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Wednesday, April 05, 2006

John Dean on George Bush

I found two interesting quotes from former Nixon White House counsel John Dean. You may recall the image of Dean being sworn in at the Senate Watergate hearings that ended with Nixon's resignation. Nixon had been ordering illegal wiretaps on American citizens in the name of national security, and he faced certain impeachment.

Fast forward thirty-three years and Dean returns to testify on the proposed presidential censure motion introduced by Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin).

He told the senators:

". . . I must add that never before have I felt the slightest reason to fear our government. Nor do I frighten easily. But I do fear the Bush/Cheney government (and the precedents they are creating) because this administration is caught up in the rectitude of its own self- righteousness, and for all practical purposes this presidency has remained largely unchecked by its constitutional coequals."

Dean also published an article called "Bush's Unprecedented Arrogance" in FindLaw.com. Here's an excerpt:

"In the end, this issue is going to be resolved by the 2006 midterm election. If Republicans lose control of either the House or Senate, the investigations of the Bush/Cheney White House will begin. It won't be pretty. It will make dealing with lying about sex look like High School hazing. It will even make Richard Nixon look like a piker when it comes to staying within the law."

Of course, here in the Ozarks, we'll send Roy Blunt back to Congress with the assurance that he'll do whatever he can to obstruct any such investigations. Our man in Washington.

5 comments:

Jake Porter said...

I fear the loss of our civil liberties, our national debt, and the destruction of our Constitution.

If conservatives want to send a message to Roy Blunt they can cast their vote for someone like Kevin Craig.

RSmith said...

What about liberals? What can Libertarian candidates offer to pissed off democrats?

Jake Porter said...

I guess my question would have to be, what do you want from government?

And are there any issues that you are angry with the Democrats over? If so what are they?

RSmith said...

Citizenkan, you say it well. The Democrats have become so damn careful to not offend or be seen as unpatriotic, they have virtually castrated themselves (all apologies to Ms. McCaskill).

If you want to read something uttering ridiculous, read Kevin Craig's views on education on his campaign website. Public schools promote atheism? Sounds to me like he's pandering to our SW Missouri righteous-wingers to me. I wrote a comment on Jake's blog and was going to publish part of it here - never got around to it.

We're in a severe political drought right now. I watched John Kerry on Meet the Press Sunday - could barely stand it, was awful. Feingold, Harkin and Murtha are the only ones making sense, and nobody is backing them.

RSmith said...

Biden would be fine with me. He's a plain speaker, which would be a big improvement after Kerry.

At this point, I wouldn't mind if Gore became more visible.

I sincerely hope Hillary stays in the Senate.

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