Worse Than Watergate: Secret Presidency of George W. Bush

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Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush
by John W. Dean
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Editorial Reviews
From the Publisher

Former White House counsel and New York Times bestselling author John Dean reveals how the Bush White House has set America back decades-employing a worldview and tactics of deception that will do more damage to the nation than Nixon at his worst.

About the Author
John W Dean's previous works include Blind Ambition, Lost Honor, The Rehnquist Choice, and Unmasking Deep Throat.

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Provocative Inquiry Into Mr. Bush's Criminal Culpability!, March 21, 2004
Reviewer: Barron Laycock (Labradorman) from Temple, New Hampshire United States

For a convicted felon, John Dean is an exceptional author. I remember reading his own recollections of the Watergate affair and his own association with the subsequent events that led both to his own denouement and the resignation of Richard Nixon in disgrace in "Blind Ambition" in the mid 1970s. Once again he weighs in impressively by building a very strong circumstantial case for the investigation and possible prosecution of President George W. Bush for criminal actions that Dean terms to be indeed, "worst than those of Watergate". Culling from public records and the recollections of other eye-witnesses, Dean shows how Mr. Bush has systematically exaggerated, embellished, and engineered a series of preverifications and outright lies to the American public in an effort to convince us of the need for military intervention in Iraq.

Dean argues that in asking Congress for a Joint Resolution authorizing the use of American force in Iraq, President Bush made a number of "unequivocal public statements" regarding the reasons this country needed to pursue military force in pursuit of national interests. Dean, now an academic and noted author, shows how through tradition, presidential statements regarding issues of national security are held to an expectation of "the highest standard of truthfulness". Therefore, according to Dean, no president can simply "stretch, twist or distort" the facts of a case and then expect to avoid resulting consequences. Citing historical precedents, Dean shows how Lyndon Johnson's distortions regarding the truth about the war in Vietnam led to his own subsequent withdrawal for candidacy for re-election in 1968, and how Richard Nixon's attempted cover-up of the truth about Watergate forced his own resignation.

Dean contends that while President Bush should indeed receive the benefit of the doubt, he must also be held accountable for explaining how it is that he made such a string of unambiguous and confident pronouncements to the American people (and to the world as well) regarding the existence of WMD, none of which have been substantiated in the subsequent searches that have been conducted by either Untied Nations nor American Military investigators. Dean explains how the vetting process for any public staement is processed within the executive branch:

"First, I assured the students that these statements had all been carefully considered and crafted. presidential statements are the result of a process, not a moment's thought. White House speechwriters process raw information, and their statements are passed on to senior aides who have both substantive knowledge and political insights. And this all occurs before the statement ever reaches the president for his own review and possible revision."

"Second, I explained that -- at least in every White House and administration with which I was familiar, from Truman to Clinton -- statements with national security implications were the most carefully considered of all. The White House is aware that, in making these statements, the President is speaking not only to the nation, but also to the world."

"Third, I pointed out to the students, these statements are typically corrected rapidly if they are later found to be false. And in this case, far from backpedaling from the president's more extreme claims, Bush's press secretary, Ari Fleischer had actually, at times, been even more emphatic than the president had. For example, on Jan. 9, 2003, Fleischer stated, during his press briefing, "We know for a fact that there are weapons there." Moreover, Dean contends, others such as Donald Rumsfeld were even more emphatic in claiming Saddam Hussein had WMD, even claiming to know the locations as being in the Tikrit and Baghdad areas. Finally, he concludes, given the huge implicit political risk to Mr. Bush, it would inconceivable that Mr. Bush would be so brazen as to make such statements without some intelligence to back them up.

Yet, according to Mr. Dean, we are left with a dilemma; either Mr. Bush's statements are grossly inaccurate, given the tons and tons of chemical agents he claimed Saddam possessed which can be neither located nor substantiated, or Mr. Bush has deliberately misled us. How do we reconcile what seem to be quite unequivocal statements from both the President and his agents and the evidence to date regarding the existence of WMD? According to Mr. Dean, there are two possibilities; first, that there is something devilishly wrong with the current administration's national security operations, a prospect Dean finds hard to swallow, or, second, the President has deliberately misled the American people and the world regarding the evidence supporting taking preemptive military action against the sovereign nation of Iraq.

Bluntly stated, if Mr. Bush led this country into war based on bogus intelligence data, he is liable under the Constitution for manipulation and deliberate misuse of that data under the "high crimes" statute of that document, given the fact it is a felony to defraud the United States through such a conspiratorial action. According to Mr. Dean, It is time for both Congress and the American people to demand of Mr. Bush the same kind of high-minded honesty he pledged to us under the oath of office.

This is an important book, and one I urge you to read!

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Oh,

Maybe I read this book.

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I'll see if I can work it in this year.

I had to abandon the Koran due to length and work.

I have a book my Aunt gave me called "Historical Jesus" and then will start "Prefectly Legal".

For the summer I may try some novels and maybe "Divine Comedy" or "Inferno".

Sept-Nov: Are open, but I'll finish with Wellstone's "Conscience of A Liberal". I fear more dark days ahead and figure that book will provide me some much needed light.

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Bush is the 'most corrupt president', says John Dean
Bush is the 'most corrupt president', says Nixon aide jailed for Watergate perjury
By Julian Coman in Washington
(Filed: 04/04/2004)

John Dean, Richard Nixon's legal counsel who was jailed for his part in the Watergate scandal, has accused the Bush administration of trumping even the Nixon regime in secrecy, deception and political cynicism.

In the latest book to attack the conduct of the current United States administration, Mr Dean says that it has created potentially the most corrupt, unethical and undemocratic White House in history.

His Worse than Watergate, the Secret Presidency of George W. Bush is published this week by Little Brown.

"Bush and [Vice-President Richard] Cheney are a throwback to the Nixon time," Mr Dean, 65, told The Telegraph last night. "All government business is filtered through a political process at this White House, which is the most secretive ever to run the United States.

"This is not in the public's interest. It's in the White House's interest, and the interest of Bush's re-election. The White House is being run like a private business, with the difference that it is not accountable to the shareholders - in this case the voters."

His attack follows a torrid month in which the Bush administration has faced accusations from Richard Clarke, its former chief intelligence officer, that it failed to take the threat of terrorism seriously enough before September 11.

Mr Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, initially refused to testify before a public inquiry into the events of September 11. Under intense pressure, the White House has agreed to let her testify this week.

"As with Nixon," noted Mr Dean, "the concept of executive privilege is being abused. This is about pure politics: do it as long as you can get away with it, and when you can't get away with it any more, yield."

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Worse than Watergate
'Worse Than Watergate'
NEW YORK, April 5, 2004

Richard Nixon will forever be remembered for Watergate, one of the biggest scandals in American political history. But a former member of his staff believes the current administration could take President Nixon's place in the annals of infamy.

John Dean, one-time counsel to President Nixon, has boldly titled his new book "Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency Of George W. Bush."

He visited The Early Show to talk about it. Dean is one of the main whistle-blowers credited with bringing the Nixon presidency to its end. He famously told the Congressional hearing that the Watergate cover-up was a "cancer growing on the presidency."

With his book, he tells co-anchor Harry Smith, he is not writing an "encyclopedia of the abuses of secrecy of this administration. I'm trying to make a prima facie case that this is a serious problem, and I'm selecting evidence that I think makes the case. From what I'm told, I made the case."

Dean notes his argument is not a partisan issue in the traditional Republican and Democratic sense.

"I don't really carry that kind of baggage around anymore," he says. "It certainly is a partisan issue in the sense that it's a good government issue - good/bad government issue. And I'm making the case that it's bad government to use secrecy as obsessively as this administration is. We've been there. We've done that. We've found it doesn't work. We find it inherent with problems. And whether they're Democrats or Republicans, they should pay attention to this issue."

One of the main problems he has with the current administration is the tactics were used to justify military action in Iraq. He says, "The American people weren't told the facts. They were misled about the facts about the connection between weapons of mass destruction and the ties to Iraq and al Qaeda, and this was a deception."

Though the Bush administration may argue that those were the facts as they knew them at the time, Dean says the full story was not told.

"When George Bush, for example, pre-resolution in Congress, laid out the facts for the American people, he didn't tell the American people that there's qualifications on this, there's qualifications on that. He put them as declarative statements. And that was misleading.

"When he went to Congress and actually got a resolution, he cracked an unusual deal with the Congress. The Congress is very jealous of its war powers. It delegated to Bush unusual powers that he wouldn't have to come back when he actually went. Within 48 hours of going, come back and give us a determination of two things. One, that diplomatic means won't solve the weapons of mass destruction. And secondly, that there's a tie to al Qaeda and it's consistent with the general war on terrorism. He gave a determination. It's a bogus determination."

Smith presented Dean with the idea that the Bush administration's attitude has been, "We kind of know what the deal is here. This is how we're going to run our ship." And there seems to be a large group within the population who says, "We like it this way. This is the government we asked for."

Does Dean disagree with that notion?

He responds, "I don't think they know the government they're getting. Take the environmental area. I selected issues there that are truly fatal to the American people because of the favors that are being done for big contributors. They're really quite stark. And what I selected were a handful of examples that are truly fatal to Americans. And whether they be Bush supporters or Bush opponents, this is pretty serious business when you're running secret programs that have these kinds of impacts."

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Bill Moyers interview with John Dean
Interview with John Dean
Bill Moyers - Public Affairs Television

04.05.04 - Friday on NOW with Bill Moyers , former counsel to President Nixon John Dean told Bill Moyers that he believes the Bush Administration's secrecy and deception over the war with Iraq should result in impeachment.

It was Dean's first television interview about his new book "Worse than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush." In the interview, taped Friday in New York, Dean compared the Bush and Nixon White Houses.

After becoming counsel to Nixon at the age of 31, Dean emerged as a central figure in the Watergate scandal and is considered the chief whistleblower that brought down Nixon's presidency. Dean has written many articles and essays on law, government, politics, and has recounted his days in the Nixon White House and Watergate in three previous books.

The NOW with Bill Moyers interview with John Dean aired Friday, April 2, at 9 P.M. on PBS (check local listings at http://www.pbs.org/now/sched.html).

BILL MOYERS: You write that the administration has tried to block, frustrate or control any investigation into 9/11 using, quote, "well-proven tactics not unlike those used by the Nixon White House during Watergate." What tactics?

JOHN DEAN: Stall. Stall.

We knew that at the Nixon White House. Some of these are time-tested tactics. When the Congress put together a joint inquiry itself was self-defeating because it's much more difficult for a joint inquiry with its size -- the lack of attention its staff can give to a group that large. It gets diffuse. And Cheney--

BILL MOYERS: So when you testified in Congress -- in the 70's there was a Senate Investigating Committee and a House Judiciary Committee, right?

JOHN DEAN: Right. Separate committees. Exactly. And they can get much more focused. So it was very effective. And Cheney and Bush were very involved. They didn't want any of the standing committees to do it. They put them together. And that was one of the first signs I saw that they're just playing it by-- I think they found an old playbook down in the basement that belonged to Richard Nixon. And they said, "Well, this stuff looks like it works."

BILL MOYERS: Be specific with me. What is worse than Watergate?

JOHN DEAN: If there's anything that really is the bottom line, it's taking the nation to war in a time -- when they might not have had to go to war and people dying. That is worse than Watergate. No one died for Nixon's so-called Watergate abuses.

BILL MOYERS: Let me go right to page 155 of your book. You write, quote, "The evidence is overwhelming that George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney have engaged in deceit and deception over going to war in Iraq. This is an impeachable offense."

JOHN DEAN: Absolutely is. The founders in the debates in the states-- I cite one. I cite one that I found -- I tracked down after reading the Nixon impeachment proceedings when-- Congressman Castenmeyer had gone back to look to see what the founders said about misrepresentations and lying to the Congress. Clearly, it is an impeachable offense. And I think the case is overwhelming that these people presented false information to the Congress and to the American people.

BILL MOYERS: John, I was, as you know, in the Johnson White House at the time of the Gulf of-- Tonkin when LBJ escalated the war in Vietnam on the basis of misleading information. He said there was an attack in the Gulf of Tonkin. It subsequent turns out there wasn't an attack.

Many people said then and have said that LBJ deceived the country and concealed the escalation of the war. You even say in the book that he hoodwinked Congress. Are you saying that that was not an impeachable offense but what is happening now is?

JOHN DEAN: No. I'm saying that was an impeachable offense. In fact, it comes up in the Nixon debates over whether the secret bombing would be an impeachable offense. That became a high crime or offense because Nixon had, in fact, told privately some members of the Congress. Johnson didn't tell anybody the game he was playing to my knowledge.

The transcript of the complete interview with John Dean is available on the NOW with Bill Moyers Web site at www.pbs.org/now on Monday, April 5, 2004. And these are probably the most serious offenses that you can make-- when you take a country to war, blood and treasure, no higher decision can a President of the United States make as the Commander-in-Chief. To do it on bogus information, to use this kind of secrecy to do it is intolerable.

(c) Public Affairs Television. All rights reserved.

URL: http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=16705

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Worse Than Watergate: Secret Presidency of George W. Bush

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