What Deep Throat was up to
You know, when he puts it in perspective it sounds sort of bad...
Nixon's grand plan was to concentrate executive power in an imperial presidency, politicize the bureaucracy and 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 forthrightly 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 W. Bush is building a leviathan beyond Nixon's imagining. The Bush imperial 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 is deploying its resources to break down the wall of separation between church and state, the Environmental Protection Agency has been ordered to suppress scientific studies, and the Pentagon has subsumed intelligence and diplomacy, leaving the United States with blunt military force as its chief foreign policy.
Its not surprising to me about Nixon, and its less surprising about Bush. Its got me very worried. Over the past 5 years, its become very evident that a number of people in power do not believe in the democratic processes. And if situations like Cindy S. continue to escalate, I suspect they will be showing their hand sooner rather than later.
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