so-called "soft money" contributions, where the Republicans have raised record amounts. These are contributions which do not go directly to election campaigns, which have strict limits, but to "party-building" and "information activities". But such money can be easily diverted to electioneering, such as TV ads rubbishing opponents.
Thompson has disturbed his fellow-Republicans by allowing investigation of the soft money contributions. The Republicans fear this will lead to the ban that President Clinton is urging. The former chairman of the Republican party, Mr Haley Barbour, will be called to answer charges that he helped to launder foreign money for Republican candidates through a think-tank he ran.
A lot of dirt for both sides has yet to spill out in the Thompson committee. Buddhist nuns will give testimony that they were forced to contribute to the Clinton-Gore re-election campaign after the vice-president visited their Los Angeles temple. It is not something Al Gore will want recalled when he makes his bid for the Presidency in 2000.
Whether Fred Thompson will be his opponent remains to be seen. If he can back up his China connection charges, he will damage the Democrats and their hopes of holding on to the White House. He may even jeopardise the planned visit to Washington later this year of China's President Jiang Zemin.
Meanwhile, he needs to get the American public tuned in to his committee hearings as it did for Watergate when a young White House lawyer called John Dean was giving riveting testimony about Nixon's misdeeds. Today Dean says he has not had time to watch the Thompson hearings. He considers that "Watergate was much more serious and a lot easier for the public to understand".