Drawing the parallels, from those who know best

October 28, 2005

I kind of doubt that the Plame scandal will literally force Bush from office like Watergate did to Nixon, but I nevertheless enjoy seeing others draw the comparison. Especially Carl Bernstein.

“We are obviously watching and the press is beginning to document the implosion of a presidency,” Bernstein said Thursday, just hours before the Plame grand jury is set to expire. “How destructive that implosion is going to be, ultimately, we don’t know yet.

“But what the Plame leak investigation has unveiled is what the press should have been focusing on long before and without let up — how we went to war, the dishonesty involved in that process in terms of what the president and vice-president told the American people and the Congress, and the routine smearing by members of the Bush administration of people who questioned their actions and motives.” […]

Bernstein found a similarity there as well, noting “in the Nixon administration, courageous Republicans decided it was important that the president’s actions be scrutinized and that hasn’t occurred in large measure (in the Plame case). But the implosion that seems to be occurring would indicate that that kind of scrutiny might be on the way.”

Citing the Plame case’s connection to the Iraq War, and the lies that led up to U.S. involvement, Bernstein found another similarity to Watergate. “The long range interests of the country are affected every bit as much by the (Iraq) war as (by) the events of Watergate,” he declared. “What we are seeing is a broad question of the honesty of how we got into this war and the honesty of a presidency.”

Bernstein isn’t the only Watergate-era figure helping the comparison along.

The October 26 edition of Fox News’ Hannity & Colmes featured the analysis of Townhall.com columnist Charles W. Colson, who served as special counsel to President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1973. After noting that CIA operative Valerie Plame was working at the agency’s headquarters in the Langley neighborhood of McLean, Virginia, when her identity was allegedly leaked, Colson said: “When I was in the White House, if somebody was working at Langley, they were fair game.”

Colson was indicted in connection with the Watergate cover-up. The charges were dropped when he subsequently pleaded guilty to obstructing justice by disseminating information from the FBI file of Daniel Ellsberg in an effort to influence the outcome of Ellsberg’s trial in connection with leaking the Pentagon Papers. Colson served seven months in prison.

On Hannity & Colmes, Colson noted that the Plame investigation “is very much like the Watergate [case], in the sense that it wasn’t the original crime in Watergate, that is, the break-in to the Democratic headquarters, it was the cover-up. I hope and pray this isn’t so.” Later in the segment, he explained to co-host Sean Hannity: “But the other thing that’s ironic about this, Sean, is that I went to prison for disseminating an FBI file attempting to smear Daniel Ellsberg. So there are stark similarities in this case.”

Considering that Colson is supposed to be a right-wing ally of the president, his going on Fox News to draw these parallels and note the “stark similarities” probably isn’t what the White House communications team had in mind.

Maybe I’m just too cynical, but I don’t see any of this as much a setback for the Bush Crime Family. Shrub is/was a lame duck anyway (and that phrase came into use for a reason). The family is hauling in millions, billions, in profits over coming years. So Libby, and maybe a few others, bite the dust. So what?

  • Could comparisons be made by people more knowledgable than I about the criminal arrogance and hubris of Republican administrations? Nixon was caught breaking into a Democratic HQ, Reagan was illegally funding contras, and Bush has, well, we know all about what Bush has done. What did Clinton do except lie about a hummer? Was Carter ever in trouble for anything, bad-behavior-wise? For that matter, what about the first Bush? Johnson and Ford?

    It might make for an interesting comparison.

  • rian mueller’s question is an excellent one..

    i’ve often asked myself how is it that three republican presidents in the last thirty years — nixon, reagan, and g.w. bush — permitted and encouraged illegal behavior designed to conceal knowledge and forestall political opposition from other major democratic institutions

    — from the democratic party (nixon)

    — from the congress (reagan)

    — from the american media, and voters, (g.w. bush)

    this is not a coincidence. this governing “philosophy” is a fundamentally radical one, not a conservative one, it holds that seizing and maintaining political power is an end in itself. in the karl rove/ bush alliance, this philosophy has reached its pinnacle.

    this philosophy is notable for its insensitivity to custom and precedent and its willingness to use extraordinary means to accomplish ordinary political goals, e.g., impeaching clinton as a way to weaken him politically.

    would some historian comment on whether there has ever been a similar time in american history.

    to borrow a phrase from a late and unlamented public official, the radical republican party, and there is no other republcian party at the present time, are “Masters of Deceit”. they threaten american democracy and politics in a way no communist plots or plans ever did.

  • Rian Mueller hits on the scary aspect of Republican scandals — they do seem to form a pattern.

    Every Administration witnesses scandals: all power corrupts, blah blah blah. Clinton had Webster Hubbell and Carter, Bert Lance — close personal friends, who had looser ethical standards than the politicians they served. That goes with the territory, and will be as perennial as Spring and reliable as sunrise. Republicans are different from Democrats only in that they are less embarassed by such greed; Cheney, himself, made $7 million last year, as a consequence of his Administration’s generosity to Halliburton.

    What unites Watergate, Iran-Contra, and the Plame leak is the tie to arrogant assertions of Presidential authority. A signficant part of the Republican Party is “waiting for Sulla” — waiting for a dictator to “purify” the Republic of democratic elements and secure government for rich people by rich people. Read the magazine Commentary twenty years ago and you will find Norman Podhoretz asserting that the President’s CinC authority is tantamount to dictatorship — not so different from Bush’s assertion that he can authorize torture, laws and treaties to the contrary notwithstanding.

    What Nixon and Bush, and Reagan’s people, all had in common was the arrogant belief that they need not give any respect to democratic processes or the rule of law. Bush did not need to give real reasons for war in Iraq, because he did not need to chance the possibility that Congress might not approve; Bush could take the country to war, and whatever “reasons” he gave need not be any more than cheap PR, designed to disarm his opposition critics.

  • Bruce Wilder is right about Republican arrogance (Nixon, Reagan, Bush), but I’d add one other factor about the current regime: a family history. I don’t toss around “Bush Crime Family” lightly. Both Nixon and Reagan thought their presidential arrogance was justified (given their “enemies” however they viewed them). The Bushes are different. From Prescott all the way down to Dumbya they place themselves, as a family, not so much above the law and beyond it, apart from it. The rest of us are the “little people” who worry about such things.

  • It’s time for Cheney to resign and a new Gerald Ford to be picked for Vice President.

    That would give the Reps a boost for 2008, having a sitting VP who can run to succeed W.

    Now who to pick????

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