If this were Watergate -- and Watergate itself increasingly looks like a relatively contained epidemic of corruption -- the Texas grand jury 's indictment of the congressman and his associates would be a sideshow tantamount to the initial 1973 California grand jury indictment of the Nixon aide John Ehrlichman and his pals in the break-in at Daniel Ellsberg 's psychiatrist 's office ; Watergate 's real legal fireworks were still in the wings .