For me, I hope the someone who is supposed to resign is smart enough to already see the writing on the wall and one of the closer advisors or aides quietly says "it is time".

From experience, I find this to never be the case, whether in government or the private sector.

For these kind of executive positions, I don't see how it could not be the case. For example, Nixon. There is no one who could have told Nixon "You will resign today". On the other hand, I imagine he did have advisers telling him, "It's time." I figure it's the same for the Icelandic Prime Minister.

I've always thought that Nixon was old fashioned enough to believe, despite his flaws, that it was the proprietary thing to do, and that it would have been shameful to have to go through a certain trial in the Senate.

Somewhat agreed - but I also think a lot of it was Nixon knew he was checkmated, and it was less propriety, and more just plain ol' shame and knowing he had no recourse. I imagine he was not alone in his deliberations, though, and that his advisers - particularly his legal advisers - agreed.

I recently read "The Brethren" by Bob Woodward and and Scott Armstrong (http://www.amazon.com/The-Brethren-Inside-Supreme-Court/dp/0...), about the Supreme Court from 1969 to 1975. Watergate is a major episode, and it shows that Nixon knew that if they lost their Supreme Court appeal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Nixon), there was little recourse left.

I don't think proprietary is the word I was looking for. Maybe proper or decent.

You were most likely looking for the word propriety, which is also the word I was looking for. I noticed you made a typo, thought about it, then made the same typo! But there is a difference, I think, between propriety and shame. One does something "for propriety" because they value their actions' impact on others. Rather, I think he was more embarrassed and ashamed, and he left office because it was best for himself. It's a subtle distinction, one which we can never know who is right because we're trying to infer the motivations of another person.

According to his son's biography of him, George H W Bush played a pivotal role in the Nixon resignation, in that Nixon resigned the day after receiving a letter from Bush, then chairman of the Republican National Committee, urging him to do so. See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1...

This is never the case. I was working in congress when the Anthony Weiner scandal hit. Behind the scenes it was absolute chaos and he almost had to be frog marched out of the capitol by the Democratic leadership. True, there was no legal requirement he resign. He could've easily said screw you, impeach me like Trafficant, but the pressure to go is immense. Mark Foley locked himself in his office sobbing, and was so inconsolable that his Chief of Staff had to hold his hand (literally) while he singed the resignation letter.