Special Report: Bush Faces His Watergate

[Mark E. Smith]

The Independent (UK) 10/30

Sleaze, leaks and an indictment add up to the worst presidential crisis since Nixon. And it will get worse. The White House has lost one key man but the whole chain of command may be engulfed by a scandal slowly revealing the lies that led to war.

By Andrew Buncombe in Washington

Presidential second terms are prone to scandals, from Bill Clinton's embarrassments over Monica Lewinsky to Ronald Reagan's implication in the Iran-Contra imbroglio. But the troubles now circling George Bush's Whitye house could be even worse than Watergate.

It might not appear that way at first. Mr. Bush is unlikely to have to join Richard Nixon, the only president in US history forced to resign from office. But the issues raised by Plamegate" - the leaking of the identity of Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA agent - are far more significant than those involved in the "second-rate burglary" of the Democratic national Committee's offices in Washington's watergate complex in the 1970s. They go to the heart of why America, and its faithful ally, Britain, went to war in Iraq.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article323311.ece

[splat@14]

1. Wonder how all this affects Blair? Probably not much at this point.

But if the events unfold as described in this op-ed......? The British people probably don't like being lied to either.

[gumby]

2. "Presidential second terms are prone to scandals.."

I'm really sick of this meme.

It reduces the grievous crimes against the United States and the Constitution committed by Nixon, Reagan and Bush and equates them with a blow job.

I keep hearing this over and over and over and over. It's like mind control.

It's like a little voice in my head that keeps saying that, "Bush isn't so bad, this is the normal course of events. It's just 'politics'. All presidents are the same and all their 'scandals' are the same."

I despise "the media."

[linazelle]

3. "worse than Watergate." Hmmmm...where have I heard THAT before? nt