I’m hoping y’all have been watching the latest US news (I don’t blog it as much as I used to), where Bush’s surveillance program on American citizens has not only been revealed, but he claims, outright, that he was “within his rights” as king, erm, president (not true). Below is an excerpt from a recent letter from Senator Barbara Boxer:
On Sunday, December 18, former White House Counsel John Dean and I participated in a public discussion that covered many issues, including this surveillance. Mr. Dean, who was President Nixon’s counsel at the time of Watergate, said that President Bush is “the first President to admit to an impeachable offense.†Today, Mr. Dean confirmed his statement.
This startling assertion by Mr. Dean is especially poignant because he experienced first hand the executive abuse of power and a presidential scandal arising from the surveillance of American citizens.
I should mention that Dean is a recognized expert on abuse of Presidential power. Bill O’Reilly and Fox News are already (no-)spinning this one, of course… Funny, the former covers the story as “Bush under fire for wiretap decision” – stress on his being under fire, rather than on his actions, but a whopping 77% of Bill O’Reilly’s own poll-taking web surfers say Bush has no right to surveil in this way! Fox, more generally, simply re-iterates Bush’s talking points: what else is new?
