Nixon pales in comparison

by V.B. Price
The Albuquerque Tribune, April 15, 2006

Sometimes you have to say the obvious.

In the past 40 or so years, the United States presidency has had four major political scandals, and they involved Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Clinton and George W. Bush. Of the four, Bush's season of scandal could well go down as the most infamous.

We know the tales. Johnson engaged in fakery with the Gulf of Tonkin incident so he could lock the nation into the Vietnam War. He ended up not running for re-election.

Nixon and his operatives were such persistent bunglers at political dirty tricks in the Watergate scandal that his chief advisers landed in jail and he was forced to resign.

With Clinton, trumped-up but endlessly pursued charges of financial shenanigans came to naught, but his sexual adventures almost cost him his office.

And Bush? They all look like midgets next to him.

One doesn't even have to mention the shady ways Bush was elected and re-elected to make the case for his nightmare presidency.

Then there's the reliable data pointing to war planning for a preemptive nuclear strike at Iran's potential nuclear arms plants. Then we have the mountains of lies and fabrications that persuaded Congress and the public to go to war with Iraq and to spend billions on nonexistent reconstruction - money perhaps now diverted for permanent air bases in that country.

Next, there's the monumental incompetence and rumored financial irregularities after Hurricane Katrina, which has left two-thirds of New Orleans a virtual ghost town, in which eminent domain could be used to clear and redevelop poor neighborhoods with no just compensation in sight.

The Bush administration's leaking of closely guarded information to selected reporters in the CIA leak scandal - and claiming it was in the public interest - would have had the other three presidents tarred and feathered and laughed out of town. What's more preposterous than a president who has a mania for secrecy, who would classify the phone book if he could, suddenly sharing top-secret information in the public interest?

Imagine Nixon or Clinton engaging in massive, electronic, warrantless spying on Americans, in direct opposition to a law Congress passed to protect us from just that. Could they have lasted a moment longer than it takes to say "impeachment"? Absolutely not. And then Bush's attorney general says it isn't beyond possibility for the government to electronically spy on all Americans.

If it weren't for a GOP-controlled House and Senate, would this president still be in office?

No need to mention the administration's denial of global warming, nor the hideous proof of torture, the weakening of environmental health standards and the nasty little election tricks like phone-jamming by White House operatives in New Hampshire in 2002 to keep Democrats from the polls.

Just the CIA leak scandal and illegally spying on Americans are enough to make Bush our No. 1 nightmare president.


Price is an Albuquerque freelance writer, author, editor and commentator.