Watergate, Bush, and the Return of the Imperial Presidency
One goal of the Bush administration has been to rebuild the "imperial presidency." So far, they've done a good--by which I mean effective--job.
Now the gods send us a sign, in the guise of the revelation of the identity of Deep Throat. But what could they possibly be trying to tell us? It's a mystery...
Felt is a real American hero. He'd have been more heroic, of course, if he'd really done what he should have done and gone public, but he did enough.
I think about Watergate with some frequency. It was the first major political event I remember. I remember that it was always on TV, daytime, nighttime... When we were working on the farm our practice was usually to come in after the cows were milked, after it was dark, eat, and then sit around in the dark watching the (black and white!) television. I was a kid, and just couldn't understand what was going on. They seemed to be INVESTIGATING THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! But how could this be? The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES was always good and wise...like George Washington. My family's analysis of the situation was invariably that "everybody did it, he just got caught." What IT was, and how that could possibly be a defense against doing it, were beyond me...
Anyway, Watergate is my first real political memory. Iran-Contra constitutes a kind of centerpiece of my political awareness. After that, then, came the relentless, rabid attempt to crush Bill Clinton--almost certainly the best president of my conscious lifetime--the virtual theft of the 2000 election, and the trumped-up case for the invasion of Iraq.
I was raised non-partisan, taught not to become overly-attached to either party...and the Democrats, God love 'em, make that easier than they have to... But how, I ask you, can anyone who has been paying attention to American politics over the last thirty-odd years trust the Republicans? The Democrats have a fairly wide stripe of sleaze running down their backs, but come on...they're amateurs by comparison, and that's something I think we've got to keep firmly in mind. The Dems are far from perfect, but that doesn't mean that the two parties are equally bad.
Anyway, this Watergate-oriented blast from the past provides us with an opportunity for reflection--about the character of the two parties, about the kind of presidency we want, and about the dangers of secrecy and vindictiveness in politics.
It's also worth remembering that a large number of Americans continued to support Nixon, despite his obvious dishonesty, until the evidence against him was undeniable.
One goal of the Bush administration has been to rebuild the "imperial presidency." So far, they've done a good--by which I mean effective--job.
Now the gods send us a sign, in the guise of the revelation of the identity of Deep Throat. But what could they possibly be trying to tell us? It's a mystery...
Felt is a real American hero. He'd have been more heroic, of course, if he'd really done what he should have done and gone public, but he did enough.
I think about Watergate with some frequency. It was the first major political event I remember. I remember that it was always on TV, daytime, nighttime... When we were working on the farm our practice was usually to come in after the cows were milked, after it was dark, eat, and then sit around in the dark watching the (black and white!) television. I was a kid, and just couldn't understand what was going on. They seemed to be INVESTIGATING THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! But how could this be? The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES was always good and wise...like George Washington. My family's analysis of the situation was invariably that "everybody did it, he just got caught." What IT was, and how that could possibly be a defense against doing it, were beyond me...
Anyway, Watergate is my first real political memory. Iran-Contra constitutes a kind of centerpiece of my political awareness. After that, then, came the relentless, rabid attempt to crush Bill Clinton--almost certainly the best president of my conscious lifetime--the virtual theft of the 2000 election, and the trumped-up case for the invasion of Iraq.
I was raised non-partisan, taught not to become overly-attached to either party...and the Democrats, God love 'em, make that easier than they have to... But how, I ask you, can anyone who has been paying attention to American politics over the last thirty-odd years trust the Republicans? The Democrats have a fairly wide stripe of sleaze running down their backs, but come on...they're amateurs by comparison, and that's something I think we've got to keep firmly in mind. The Dems are far from perfect, but that doesn't mean that the two parties are equally bad.
Anyway, this Watergate-oriented blast from the past provides us with an opportunity for reflection--about the character of the two parties, about the kind of presidency we want, and about the dangers of secrecy and vindictiveness in politics.
It's also worth remembering that a large number of Americans continued to support Nixon, despite his obvious dishonesty, until the evidence against him was undeniable.
posted by Winston Smith at
7:30 AM
19 Comments:
Thanks. We're all human and democrats aren't saints. But it does seem that our soft spots and natural allies are a bit different than the other side. Gotta keep an eye on everyone. And if the democrats ever get back in power (not looking good at this point), power will start to draw them inexorably back to a high degree of sleaze.
But for now, they're out of power, out of influence. Thanks to the K street project, they are even out of lobbyists and corporate cash.
Best possible time to have a grass roots, "power to the people", "let's do this right" kind of naive Utopian vision.
Especially when the other party is so very, very disgusting and obviously corrupt.
The relative comparison is striking.
In the case of Clinton, didn't the people have "the right to know"?
perhaps an ex first lady said it best "demacrats do it to their secretaries-republicans do it the country" Roslyn Carter
Just wanted to find out if there are limits on the people's right to know, or if it's an absolute principle.
I thought the whole Lewinsky thing sucked. No pun intended, really. ;-}
"I thought the whole Lewinsky thing sucked."
Dude! You made me wet myself.
it's not a matter of a right to know. Think of it as triage. We have to make decisions as to priority because we can't do everything. Lewinsky was a fishing expidition - an excuse to harrass and dig. this is evidenced by the fact that Clinton wasn't impeached for getting a BJ. In fact he wasn't impeached for *anything" he was "investigated" for. Rather, he was impeached because of somethig that happened way at the end of the sordid affair.
Contrast this with Nixon. Granted, Nixon compounded his origional mistakes as time went on. but the point is, the original and only focus was quite clearly illegal.
In stark contrast, this was never the case with the Clinton witch hunt. An extramarital BJ may be "immoral", it may even "speak to character". But only to the puratins was it "illegal".
I've endlessly argued these points with my conservative friends, and they consitently refuse to see the point.
Oddly, they don't seemto have any issue with actual lies by Bush - such as the $200 B lie about the Medicare drug bill.
It's apparently just democrats lying about sex that is the only concern.
"Anyway, this Watergate-oriented blast from the past provides us with an opportunity for reflection--about the character of the two parties, about the kind of presidency we want, and about the dangers of secrecy and vindictiveness in politics."
I think reflection is almost always a good thing. But I don't think party affiliation has much to do with "character," whether positive or negative. If you've actually been paying attention to American politics for thirty-odd years, then you must know that Nixon was much more "liberal" than Clinton.
I view Watergate as a tragedy. I was glad to see Nixon chased from the White House, but along with him went the chance to create a real national health insurance plan. You see, Nixon intended to use his second term to pursue his domestic policy agenda, having already secured his place in the history of American foreign relations with his opening to China. And at the top of his list of priorities for domestic affairs was the creation of a national health plan. He had to go -- but we also paid an awful price.
Monica Lewinsky was a "honey trap" dupe. She was "run" by Linda Tripp, a disgruntled GOP operative, who was in turn "run" by Luianne Goldberg, a New York conservative writer who had CIA connections going back to Vietnam. That the other party, the Republican party, engaged in this espionage against the Presidency of the United States at a time when we were more and more endangered by terrorists is and was unconscionable and unpatriotic. And now these crypto fascists are holding power, first through stealing the 2000 election, then through allowing 9/11 to happen (the pilots were essentially our intelligence assets, and we knew who they were almost immediately--duh!!!) in order to start a war they wanted when they came to power--the war in Iraq. All of this recent sickening history puts Nixon's pathetic escapades more on a par with a campus prank. But Carl Rove, the architect of a lot of this mess, got his start as a campus dirty trickster. As to starting a third party, that only makes sense in the world of philosophy, not in the world we live in. It's the Dems. or it's nothing. With Howard Dean as the titular head of the party, there is some slight hope. He's not in the Senate at least.
Bob,
Word.
Comparing the domestic policies of Clinton and Nixon is a good way to make your nosehairs fall out from shock and sadness. Nixon was a murderous tyrant, but in terms of social and economic policy, a classic New Dealer, unlike the "New Democrat" crypto-Republicanism of Clinton. My god, just look at Nixon and Clintons drug policies! Nixon actually pursued the ideas of decriminalization and treatment over imprisonment while Clinton has gone down in history as one of our most obnoxious rights-trampling drug "warriors." Everything Ashcroft and co. learned about shitting on the bill of rights they learned from Clinton and Barry MacCaffery.
tvd,
The very idea of comparing Clinton's blowjob to the crimes of Nixon, Reagan, and the Bushes is laughable. The very fact that some of those on the right are willing to try to do so is a sign of how far gone they really are.
Re: Nixon's policies: I didn't deny that he had many good ones. There's a decent chance that I'd have voted for him over Kennedy, in fact, given the latter's relative lack of gravitas. But that doesn't alter the fact that he turned out to be rather a fascist.
Granted (perhaps) that Nixon had more enlightened drug notions than Clinton, it must also be said that a lot of real history did happen in the intervening years: I would enclude such enlightening moments as the death of Len Bias and the train wreck in Maryland (at the throttle, a couple of stoned dudes who missed a signal--"Ridin' that train, high on cocaine, Casey Jones you better watch your speed..."). Obviously Clinton was willing to break eggs for the omlet, e.g., he was fine with executing a mentally retarded guy in Arkansas just to get capital punishment off the table. That's how he played drug issues too. On the other hand, he make a big political mistake but did take the risk of trying to enlighten the military policy on gay folks. Politics remains always in the realm of the doable, and the tragedy of Clinton was mostly that the GOP never gave him a chance to do the good he might have done. That's our tragedy. As for Nixon, it's really hard to believe, on the evidence, that he was going to do anything for America. His Sec. of State, after all, is a a war criminal. It's a shining moment that we got him out of office. The backlash, unfortunately, got us Reagan and the Bushes.
"The backlash, unfortunately, got us Reagan and the Bushes."
Wait a minute... The elections of Reagan ('80, '84) and the Bushes ('88, '00, '02) were a "backlash" to Nixon's getting the boot?
Please elaborate. This should be good...
WS, I just wanted to know the rules for the "people's right to know." I'm glad nobody dragged up JFK shtupping Marilyn Monroe during the Cuban Missile Crisis, believe me. And I thought the Lewinsky thing was far below impeachment level, even tho he did lie on the depo.
But while we're on the subject, I've always been foggy on the difference between Anita Hill and Paula Jones.
Surely you must be joking tvd... The difference should be obvious to even a befuddled philosopher. One was brought up during nomination hearings. And the other was a civil suit against an already elected and sitting president. There's a reason why we didn't allow civil suits to go ahead against a sitting president - i.e. that they are a massive distraction, if nothing else. The Supremes decided to allow it and all hell broke loose.
Oh, and there's another difference. Paula Jones was proven, in court, to be wrong. Anita Hill is still up in the air, having never been through the legal process.
Ah. I knew there must be a good explanation. In other words, after a president is elected to his final term, we should get off his back. Sounds wise to me.
Some of this is easy, isn't it?
Anita Hill: very probably telling the truth about C. Thomas (read Brock's _Blinded by the Right_ if you still think otherwise.)
Paula Jones: Probably not telling the truth. Just happened to be another in a long list of basically groundless chargest the right threw at BC. (Again see BbtR, et. al.)
Kennedy screwing everybody in sight, sometimes at the worst possible times: overprivileged airhead asshole who probably had no business being prez IMHO. I'm weak on that era, but doesn' Johnson deserve the real credit for many of the civil rights victories often attributed to JFK? (In addition, of course, to those we know go to LBJ.)
But as an interesting sidebar along the same lines: what about the Republicans pushing the sex charges against BC while BC was trying to kill bin Laden? A MUST READ: Clarke, _Against All Enemies_
Kennedy's feelings on civil rights were roughly akin to Eisenhower's: vaguely in favor of them, but not interested in raising any kind of ruckus to make them a reality.
LBJ was the man who took his 14' legislative python and shoved civil rights down the white south's collective throat. As to whether this was due to his personal convictions or political calculation is still a matter of conjecture (I lean towards calculation, but still, it's hard to argue with his effectiveness).
WS, I was addressing the principle of the thing, like your consideration of the sacredidity of "Holy Books."
Addressing abstract principles while touching on current events invites a descent into details.
Me, I think it's all true. Justice Thomas no doubt made some bizarre remark about pubic hair. For the record, Paula Jones was not disproven or President Bill vindicated: the ruling was that her charges didn't meet the threshold of sexual harrassment. Jones appealed---Clinton paid.
Why he chose to fight as president when leaving Jones' lawsuit uncontested (she wins; he has a greater duty to the country than to contest such nonsense) was a fine exit strategy; giving up and paying her off as his presidency was ending, where his entire project has been rewriting/ensuring his legacy...illogical.
Oh yeah, if our judges want a better moral dilemma than Nixon, it's LBJ. His greatest achievement, civil rights, far outshines any of Nixon's; his cynical and purely political escalation of the Vietnam War pales beside Nixon's attempt to keep his campaign promise, getting us out through a Peace With Honor.
"Honor" meant keeping our promises to the South Vietnamese. We did not.
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