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| Bush worse than Nixon? |
Erewhon |
04/01/06 |
Bush spying called worse than Nixon's
Laurie Kellman
Associated Press
Apr. 1, 2006 12:00 AM
WASHINGTON - John Dean, Richard Nixon's White House lawyer, told senators Friday that President Bush's domestic spying exceeds the wrongdoing that toppled Dean's former boss.
Bush, Dean told the Senate Judiciary Committee, should be censured and possibly impeached.
"Had the Senate or House, or both, censured or somehow warned Richard Nixon, the tragedy of Watergate might have been prevented," Dean told the Senate Judiciary Committee. "Hopefully the Senate will not sit by while even more serious abuses unfold."
Republicans and their witnesses rejected the comparison between Watergate and Bush's wiretapping program, and attributed Sen. Russell Feingold's censure resolution to posturing in a year of midterm elections.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the comparison to Watergate is "apples and oranges" because Nixon's actions were more about saving himself and his presidency than national security.
"Quit trying to score political points," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, shot across the aisle at committee Democrats.
Only two Democrats have co-sponsored Feingold's resolution: Sens. Tom Harkin of Iowa and Barbara Boxer of California. The rest have distanced themselves from the proposal, with many saying the resolution is premature because a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation has not concluded.
At issue is whether Bush's secretive domestic spying program violates the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Bush has said the National Security Agency's wiretapping program is aimed at finding terrorists before they strike on American soil by tapping overseas calls. He has launched a criminal investigation to find out who leaked the program's existence to the New York Times, saying the report in December tipped off anyone who might be planning attacks.
Critics say Bush already has the ability to conduct wiretaps under the FISA law and any information gathered without a court order may be inadmissible at a trial.
Feingold's measure would condemn Bush's "unlawful authorization of wiretaps of Americans within the United States without obtaining the court orders required" by the FISA act.
"If we in the Congress don't stand up for ourselves and the American people, we become complicit in the lawbreaking," Feingold, D-Wis., told the panel. "The resolution of censure is the appropriate response."
Feingold summoned Dean to the hearing in part because the former White House counsel made his suspicions about the Bush administration clear long before the wiretapping program became public.
In his 2004 book, Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush, Dean wrote that the former Texas governor began to evoke Nixonian memories with his strategies against Republican John McCain's primary challenge in South Carolina in 2000.
After the New York Times revealed the NSA program in December, Dean wrote that "Bush may have outdone Nixon" and may be worthy of impeachment.
"Nixon's illegal surveillance was limited; Bush's, it is developing, may be extraordinarily broad in scope," Dean wrote in a column for FindLaw.com in December.
Nixon resigned Aug. 9, 1974. |
Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 04/03/06 7:03 pm:
If it was illegal, don't you think that the Dems would have jumped all over it by now and started impeachment proceedings? Or at the very least to defund the NSA program? They have that power... Congress has the power of the purse as its check-and-balance on the actions of the President. The fact that they haven't moved to do so ought to be proof enough that they don't have a case for it being illegal.
Fact is that nobody has tried to stop Bush because they know that it's not only legal for him to be doing it, it is exactly what every president since Eisenhower has been doing from day one. And calling it illegal doesn't make it so. The Constitution specifically provides for the President to do exactly what he has done. Calling it illegal doesn't make it so.
Elliot
Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 04/03/06 7:32 pm:
Ronnie,
Exactly what is indefensible about this? What, pray tell, do you base your judgments of this president on? Incomplete evidence? Ignorance of the facts? Bias? Wishing it were so? You're very gifted in your criticism of the president but you're not so gifted in presenting the evidence for your judgments - or accepting facts that contradict your judgments. Time will indeed prove who is right or wrong, and whether or not you'll accept the results.
Steve
Clarification/Follow-up by triumvirate on 04/04/06 11:24 pm:
I find it sad that we even bother mentioning Watergate, when the majority of Americans don't even remember it. Or Nixon. The quality of education in this country is mainly to blame. If one would actually think about it for a moment, virtually every US president has done things that were wrong and immoral. Yet you will never catch anyone criticizing "their man" because that would be tantamount to accepting defeat. Clinton, Bush, it doesn't really matter. In order to rise to such heights of power they have to, eventually, sell out to special interest groups. All of them. Someone's go to contribute money to keep things running. Clarification/Follow-up by Erewhon on 04/05/06 3:54 am:
It is well to remember both the good and evil in histories, lest forgetting we breed another Hitler and let his hatred fester among us, whereas by remembering, we might raise another Lincoln and let his broad vision of an equal society be raised again.
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