Nixon's empire strikes back

[Triana]

Bush's imperial project has succeeded by learning the chief lesson of Watergate - muzzle the press


...

Nixon's grand plan was to concentrate executive power in an imperial presidency, politicise the bureaucracyand crush its independence, and invoke national security to wage partisan warfare. He intended to "reconstitute the Republican party", staging a "purge" to foster "a new majority", as his aide William Safire wrote in his memoir. Nixon himself declared in his own memoir that to achieve his ends the "institutions" of government had to be "reformed, replaced or circumvented. In my second term I was prepared to adopt whichever of these three methods - or whichever combination of them - was necessary."

But now George Bush is building a leviathan beyond Nixon's imagining. The Bush presidency is the highest stage of Nixonism. The commander-in-chief has declared himself by executive order above international law, the CIA is being purged, the justice department deploying its resources to break down thewall of separation between church and state, the Environmental Protection Agency being ordered to suppress scientific studies and the Pentagon subsuming intelligence and diplomacy, leaving the US with blunt military force as its chief foreign policy.

The three main architects of Bush's imperial presidency gained their formative experience amid Nixon's downfall. Donald Rumsfeld, Nixon's counsellor, and his deputy, Dick Cheney, one after the other, served as chief of staff to Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford, both opposing congressional efforts for more transparency in the executive.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1502532,00.html

[LightningFlash]

1. He didn't count on this little factoid.....

Downing Street Minutes and the resounding thunder of election fraud, the television networks have become the obsolete medium of real media. :banghead: :banghead: :puffpiece:

[Triana]

3. There was no widespread use of the internet then, either...

...(W)easelly the dicktator didn't count on that either. Of course they WILL find a way to control and censor the internet eventually as well, but meanwhile - THAT is where the news is.

[coloradodem2005]

2. Muzzle the press and get the majority party in congress to be yours.

[Stand and Fight]

4. Another thread to read tomorrow. n/t