wages. Click here to read part of a chapter discussing
healthcare reform in this country from Robert Kuttners
excellent book called "Everything for Sale"
Europe
articles written by Robert Kuttner
Michael Parenti
Chomsky
conservative propaganda
Dean explain why
Bush/Cheney should be
impeached
the media to control media reporting
public mind
the last election
security should be privatized is because black men die ealier and after paying in all their life their get little back.
This may sound like a rational arguement to theconservative mind because their biased perspective gives them
a superficial understanding of all economic issues. I remember reading a study in college that said that proved
that affluent black males actually lived longer than their white counter part. Which means if the fool in the White
House wanted to help black boys he should address black poverty and he should start doing that by raising the
minimum wage a few dollars and managing trade. Robert Kuttner has written on the topic of managed trade.
Bush is too stupid to address any issue. He should resign now. Robert Kuttner should sign off on any decision
with economic implications. In fact he should dictate the economic agenda.
I always thought Cheney was a bit sleezey just having anything to do with ignorant sleeze like the Bushs, Roves
or Atwaters but i really never knew anything about him. Now I heard enough.
I just finished reading the conclusion to chapter 2 in John Dean's book "Worse than Watergate". I wondered
why asbestos legislation that had been pending for years all of a sudden was settled last week. Now it alI makes
sense. Cheney was going to fix the problem but it all was recently exposed. In light of what I read about
Cheney's involvement in the asbestos litigation taken on with Halliburtons merger with Dresser industries and
other things,
Something along the following lines needs to transpire. Cheney will decline a second term for health reasons.
Bush appoint John McCain his VP. McCain will chose the cabinet for the second term and start making all
decisions. Soon after the inaugeration Bush will need to find a reason to resign.
Bush invited Ted Kennedy to watch the movie 13 Days. He indicated to Kennedy that the Bush's were also a
political dynasty. So Bush wants to be thought of like the Kennedys. That means papa Bush will have to be
scrapin the kids bodies off the sidewalk. But some sick fuckers from Texas killed the KENNEDY clan. There are
plenty of sick fuckers IN TEXAS to do away with the Bushs also. G. H. W. Bush hired the white trash Lee
Atwater to run his campaign. Anyone who hires the likes of Atwater and Rove deserves a fate worse than the
Kennedies. Bush expressed a desire to be like the Kennedies. So be it.
The following is an excerpt from John W. Dean's book "Worse than Watergate"
Nothing is secret that shall not be made manifest-Luke 8:17
It goes without saying that it would be best to have neither a scandal nor something far worse. There is,
however, only one antidote: an end to obsessive, unjustified, and disproportionate secrecy that defines the
Bush-Cheney White House. In the chapters that follow, I begin where this inquiry started, with my discovery of
the surprising Nixon-like traits of George W. Bush. When looking at him closely, though, I noted the early-
warning signs of the undue Bush-Cheney secrecy. What at first appeared only a penchant for secrecy I soon
realized was a policy of concealment that they exercised throughout the 2000 campaign. I've used examples of
their campaign stonewalling because they have morphed into White House stonewalling.
Once ensconced in their offices at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, they quietly closed their doors, pulled the
shades, and began making themselves increasingly inaccessible to the media and Congress while demanding
complete control over government information. Government under a virtual gag order, became their standard
operating procedure. In looking at the Bush-Cheney White House, I found it not unlike Nixon's in that it spends
far more time crafting the president's public image and working on the politics of reelection, than on truly
addressing the business of the American people. But what clearly distinguishes this presidency is its vice
president, a secretive man by nature whose unmatched power is largely veiled but whose secret governmental
operations have changed the world - and not for the better. Dick Cheney, effectively a co-president incognito,
works behind closed doors and does not answer to Congress or the public. His partner...the president is not
sufficiently knowledgeable about their policies to answer questions about them adequately) if and when he
does occasionally make himse1£ available. It is not that he is stupid, only ignorant! - and apparently by design.
Chapter One
Surprisingly Nixonian
This [Bush-Cheney] administration is the most secretive of our lifetime, even more secretive than the Nixon
administration. They don't believe the American people or Congress have any right to information. .
- Larry Klayman, chairman, Judicial Watch
WORSE THAN WATERGATE
My first impression was altered slightly during South Carolina's presidential primary in February 2000, when the
Bush folks went after Arizona senator John McCain. Molly Ivins, the Texas columnist who has followed Bush for
years, later called it Karl Rove's "East Texas special," a barrage of false rumors that chased McCain like storm
troopers around the state.2 First it was rumored that McCain was gay, then that he was a tomcat who cheated
on his first wife. (Inconsistency is not a problem for political gossipmongers and mudslingers.) Next came a
pamphlet claiming that McCain's wife, Cindy, was "a drug addict." When cruelly exploiting Cindy's brief addiction
to prescription painkillers didn't work, they said McCain was crazy - too long at the Hanoi Hilton as a POw. But
that was a tough sell, so finally they played the race card. Since some South Carolinians still salute the Stars
and Bars, a picture of McCain's adopted daughter, a beautiful dark-skinned girl born in Bangladesh, was
circulated to sons and daughters of the Confederacy in rural areas. Rove's "East Texas special" worked and
Bush knocked off his only real Republican rival.
The South Carolina contest made clear that Bush wanted the Republican nomination much more than his
casual manner suggested. Dirty political tactics, even when done in a way that provides deniability for the
candidate, in fact always have the blessing of that candidate; anyone who thinks otherwise is not merely naive
but uninformed. Thus, it was clear after South Carolina that Bush played hardball, that he played dirty, and that
he was playing for keeps.
Suffice it to say that all this piqued my interest. I knew a little bit about Karl Rove, for I'd first learned about him
decades earlier when I was working with the Watergate Special Prosecutor's Office. Even back then they were
asking questions about him. I had never heard of Rove, but assistant Watergate special prosecutor Richard
Davis - who was investigating political dirty tricks such as leaking stolen campaign information, infiltrating an
opponent's campaign operations during the presidential primaries, and using unidentified negative campaign
advertisements - had Rove on his radar. The questions Davis and his assistants asked me suggested that
Rove was a political operator who played at the edge of the rules, if not beyond them. More political
shenanigans surfaced after the November 2000 deadlock, when Bush's operatives were openly trying to'
disrupt the recount in Florida's Dade County; young people were flown in from Washington, D.C., to chant and
stomp in the hallways of the building where the recounting was being conducted, to bang threateningly on
doors, and to agitate mobs in the Miami streets with bullhorns - all to intimidate the Florida election officials.
Watching these political high jinks made me think of my former Nixon White House colleagues, for they too
believed in such down and dirty, if not corrupt, electioneering. Anyone familiar with the operations of a
presidential campaign must appreciate that this well-financed and covertly directed activity had been blessed
by the top of the Bush campaign. Had George Bush wanted to stop it, such activity would have been stopped.
By pure chance, at the outset of the new Bush administration I happened to read a column by William
McKenzie, a Dallas Morning News editorial writer, who noted that Bush's presidential campaign was highly
reminiscent of Nixon's 1968 campaign.4 McKenzie, alluding to Nixon's theme of bringing the country together,
concluded that “Bush probably won’t like thinking of himself as Richard Nixon’s potential heir.
Along the way, Bush was tutored in the world of mud politics by a master; Lee Atwater. When Atwater, who
directed George H. W. Bush’s 1988 presidential campaign (said to be the dirties in American history to that
date), died at age forty with a brain tumor, the press was as gentle as possible under the circumstances in
describing his campaigning style: "He relished operating on the edges of propriety and to members of his party
he was a genius in defining and exploiting the weaknesses of his opponents. To his critics, however, he was a
symbol of the dark side of American politics. His legacy is being perpetuated by Bush and his political adviser,
Karl Rove, a longtime friend and associate of Atwater. Indeed in using Rove" Bush may have stepped up a
notch over Nixon. When I asked one of my former colleagues who has had dealings with Rove what he was like,
I was given a shorthand answer:. "He's Haldeman~ and Ehrlichman, all in one."*
---- -
No doubt because much of my focus on the Bush II presidency has been on what is going on behind the
scenes, I have taken notice of Cheney's powerful role. In fact, this presidency cannot be understood without
taking into account Cheney's
influence on Bush, for in many ways it is a co-presidency. Cheney, however, prefers the shadows.
(Those who say Karl Rove is Bush's political brain are wrong, but both men . like the arrangement, for it flatters
Rove while getting Bush off the hook for
the hardball dirty campaigns he runs.)
By the time former Los Angeles Times reporter Jack Nelson, a seasoned Washington correspondent, reported
that "no president since Richard Nixon has been as secretive or as combative about leaks as George W. Bush,"
I had become sufficiently concerned about Bush and Cheney to have written several columns and a New York
Times Op-Ed piece about it, as well as an open letter to Karl Rove. After Rove told the New York Times there
was nothing to be learned from the Nixon presidency, I wrote him that I couldn't imagine the Bush administration
wanted to risk repeating the mistakes of the Nixon presidency. I pointed out that "the continuing insistence on
secrecy by your White House is startlingly Nixonian. I'm talking about everything from stiffing Congressional
requests for information and witnesses, to employing an executive order to demolish the 1978 law_providing
public access to presidential ,papers, to forcing the Government Accounting Office to go to court to ontain
information about how the white House is spending tax money when, creating a pro-energy industry Vice
Presidential task force. The Bush Administration apparently seeks to reverse the post Watergate trend of open
government” Not surprisingly, there was no response.
But in a democratic society, all use of secrecy must be questioned, and if it cannot be justified, it is antithetical
to a self-governing society. As James Madison famously put it, “A popular government without popular
information, or he means of aquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, perhaps both. Knowledge will
forever govern ignorance; and-a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the
power which knowledge gives.
Such presidents as Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Reagan and Clinton have filled the presidential
office exercising their temporary grant of the great powers and fully enjoying themselves, notwithstanding the
demands of the office. Even when times were grim, it was clear they wanted to be exactly where they were. But
like Nixon, rather than truly becoming the president, Bush plays the role of being president (sometimes well
and other times poorly). Note the telling way both men have talked about their jobs. Nixon constantly referred to
"the president" doing this or that, as if the president were someone other than himself. Similarly, Bush
discusses his job in the third person, as did Nixon: "First of all, a president has got to be the calcium in the
backbone," "The job of the president is to unite a nation to achieve big objectives," "A president likes to have a
military plan that will be successful," "I'm the commander - see, I don't need to explain - I do not need to explain
why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president." Seldom have other presidents talked
this way, for they saw themselves as president. ( see them talking like this because Bush and Nixon knew they
stole the office)
"This tendency to separate self from tide is more than a verbal tic, and anything but an act of humility. For both
Nixon and Bush it reflects a kind of inoculation and immunization from the impact of their decisions, and a
further buffer and rationalization from disclosing those decisions. It is almost as if they are saying that it wasn't
them who did it, but rather someone else, that presidential character. At the same time, they give themselves a
distance and implied fruitlessness in trying to find out what was really done, a sort of "don't ask me - I wasn't
involved." Big clues evolve from little ones. "When a president separates himself from his actions - his official
actions - it reveals a fear both of being identified with those actions and of officially taking responsibility but
privately shirking it. With George Bush, the fear and dodging is understandable. He and his administration have
engaged in some of the most deplorable activities in modern American political history. And they know what
they're doing, using secrecy and its handmaidens - obfuscation, deception, stonewalling, and lying - to remain
unaccountable, when possible, which is merely further evidence of dissonance between the man and his high
office. Dick Cheney, on the other hand, appears to find the sort of pleasure in power that medieval warlords
once did.
Never before have we had a pair of rulers - it is difficult to call them leaders -like Bush and Cheney, men whose
obsessed with control of information, and spin, is so strong that they are willing to subvert the democratic
process for their own short-term personal political gain. Not since Nixon left the White House have we had such
greed over presidential power, and never before have we had such political paranoia. When I first began to
compare Nixon and Bush, I assumed that their similarities would be superficial. Unfortunately, they are not.
History never exactly repeats itself, but it does some rather good imitations. It is remarkable that Nixon and his
past are prologue for the Bush and Cheney presidency. But so it is. And as I show, the echo resonating
through time is coming from the lower notes of Nixon's era.
