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Thursday, December 4. 2008
From Nixon to Bush
You know what I would like to see on TV again? The David Frost interview with Richard Nixon, some of the most compelling television of my lifetime. Frost’s talk show had been cancelled and he seemed like the most unlikely of people to interview Nixon, the most infamous person of the day.Some three years earlier Nixon resigned the presidency in disgrace to avoid the coming impeachment over his role in the cover-up of the Watergate break-in.
Nine months before he resigned in August 1974, Nixon sat down with editors from the Associated Press to declare, “People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.”
There were allegations, dug up during the Watergate hearings, that Nixon had received money from the dairy lobby for raising the price supports on milk. He vigorously denied it, telling the editors key Democrats in Congress had forced him to raise the price supports, that it was their doing, not his.
Nixon never wanted to accept blame for Watergate; in fact, he didn’t want to admit anything immoral or even illegal had occurred. What had taken place was for the good of the country, for national security: the bugging, the surveillance, the secrecy.
Tellingly, after winning a landslide election against Senator George McGovern in 1972, Nixon had his Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman, ask all of his cabinet for their resignations. Nixon was angry for what he considered their complicity with the enemy and the enemy was just about everyone. In this case, it was the press (of course) and the “East Coast Ivy League Elite.”The central force of Nixon’s personality, at least his public, political side, was paranoia. It was a bitterness that burned like phosphorous and it eventually torched his presidency. The Nixon White House was an embattled outpost, besieged not only from all sides, but from traitorous people on the inside as well, like members of his cabinet who had the temerity to attend social functions with members of that unholy alliance known as the Ivy League.
Most people who remember the Nixon-Frost interview think the landmark moment came when Nixon admitted he had let down the country. It was, in fact, as close as Nixon ever got, before or since, to an apology for Watergate and everything that happened as a result.
But what I found even more of a revelation — a shocking disclosure — was that Nixon believed that no matter the law, if the president broke that law, it didn’t apply to the president because the president is above the law. “Well, when the President does it, that means that it’s not illegal.”
Sound familiar in today’s White House? How many times has President Bush been given a pass and now, how many of those once in his inner circle of aids are facing the possibility of jail for allegedly breaking the law?
Wow. The framers of the Constitution had constructed that legal document to ensure no one was above the law and yet, this man, whom everyone agrees was an astute, highly intelligent individual, decided he was not subject to the laws of our nation.
There’s some relevance in the coming film, Nixon-Frost and its subject, to the current administration, the most secretive since Nixon and maybe even more so than the Nixon White House. Seven and a half years later we still don’t know who attended Cheney’s secret energy conclave to decide the still secret energy policy for the United States.It’s irrelevant now, considering how events have unfolded in the past two years, but we do know the big oil companies have had record profits for years now, the biggest being Exxon. The disaster of the Exxon Valdez didn’t hurt the business a bit. Obliterated an entire coastline for hundreds of miles, killing off wildlife of hundreds of species, but for Exxon, just a forgotten blip on an unneeded radar.
They had a scapegoat for that anyway, Captain Joseph Hazelwood.
Then there was the degradation of the Justice Department, from one that safeguarded the laws of the land, to one that bent the rules to make the Justice Department just another political arm of Bush’s White House. Nine U.S. Attorneys General were fired without cause in 2006, all of whom were caught up in White House disfavor for not going after political cases, like alleged campaign fraud that could have benefited Republican candidates friendly with the president.
Or, in the case of Carol Lam, the U.S. Attorney General in San Diego, for going after and convicting a Bush Congressional ally, Randy “Duke” Cunningham. The prototype Top Gun ace who became the inspiration for the Tom Cruise classic, Top Gun.Well, San Diego County Congressman Daryl Issa said it had nothing to do with Lam’s investigation of Cunningham and retiring Congressman Duncan Hunter, but because Lam wasn’t prosecuting enough illegal immigration cases. Huh? And Issa said it with a straight face.
But according to Adele Fasano, San Diego director of field operations for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Lam’s office was instrumental in putting more smugglers of illegal aliens behind bars, putting violent immigrants behind bars and reducing the crime rate in Southern California.
So far, no one in the Bush White House, or any official from the Alberto Gonzalez Justice Department, has stepped forward to tell us why Lam was asked to resign from her position, a polite way of getting fired.
Just over two months ago Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed Nora Dannehy to investigate the firings after a Justice Department investigation found illegalities in the removals of the nine U.S. attorneys.Earlier this week Dannehy announced she would be going forward with the investigation and would be demanding documents held and written by the principles, including Karl Rove, Harriet Myers and Alberto Gonzalez himself. And that could lead to depositions from them and others involved.
Maybe we’ll get to see Monica Goodling again, the cute little blonde graduate of the Liberty University Law School. She was instrumental in the affair.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has warned Bush against any pardons of those involved, saying it would confirm that illegal actions had taken place in the firing of the nine prosecutors — all of whom had been appointed by President Bush in the first place.
Yeah, this is the right time for the Ron Howard film, Nixon-Frost, it will shed a lot of light on the abuse of power and, hopefully, prove no one, including the president is above the law.
And maybe, just maybe, it will spur Bush to take some responsibility for all the criminal activity that has occurred on his watch.Has President Bush checked out? This just in: it was reported today that President-Elect Obama is now receiving more national security briefings than the president. That’s a good thing, isn’t it? I’m kinda conflicted; isn’t the Commander-in-Chief supposed to be — required to be — the Commander-in-Chief until the end of his term? The implications are horrifying.
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