Richard Nixon's band of blundering burglars in the Watergate Hotel was called the Plumbers, because it was their job to stop unwanted leaks. Their incompetent 1972 break-in at the office of the Democratic National Committee, however, precipitated Nixon's slow-motion downfall—as it exposed the fact that the president was a petty, vindictive liar who did not take his oath of office seriously.
The current resident of the White House, who shares certain characteristics with his tricky predecessor, could use a plumber or two to patch the leaks that keep springing up around him. But since he is the source of the leaks, they do not appear to be unwanted. What he did not want was for the public to learn that he was the one who ordered the leaks. The effect may be the same as for Nixon: a slow-motion political drowning, as more uncomfortable questions bubble up to fill the Oval Office. If spring is here, can impeachment be far behind?
We can hope it is not. But as Elizabeth de la Vega points out in TomDispatch, it's important to ask the right questions, and so far Bush has been framing the discourse to his advantage, all about security against terrorists and a strong presidential protector. The right question about Watergate, as Senator Howard Baker phrased it, was "What did the president know, and when did he know it?"
That question is not right for Libbygate, since Bush has already implied that he knew all about it, that in fact he ordered it, but that it was okay because he is the president and therefore has the power to do whatever he wants to protect what he perceives to be the public interest. In the face of such blatant disregard for the law, there is a somewhat more complex question to be asked of this president. De la Vega lays out the facts as they are known, then phrases it thus:
Is a President, on the eve of his reelection campaign, legally entitled to ward off political embarrassment and conceal past failures in the exercise of his office by unilaterally and informally declassifying selected -- as well as false and misleading -- portions of a classified National Intelligence Estimate that he has previously refused to declassify, in order to cause such information to be secretly disclosed under false pretenses in the name of a "former Hill staffer" to a single reporter, intending that reporter to publish such false and misleading information in a prominent national newspaper?
The answer is obvious: No. Such a misuse of authority is the very essence of a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States. It is also precisely the abuse of executive power that led to the impeachment of Richard M. Nixon.
The question is not quite so succinct and pointed as Baker's "what" and "when," but the situation itself is much more baroque and convoluted than Watergate, and that complexity is necessary to capture the extent of Bush's blatant disregard for law and morality. Americans don't like to believe that their president is willing to lie for the sake of political power. However, they are learning that this one is, and in the latest Washington Post poll 47 percent strongly disapprove of his handling of the presidency.
The water rises. Misuse of authority. Abuse of power. Impeachment. Resignation.
You've pretty much nailed all but the one final spike Bush is driving deeper into his presidency every time he opens his mouth about having declassified the classified so everyone would know "the truth" about having their yellowcake and eating it, too, and how only crass politicians could possibly imagine crass politics might have had anything to do with his non-leak or suspect he, himself, had anything in mind other than the best interests of the American people and in their right to know what's really happening, and what his definition of is is, and that he is not a crook, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera....
Thus the golden spike linking East and West (not to mention North and South) is his dissing his fellow citizens in showing that he truly believes deep down in his heart that a sufficient number are, and shall remain, total fools, and that roughly half the population is bound to keep swallowing "the truth" without gagging.
Even a faithful Republican won't put up for long with being taken for a fool.
Posted by: Simon P. Canard | Tuesday, 11 April 2006 at 16:03