All the Presidents' Stonewallers

"Attorney-gate" doesn't quite capture the historical tediousness of the current White House-Justice Department scandal.

Sure, it has the ubiquitous "-gate" suffix. But other than that, there's nothing to indicate that we're watching a familiar replay of Richard Nixon's ineluctable comeuppance, complete with a justice-obstructing White House; a comically inept attorney general more presidential friend than top cop; the drip, drip, drip of "Oh, did we forget to mention that?"; an increasingly angry and aggressive Democratic Congress; and a withering of Republican Congressional support.

Every morning I expect to read that some White House flunky named Alex has George W. on tape saying "Stonewall 'em" and offering Kyle Sampson a million in hush money.

Yet there is one major and fundamental difference between Watergate's genesis and the current "hubbub" -- and it's telling.

The Nixon gang was at least trying to cover up the cover-up of an actual crime: the aluminum-foil-wearing B & E of Democrats' national headquarters. And, contrary to the forewarning axiom ever since -- "It's not the crime, it's the cover-up" -- it's questionable that Nixon had much of a realistic choice in concealing the accumulated stupidities. To have done otherwise would have instantly exposed an organically corrupt administration engaged in all manner of long-standing dirty tricks and illegal maneuvers with purely political objectives.

For Dick Nixon, coming clean would have meant the effective end of his administration's legitimacy and all his global dreams of remaking the world in eponymous terms. Better to hang tough, let a few lieutenants fall, and try to keep the dream alive.

And, to repeat, there was, after all, an actual crime at the root of it all. Quite a few, in fact. Which is to say, Nixon had good, self-protective reasons to cover up.

John Mitchell, his good-buddy attorney general, had been signing off on all manner of criminally deranged, covert political operations. It tortures the imagination to picture Dick and John sitting around at night over bonded bourbon and not discussing the knee-slapping details of the president's favorite pastime -- screwing his enemies.

But, true to form, George Walker Bush can't even get presidential crime right. No, George had to go and get himself into an obstruction of justice mess of technically legal origins. He managed to take the contemplation of a routine act -- the replacement of political appointees -- and turn it, step by agonizing step, into a mound of felonious curiosities.

The man is an insult to quality gangsterism.

Not to minimize the scandal's disturbingly dark intent, but if Congress winds up nailing Bush Inc. on what began as a lawful shenanigan, rather than the White House's long history of nothing less than war crimes, it would also be an insult to legislative oversight, akin to the feds nailing the murderously extorting Al Capone on ... plink ... tax evasion.

Comments

[J Bryar]

I disagree that what happened was simply legal but unethical behavior mismanaged into a possible perjury trap.

The firings were completely related to ongoing investigations and ... in some cases the lack of concocted investigations.

In the cases of several firings, there is ample evidence that the administration was trying to short-circuit criminal prosecutions and in other cases conjure up investigations to smear political opponents.

The criminality of the first of these is fairly transparent. It is called obstruction of justice. Even an attorney general involved in such activity has committed a crime. If any of these cases involved calls to Karl Rove or other political operatives to curtain a given prosecution, the case becomes pretty clear-cut.

The second case is fuzzier but more interesting, both legally and constitutionally.

There is ample documented evidence that the Bush White House wanted to create the appearance of criminality, to use the AG's office and various US attorneys to allege wrong doing by political opponents and to call into question the votes of thousands of Americans. Without coordination and pressure from above, this is simple prosecutorial misconduct. However the early evidence suggests that there was an ongoing effort to violate the Voting Rights Act and a damage the elections. This level of misconduct rises beyond mere criminality to an arguably impeachable offense.

The intent in the Nixon case and the current case appear to be identical. Both were initiated to interfere with the electoral process.

[Vic Anderson]

AG Court: To have screwed or not to have screwed? THAT is the question!