Everything is ***-Gate. Now, not even in politics we have spy-gate. Seems like every scandal is dubbed something-gate, so did we have any something-dome, or teapot-something? Was there a Presidential FUBAR somewhere that was called something other?
SSG Schwartz
“Scandal” or “affair”. The Teapot Dome Scandal. The XYZ Affair.
The Iran-Contra Affair was not a -gate.
Iran-Contra-Gate was in common usage at the time, as a simple googling will demonstrate.
I never heard it. Iran Contra-Gate certainly isn’t the standard term for it whether or not a few bloggers on the internet call it that.
Time magazine, Dec. 8, 1986:
Keating 5. not gated. Vicuna coat scandal, Ike not gated.
If another scandal happens at the Watergate Hotel would it be called Watergategate?
Doesn’t quite roll off the tongue as well as some of the others. I remember once Daniel Patrick Moynihan called it “Iran-amok.”
Nevertheless, if ever you want to search for information on the Iran-Contra Affair, I strongly suggest you use the term “Iran-Contra Affair” as your search terms. That is how most of the main stream media refers to it.
In Congressional Reports
National Security Archive
ABC News
Columbia Encyclopedia
It does seem as if early on there was some use of the term irangate. I found this NY Times Article from 1987 and Walloon posted a 1986 Time magazine article. You won’t be at a complete loss if you use the term irangate. Whatever you personally choose to call it is your own business.
Early on, I even recall a few references to “Ayatollahgate.”
I have long thought that the -gate suffix shows a lack of imagination on the part of political journalists, or an inflated sense of their own importance (“Look! We’re just like Woodward and Bernstein!”).
The -scam suffix seems to have dropped completely out of favour.
The Valerie Plame Affair was not -gated as I recall.
One tradition that I’ve noticed from times past is to use the surname of the chief figure (or a chief figure, if there are multiple possibilities) to describe a type of scandal or scandalous activities, sometimes in a form that uses “ism” after the politician name (for instance, I’ve seen “Lorimerism” used to describe a type of corrupt political activity in reference to the Illinois political figure).
Well heck, as long as we’re just making names up why don’t we just call it “Olivernorthisatraitorthatworksforfoxnewsgate”. That should make everybody happy.
Before Watergate things were Dome (McCarthy Dome, Lucy-Mercerdome, Black FridayDome). Before Teapot Dome they all ended in -bilier (Mainebilier explosion, Wounded Kneebilier, Cleveland’s Bastard Babylier, etc.). Before the Credit Mobilier they were the Eaton Affair (e.g. The Lincoln-Shared-a-bed-with-a-dude-for-four-years-Eatonaffair, Buchanan’s-a-do-nothing-doucheatonaffair, OMG Pierce-just-got-drunk-and-ran-over-an-old-womaneatonffair). Before Peggy Eaton they were Dusky- “Dusky Nat Turner Rebellion”, “Dusky Burning White House”, etc.). Before Jefferson and the “Dusky Sally” affair they were just referred to as XYZ (“Whiskey Rebellionxyz”, “Samuel Chase Impeachmentxyz”, “Midnight Justicexyz”, etc.), and before the XYZ affair it was the “Hamilton was shagging who?” scandals (including “George Washington’s expense account Hamilton was shagging who?” and “3/5 Compromise my [del]black[/del] ass Hamilton was shagging who?”). Before that it was England’s call, so everything just ended with “worthington, what what?” (“Boston Tea Partyworthington, what what?”) or “as they say, who knew?” (“Ft. Duquesne as they say, who knew?”).
That’s why when “Watergate” came along, it was roughly akin to the soundbyte appearance of the Messiah.
I’m not sure how this spoofe helps further the cause of the OP, which, when I looked, was still in General Questions.
The o.p. was answered in one word in the first post: affair. All else is commentary (which satire counts as).
There, I’ve run rings around you logically.
More importantly, despite what others have said, the point has been made that contrary to the assumption of the OP, -gate has not been universally used for all political scandals since Watergate.
Making that correction is not commentary.
You gotta admit it was hilarious, though.