In an article published yesterday,
John Dean, a man who knows dirty tricks when he sees them, takes a look at the wartime deceptions of both Nixon and Bush and argues that the Bush administration wins hands down. Dean writes, "it is clear that they plan to outdo all their predecessors when it comes to dramatic infringements of civil liberties in the name of wartime necessity."
Read more below...
In his article, Dean writes:
Lately, the Bush Administration has been talking of using the Espionage Act of 1917 to prosecute the New York Times and the Washington Post . Yet these veteran newspapers' "crimes" consist merely of publishing Pulitzer-Prize-winning articles on the CIA's secret prisons, and the NSA's secret surveillance programs.
Not even Nixon sank so low. He might have initiated criminal prosecutions against the Times for printing the Pentagon Papers, yet did not.
And in other respects, the Bush Administration makes Nixon look like a piker when it comes to free speech, as well as other civil liberties issues: Its electronic surveillance of American citizens has been done in utter defiance of the law.
Does the "war on terror" justify the Administration's incursions on civil liberties? Putting this Administration's actions in historical perspective suggests the answer is a resounding no.
Dean then includes discussions of previous wartime presidents including Adams, Lincoln and Roosevelt. But when he gets to the Nixon era, Dean writes:
Nixon, who saw himself as a wartime president, believed his national security plans and policies - whatever he determined they would be -- should be unfettered. He wanted to end the war honorably - without appeasing the communists.
When dissent - in the form of leaks and public protests - threatened Nixon's policies, he wiretapped newsmen who reported leaked stories, as well as those among his White House staff whom he suspected of leaking. He also made it as difficult as possible for demonstrators to protest the war, particularly in Washington DC, and approved of arresting countless thousands of them when they did so; he wanted demonstrators quelled with tear gas, billy-clubs and even bullets if necessary (which resulted in the killings of students at Kent State).
Nixon also prosecuted Dan Ellsberg - whom he viewed much as he had communists of an earlier time -- when Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers. And, of course, Nixon approved (after the fact) the break-in into Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office, seeking information to discredit him.
These were the hallmarks of Nixon's effort to prevent dissent against his policies.
Rather than quiet dissent, however, Nixon's tactics exacerbated it.
The reactions of his Administration only elevated the prominence of the debate about his policies. One can see the same dynamic occurring now - as the Bush Administration faces ever-sharper criticism, and Bush's approval ratings dip ever-lower.
Dean concludes the piece with this rousing condemnation of the Bush administration:
Professor Stone quotes Justice Louis Brandeis, who wrote "Those who won our independence ... knew that ... fear breeds repression and that courage is the secret of liberty." There is no such courage in the Bush and Cheney presidency.
You can read the entire article at Common Dreams or Find Law.