From the Department of Refined Business Models
Earlier today, Matt Yglesias mused about how Richard Nixon’s illegal acts caused him to be forced out of office, while any suggestion of such accountability for Dubya’s flagrant disregard for the law (for instance, regarding FISA and torture) has been marginalized or ignored as “lunatic” extremism.
Atrios offered an explanation that the Republican establishment is simply stronger now than it was then (to the point where it “is almost indistinguishable” from the Washington, D.C. establishment), but Kevin Drum took a different tack:
I agree that the David Broders of the world have been far too sanguine about the abuses of the Bush administration. At the same time, the difference here really is pretty obvious. Nixon broke the law repeatedly for purely political purposes: to help his friends, punish his enemies, and keep tabs on domestic groups he happened to personally dislike. There was no ideological dispute about the value of what Nixon did . . .
In contrast, Drum says, Bush’s lawbreaking was ideologically based:
He approved torture of prisoners and violated FISA because he genuinely thought it was necessary for national security reasons after 9/11 — and unfortunately, lots of people agreed with him at the time and continue to agree with him today. I too wish there were a broader consensus that Bush has acted illegally and ought to held accountable, but the fact that he hasn’t met Nixon’s fate doesn’t really say all that much about how tolerant we are of executive lawbreaking. Ideological disputes are simply a different kettle of fish than personal vendettas.
Kevin is already in the middle of a severe beatdown from his commenters for this claim, but I think he’s partially right, although he doesn’t grasp the exact reason why.
The whole “unitary executive” claptrap and all the other pseudo-ideological manure put out by the Bushites is simply a flimsy fig leaf over the kind of naked power grab Nixon thought was his right (indeed, Kevin seems to have forgotten that Tricky Dick tried to use “national security” as an excuse, too).
The difference now is that the petty political vendettas pursued by Nixon have been raised to the level of ideology by the modern GOP. Unrestrained use of power for its own sake is their sine qua non, their raison d’etre (and probably a bunch of other foreign phrases, too). Whatever interest they used to feign in the common good, they’ve dropped that particular mask now.
(Cross-posted at Firedoglake.)
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Tags: bush, impeachment, Nixon
July 3rd, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Richard Nixon was one of a kind…well Nixon and Henry Kissinger are two of one kind…well Nixon, Kissinger, and Karl Rove are three of one kind…but George W., though ruthless enough, is just too clueless to be of that kind.
[With my browser set up, you have to scroll to the right for the article at the link.]
(Doncha just love that playing to posterity? Those psychos thought they hadn’t missed a trick:
Kissinger told the AP that Nixon never seriously considered abandoning Saigon.
“There are in my memoirs letters he wrote me while I was conducting the negotiations, which say the exact opposite of what’s on this conversation, in which he says, ‘Go ahead and do what you need to do, but don’t be affected by the election, and we want an agreement that lasts.”)
July 3rd, 2008 at 6:31 pm
There are several big differences between Nixon-then and Bush-now:
1) Nixon didn’t have a Republican-controlled Congress;
2) During Nixon’s presidency, there were still Republicans who placed loyalty to country before loyalty to party. Newt Gingrich weeded these “RINOs” out, and Bush hasn’t had any problem keeping a solid filibuster-sized group of “loyal bushies” in line.
3) Remember, please, that the main-stream media ignored Watergate. Nixon would have gotten away with it, if it hadn’t been for those darned kids Woodward and Bernstein. (McGovern LOST, remember?)
4) In Nixon’s time, there were still reporters doing real reporting – like Jack Anderson. The newspapers also had enough money to be able to afford to let reporters actually research stories.
5) Go read Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 again, and note the similarities between Stewart Alsop then and David Broder now.
6) We’ve had many, many years of Republicans moaning about the great national trauma of Watergate, and working to make sure the press never got so far out of the control of the rich and powerful again.
7) The Clinton impeachment served several purposes: “payback” for Watergate + making it seem a partisan persecution worthy of an Alberto Gonzales “Justice” Department than a last-ditch defense against criminal misconduct.
In short, we got lucky with Nixon – and not with George Bush and Dick Cheney.
July 3rd, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Repub Anon writes:
Nixon would have gotten away with it, if it hadn’t been for those darned kids Woodward and Bernstein.
Nixon would have gotten away with it, if it hadn’t been for the harsh sentences handed down by Judge Sirica to the Watergate burglars. One of the burglars, James McCord, cracked and rolled over on higher ups who were tied to the Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP).
Woodward and Bernstein played a similar role to that played by the blogs in the Plame affair. They helped fan interest in the story among members of the public. However, just as Prosecutor Fitzpatrick was the crucial player in pursuing Libby et al., it was the District Court Judge who presided over the burglary case and later the Special Prosecutors who broke the case.
The movie All the President’s Men romanticized the importance of the role of Woodward and Bernstein in breaking the case open. The notion the case was ever off the radar screen of Congress and party officials is wrong. CBS filed a several minute story the day of the arrest and arraignment, the clip of which used to be available on YouTube but I can’t find it now.
Journalists were slow to follow up on the story but there was an inexorable court schedule. From the Nixon tapes and papers we know that the administration feared a Democratic National Committee law suit which never materialized more than the Washington Post investigation.
July 3rd, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Left out one… it was the District Court Judge, the Special Prosecutors, and the Ervin Committee which brought down Nixon — not the Fourth Estate.
July 4th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Oh, I expect Nixon’s Justice Department would have pulled a Gonzales and quashed the prosecutions if the WaPo hadn’t kept the publicity turned up high. McCord’s roll-over was probably one of the big motivations for pardoning Scooter Libby, though.
As for the Ervin Committee – well, that was something called Congressional oversight by a Democratic Congress over a Republican President. Imagine if the Irvin Committee had been created by a partisan Republican Congress with whitewash on their minds, like the 9/11 Committee.
July 4th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
I have often thought about how Bush has been getting away with a lot of things that other Presidents would NOT have been able to get away with. I personally think he should have been impeached a long time ago.
July 4th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
9-FREAKIN’-11
9-11 b!tch slapped many Americans into scared crack whores.
July 4th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Revealing Valerie Plame’s identity was a personal vendetta.
And denying immunity to the telecoms would be revealing during the inevitable law suits’ discovery phases as to which citizens who had nothing to do with terrorism were spied on by the Bush administration.
July 6th, 2008 at 12:14 am
I dunno about the fine points of Nixon-Bush compare-and-contrast, but you’re sure reminding me why I don’t waste time on either Drum’s or Yglesias’ sites any more.