The Bush presidency -- with its daily dose of deceit, distortion and demagoguery -- has made me long for the days of a kindler, gentler evil. Come back, Tricky Dick, all is forgiven
(OK, maybe not all.)
This is my first diary. I hope I did everything right. Here goes...
While watching the baseball steroid hearings the other day, I noticed a vaguely familiar face among the inquisitors. By golly, it was my idiot congressman, Mark Souder (R-Ind.). He had his undies in a bunch because Mark McGwire refused to answer questions about the past. Souder showboated indignantly (paraphrasing): "Do you think Congress let people get away with refusing to talk about the past in the Enron investigation? Or the Whitewater or travel office investigations? Or during the Watergate hearings?" (Yes, he actually equated two huge, legitimate scandals that occurred under Republican administrations with two of the trumped-up fishing expeditions that bedeviled Bill Clinton. Like I said, he's an idiot.)
Anyway, his Watergate reference got me thinking about Richard Nixon again. And you know what? I miss him.
Unlike our current president, Chimpy McSmirkington, Nixon lived in and dealt with the real world--the reality-based community, if you will. Sure, he was shady, paranoid and mean-spirited, but he also a pragmatist and a practitioner of Real Politik. He did some Very Bad Things, but at least he acknowledged the bad stuff by trying to cover it up. He knew he was in trouble if he was ever found out. And when the steady drip, drip, drip of public disclosures became too much for him, he did the right thing by quitting and saving the country from the messy impeachment proceedings.
Contrast that with our present Dear Leader. It's the difference between a family dog that pees on the rug and then slinks away ashamedly as you reach for the rolled-up newspaper versus one that takes a big dump right in the middle of the living room and then jumps onto your lap looking for a Milkbone. Like an incontinent mutt with an overindulgent owner, Bush shits all over the White House and expects to be rewarded for it. And thanks to a gullible public and a lazy mainstream media--starring in the roles of Dumb and Dumber--he has been. (I apologize to any incontinent mutts offended by this analogy.)
Nixon once left the Oval Office late at night to discuss his Vietnam War policy with protesters who had gathered outside the White House. Can you imagine Bush doing anything remotely like that today? He can't even put two coherent sentences together in front of his hand-picked, government-approved, 100% grade-A, prime-choice Republicans in his town hall informercials (easy on the "info," heavy on the "mercial"). Karl Rove has issued a restraining order against opposing viewpoints--they can't come within 500 feet of Bush so as not to make his head asplode.
Nixon also didn't share Bush's brazen contempt for the welfare and well-being of the common man. As Harry Shearer recently pointed out as guest-blogger over at Talking Points Memo, Nixon's domestic policy was to the left of Clinton's. Bush's domestic policy, on the other hand, boils down to: You're on your own, except for your body, which is subject to government control.
The Bush presidency brings to mind Bill Murray's chant in "Meatballs." Turn a record budget surplus into a record deficit in three years? It just doesn't matter! Ignore intelligence reports that say terrorists plan to strike us? It just doesn't matter! Let Osama bin Laden slip through our fingers? It just doesn't matter! Go to war based on Iraqi WMDs that turn out to be non-existent? It just doesn't matter! Turn our reputation in the international community from beacon of freedom and justice to imperialist bully? It just doesn't matter! Gay male prostitute buddy-buddies his way into the White House briefing room for two years and has access to classified documents? It just doesn't matter!
No, in the bizarro world of the Bush Administration, it just doesn't matter. Nixon screwed up and resigned. Spiro Agnew screwed up and resigned. Many of their Watergate cronies went to jail. But in the Bush Administration, failure is rewarded with a promotion. It's the Peter Principle on steroids (see how I worked that back in?). Are you an incompetent national security advisor? Condi, you'll make a fine Secretary of State! Did you thoroughly bungle planning for the Iraq War? Rummy, you knucklehead, I can't let you go! Write a memo advocating torture? Alberto, it's Attorney General time! Who here hates the United Nations the most? Bolton, you're my man for UN Ambassador! You say the the World Bank president must be able to lead the international community in building nations? Hey, "Lone" Wolfowitz, are you done planning the destruction of the Middle East yet? Sheesh, if this were 1973, G. Gordon Liddy would be Secretary of State by now. We're through the looking glass here, people. Up is down, failure is success, war is peace, fear is security. The only constant? The Right is wrong.
The old-timers in the Bush White House, like Cheney and Rumsfeld, must be amazed deep down by what this administration gets away with. Nixon had a Democratic Congress and a press corps that took its watchdog role seriously (how quaint!) to hold him accountable. Bush has a GOP Army of the Undead in Congress and a mainstream media that all but rolls over and waits for its belly to be rubbed. Accountability has seemingly gone the way of other `70s fads like the mood ring and the pet rock. No matter how often or bald-facedly Bush and his ilk lie and deceive, hardly anyone notices or cares (outside of the Kos-mos, anyway). For too many people, it truly seems like it just doesn't matter.
I was only eight years old when he left office in 1974, so I maybe I'm being a bit naïve... but I wish we had Dick Nixon to kick around again.