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.)
