regarding the Bush Junta's egregious abuse of power. Bush/Cheney asserting the powers of an emperor and the treason of the Bush "pod people" in Congress (and of some Democrats as well) in failing to check their abuses of power is the fundamental problem in the U.S. government, from which all other problems derive.
Of course Dean began his career at the heart of a previous regime that gravely abused presidential power--the Nixon regime--and is perhaps the most famous whistleblower in U.S. history, so he should know. But I have been amazed at his ability to learn the lessons of that experience, and his incisiveness at applying it to the current regime, which has taken abuse of power to new and unprecedented and extremely dangerous lengths.
The one thing missing from Dean's analysis is recognition of the fundamental part played by stolen elections in consequent abuse of power, in the case of the Bush Junta. Although Nixon was famous for his "dirty tricks" campaigning, I have little doubt that he was, in fact, elected in 1968, that is, got the most votes. The "dirty tricks" behind the scenes were the key factor in that election, and of that, we cannot know of Nixon's responsibility. I am speaking of the assassinations of JFK--which placed warmonger LBJ in office--and then of RFK--which prevented an antiwar candidate, who surely would have won the 1968 election, from making it to the White House. 1968 was also the year of MLK's assassination (three months before Bobby). The carnage in Vietnam had reached genocidal proportions. The US casualties were also extremely high, and the country--and the Democratic Party--was being torn asunder. The Democratic Convention of 1968 turned into a police riot, as tens of thousands of antiwar protesters besieged the convention, demanding an end to the war. Many voters no doubt fell for Nixon's "peace with honor" line out of sheer exhaustion.
Nixon made the same mistake that the Bush Junta made--construing a close vote as a mandate not only to continue that heinous war, but also for fascist policy in suppression of dissent, for instance, their burglary of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist office (to find dirt on that other famous whistleblower). But the Bush Junta has gone way, way, way beyond the Nixon regime in abuse of power. And it also has seemed to lack ANY person of conscience--such as John Dean--within its ranks, to cry foul on administration crime. Contrast Bush Cartel toady, Alberto Gonzales, writing legal memos to justify torture, and calling the Geneva Conventions "quaint," with Dean's warning to Nixon that there was "a cancer on the presidency" growing out of the felonies committed by the Watergate burglars on behalf of the Nixon re-election committee. Dean was so appalled by these crimes--and probably, also, so worried about his own liability--that he turned whistleblower. His commitment was to the CONSTITUTION, not to Nixon. Imagine.
Anyway, what strikes me about Cheney's statement that he will defy Congressional subpoenas is that he has an 18% approval rating. And what strikes me about Bush/Bush Cartel "stay the course" in Iraq is that Bush has a 30% approval rating, and has rarely had better than 40% for the last two years, since his purported re-election. Frankly, I think that may be how much he really lost the 2004 election by--or close to it. His approval dipped to 49% on the day of his 2nd term inauguration (unprecedented!) and has sunk like the Titanic ever since. How was this a "mandate" for more carnage in Iraq, for more tax cuts for the rich, for torture, for pervasive domestic spying, and all the other fascist crap we've seen over the last two years?
It was not only NOT a mandate, Bush/Cheney, in fact, lost, big time, in 2004--but had arranged for the MANUFACTURE of a win, by the fasttrack conversion of our election system to electronic voting, run on TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by Bushite corporations, with a $3.9 billion electronic voting boondoggle, engineered by the biggest crooks in the Anthrax Congress, Tom Delay and Bob Ney (abetted by corporatist 'Democrat' Christopher Dodd). There is only one reason to have NON-TRANSPARENT vote counting, controlled by your rightwing buds and major contributors, and that is to fix the elections. And that's what they did. And the desire of the American people to throw them out of office was so great in 2004 that they had to ADD Ohio--blatant, egregious vote suppression, in open violation of the Voting Rights Act--in order to flip a Kerry landslide (by 5% to 10%) into a Bush squeaker (by 2.5%).
Illegitimately gained power tends to corrupt, and absolute illegitimacy corrupts absolutely. Bush/Cheney is absolutely illegitimate. They have no right to be where they are, and to be doing what they are doing. They are tyrants.
No one who WAS elected--and who therefore has to have some respect for our democratic system and the will of the people--could behave as they do. Even Nixon--even Nixon!--was worried about public opinion, and so were those who impeached him. The "system" was still in working order. Not so now. They are all (s)elected by Diebold and ES&S now, even the Democrats (--and even those who would have been elected anyway are now beholden to these two rightwing corporations for their power--they are ONE LINE OF CODE away from being dis-elected, undetectably).
To me, this is the other great issue--non-transparent elections--that goes to the heart of our democracy. Why should those who gained power illegitimately have any respect for the Constitution?
Dean accepts the two Bush elections too easily. He doesn't question them at all. It is, arguably, the second of them that has led to the worst abuses of power. (In Bush/Cheney's first term, it was really 9/11 that led to their worst abuses of power. Prior to 9/11, they were very limited by public opinion and by Congress. Their first tax cut for the rich, for instance (May 1, 2001) won by only a hair, with several traitor Democrats like Gary Condit voting for it (--the disreputable "blue dog" Democrats).)
But the same is true of Paul Krugman--an equally eloquent critic of the Bush Junta, from the left. I will never forget Krugman going on vacation after Nov. 2, 2004, while the grass roots Democrats were tearing our hair out, trying to analyze the results of a NON-TRANSPARENT voting system and trying to chronicle the Ohio abuses. The Terry McAuliffe Democratic Party placed an "Iron Curtain" over the subject of election fraud, and Krugman seemed to be taking orders from them (like a lot of others--Al Franken, for instance, and DKos). So it isn't just Dean who was myopic on this matter.
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In this context--Dean's incisive understanding of the Constitutional "balance of power" issue, but his myopia about our gravely compromised election system--he makes some points about what the American people were voting for, in the 2006 midterms. He says that it was not so much an endorsement of the Democrats as revulsion at the Bushite Republicans.
"I believe Democrats have read that message correctly. Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi told reporters that Americans wanted a 'new direction,' which includes a return to 'bipartisan civility.' For that reason, Democrats say that, when they take charge of the new 110th Congress in January, they plan to end the excessive partisanship, with its accompanying paralysis, that has characterized Republican rule.
"But ending partisanship, clearly, was not the only message voters sought to send on November 7. Many Democrats ran, and won, on the claim that the Bush Administration was operating unchecked by Congress; that Congressional Republicans refused to exercise oversight of the administration." --Dean
At one point in this discussion, Dean chronicles what the rightwing did with the Kenneth Starr Inquisition, against Clinton--an egregious abuse of power of the special prosecutor law. He warns that the Bushites intend similar abuses against the Democratic Congress--non-stop hysteria about every tiny fault they may have.
And, thinking about all that, I began wondering about Pelosi's promise of a return to "bipartisan civility." I'm not sure what Dean is basing his presumption on, that voters wanted "bipartisan civility." I'm not sure that's true. I think they wanted ACCOUNTABILITY, a quite different thing. And how do you get accountability out of tyrants with "bipartisan civility"?
Consider what occurred in the Mexican legislature yesterday.* How do you deal with corrupt liars and election thieves? Politeness may be a kind of lie, in and of itself. If achieving accountability from Bush/Cheney means getting a bit rough, I'm not at all convinced that the American people would disapprove. In fact, I'm fairly certain that they would APPROVE of Democrats barring the doors this January, when Bush tries to enter to tell us of the "state of the union." (Note: He has no inherent right to enter Congress. He has to be invited in, by this guard guy, who knocks on the door and seeks permission for the President to enter. So, what if this guard guy won't knock on the door--or, what if the Speaker, or whoever has to grant permission, says, "No. Unh-uh. We don't want to hear it. Go away."?)
Giving these fascists a polite forum just encourages them. They DON'T RESPOND to civility. They are uncivilized--mass murderers, torturers, war criminals, liars, and master thieves. They DON'T BELIEVE in the rule of law. They DON'T BELIEVE in fairness. They believe that "might makes right," and that they are the Lords of the Earth.
If you give them an inch, they take a hundred miles. If you let Bush into Congress to describe the "state of the union" that he and his junta have so viciously tried to destroy, then you can damned well expect Cheney to continue saying, "Fuck you!" to any Congressional subpoenas. And then where are you?
Also, the MAIN message of the voters was STOP THE WAR. That was their no. 1 issue! And the American people have been trying to get this across from way back before the invasion, when FIFTY-SIX PERCENT of the American people opposed the Iraq War (Feb. '03). Now it's SEVENTY-PERCENT!
The will of the American people has been egregiously frustrated, ignored and violated. It is not a time for "bipartisan civility." It is a time for crushing the Bushites completely, so that they never rise again. This Kenneth Starr-like disruption that the Bush Junta intends (according to Dean) needs to be smashed. We need to NEVER SEE THIS AGAIN in our government. It's not "bipartisan civility" that we need. It's a return to the RULE OF LAW. And this is not likely doable with politeness.
I suppose we should be grateful for any kind of reasonable focus, by Congress, on the loss of basic pieces of the Constitution under the Bush Junta, given the very murky conditions in Washington DC, including (among other things) a highly compromised Democratic Party (compromised by Diebold and ES&S, compromised by filthy corporate lobbying, compromised by the "military-industrial" complex). There is quite a lot of evidence that the new Congress, even with the big Democratic win in the mid-term elections, STILL is not very representative of the American people, and, indeed, that the new Congress may have been carefully crafted to give the impression of a win by the people, while containing significant elements that will block efforts to stop the war, and block efforts at accountability and reform. (For instance, the new Congress still includes the type of Democrats who voted for torture and suspension of habeas corpus just prior to the election--Bushite Democrats--as well as the Lieberman pro-war blockade in the Senate, of which only one third was up for reelection this time.) Also, so much money and power are at stake in the U.S. government--and there are so many secret things going on (both good and bad, I think)--and we have such an unreliable, lying, rightwing propagandistic press corps--that we, the people, have no clear view of what is happening in our government, and, consequently, are sometimes baffled about where to put public pressure, and about what. (Is impeachment so unrealistic--given the power of this illegitimate, fascist junta--that we should forget it, and worry more about the election reform bill? Is it possible to restore the "balance of powers" on the war issue, for instance, with Lieberman as the pivotal vote in the Senate? Should we resign ourselves to two more years of war--at least--and concentrate on accountability for the war budget, and/or eliminating torture, etc.?).
Many of us just want to stand on principle. Stop the war NOW. Put these criminals on trial for treason NOW, and be done with them. But we also have to think strategically, and realistically--in murky conditions. For instance, was the torture/suspension of habeas corpus vote some sort of compromise or deal--to give Bush retroactive immunity for these crimes, in exchange for Bush/Cheney backing down on invading Iran, or to head off their declaring martial law? This is the kind of murkiness I mean. It's very hard to know what's really going on. Of course we should stand on principle--to express the public will. But we should also be aware that the Democrats have to IMPLEMENT it, and they are hamstrung in many ways. For instance, it's doubtful they have the votes for impeachment, in the Senate--at least for now. That might change as people like Waxman and Conyers build the case. But it would be foolish for Pelosi to say "we are going to impeach," or "we are considering impeachment," with insufficient power to implement it, and before the case is laid out, legally, in the House. Doesn't mean we can't keep telling her to do it. But we need to know why she can't, or won't. Another for instance: many key Democrats were and still are pro-war. They simply will not take strong action against the war. How do we work with this circumstance, to end the war?
Personally, I think there is only one issue: Election reform. Until we have transparent vote counting again, we will not be adequately represented. Even this Democratic Congress is a distortion--created by "trade secret" vote counting software, and great bags of corporate money. I am passionately against the Iraq War, and torture. These things tear at my soul. But I have devoted all my personal activist time and energy to analyzing how the election fraud is done, and on election reform. With honest elections, we would not have the Iraq War or torture. (SIXTY-THREE PERCENT of the American people oppose torture "under any circumstances"--May '04!). Second on my list is loss of the "balance of power" between the President and the Congress. But that, too, is a direct result of election fraud, in my opinion. Diebold/ES&S did not just (s)elect Bush/Cheney. They also (s)elected the Bush "pod people" in Congress, who turned Congress into a lapdog for the Bush Junta.
And on election reform, we also have this problem of a compromised Democratic Party--which takes the position that rightwing corporations "counting" all our votes with "trade secret" programming code is okay, as long as there is a "paper trail." (--mostly the result of the corruption wrought by the $3.9 billion appropriated for Bush's electronic voting buds at Diebold/ES&S; our party's solution to this is to REWARD Diebold/ES&S for their election crimes, by giving them MORE contracts--for printers, for replacing the touchscreens, for upgrades, etc.). Do we stand on principle, and insist on the MOST reliable system--handcounted paper ballots--or support HR 550 as the best we can do, under the circumstances?
Hell, I don't know.
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*(Some great photos of the fistfights and pile up of bodies in the Mexican legislature yesterday, as the PRD representatives tried to stop Calderon's inauguration. I greatly admire their refusal to be silent, and sit back quietly and politely, as fascists take over their government. Scroll almost to the end, for full photo display:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2840483 )
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