Processing John Dean
By Aaron Goldstein (09/16/07)
Are all authoritarians conservative?
Do conservatives use government for their own ends rather than for the public good?
Do conservatives love automatic weapons?
John Dean would have us believe this to be so. The former Nixon White House counsel and Watergate figure has just released the third book of what he describes as an “unplanned trilogy” titled Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches. Earlier this decade, Dean wrote Worse Than Watergate and Conservatives Without Conscience. The former focused on the secrecy of the Bush Administration while the latter focused on the notion that all authoritarians are conservative.
If all authoritarians are conservative what does that make Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez? Or for that matter Stalin?
Dean begins Broken Government by arguing that Republicans rule rather than govern and by doing so “have consistently demonstrated that they seek to run the government only for those who share their beliefs, not for all Americans.” He believes that Republicans have subverted the democratic process and that Democrats and the media alike have done little to challenge them on it.
One member of the media Dean chides is Michael Barone, the conservative senior writer for U.S. News & World Report and frequent Fox News Channel contributor. Barone has often argued, “One of my rules of life is that all process arguments are insincere.” Now Barone is not arguing that process is not important but that process is only raised when the individual in question does like the process’ outcome.
In August 2005, Barone repeated “all process arguments are insincere” rules on his blog at U.S. News & World Report (www.usnews.com). He did so with respect to the actions of Senator Edward Kennedy, someone who Dean admires greatly. Senator Kennedy was aghast when President Bush gave a recess appointment to John Bolton whom he had nominated as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Kennedy described the recess appointment as “a devious maneuver that evades the constitutional requirement of Senate consent.” Yet in late 1997, Senator Kennedy was all for President Clinton giving a recess appointment to Bill Lann Lee, whom Clinton appointed as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. Republicans opposed the nomination of Lee because of his support for racial quotas. Kennedy said, “I have long urged recess appointments to break this logjam – this irresponsible, unconstitutional Republican leadership position which fails to give people their due to fails to meet the constitutional standard.” (www.powerline.blog.com/archives/2005/08/011067.php) Clinton did give Lee a recess appointment and I don’t recall Senator Kennedy describing it as a devious maneuver.
For his part, Dean writes that Broken Government is “not a book about policy, rather, it is a book about the often ignored processes of the federal government.” Yet in his chapter on the judiciary, Dean makes it clear that he is very unhappy about policy outcomes:
For the past five decades, it has traditionally been the role of the federal judiciary to help the less fortunate and those whom fortune has shortchanged, a role that began to change as Republican presidents added conservatives to the court.
I wasn’t aware that it was the responsibility of the federal judiciary “to help the less fortunate and those whom fortune has shortchanged.” I thought the role of the federal judiciary to interpret the Constitution and our laws. If such interpretations help the less fortunate and those who fortune has shortchanged then so be it. However, Dean is confusing the role of the judiciary with that of social workers. He then writes a laundry list of policy outcomes and potential policy outcomes to which he objects such as abortion, affirmative action, environmental protection and the Bill of Rights. With regard to the Bill of Rights, Dean bizarrely claims that conservative jurists will overturn them where it concerns state governments and that such a decision would allow them “to have official religions, and it would allow them to censor speech through measures like closing down news outlets.” This, my friends, is what we call a stretch.
I wanted to find out how truly concerned John Dean was about the democratic process. So I went to hear him speak at Boston’s venerable Old South Meeting House. During the Q& A session, I asked him if he would have written Broken Government if the processes employed by the Bush Administration produced greater environmental protection, gun control and other policies with which he agreed.
He told me that he thought unitary executive theory was bunk, that he was very concerned about President Bush’s excessive use of signing statements and the dangers of fundamentalist courts. Well, that’s all very nice but it didn’t answer my question. Would John Dean have written Broken Government if the Bush Administration had used processes to create policy outcomes with which he agreed, yes or no?
So I decided to ask him for a second time.
I had not planned to have Dean sign my book but I wanted an answer.
ME: “You never did answer my question?” (Smiling)
DEAN: “And what question was that?”
ME: “If President Bush had utilized processes that brought about policies you agree with would you have written this book?”
DEAN:. “Yes I would. Process is important. Process matters.”
That’s all I needed to hear. If a Democrat is elected to the White House next year and Dean subsequently writes a book about subversion of the democratic process by a President Hillary Rodham Clinton or President Barack Obama, Democratic controlled Congress or jurists nominated to the bench by Democrats I will be satisfied that process truly does matter to John Dean.
However, I am not willing to bet the House on it.
First, in Broken Government, Dean sings the praises of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Congress. He described Pelosi as an “institution-minded Speaker” and wrote, “Democrats have since gone about the job of repairing the damage done by twelve years of ruthlessly partisan Republican rule of the House.” Yet in a poll conducted jointly by the Associated Press and IPSO between September 10-12 placed American approval of Congress at 26%. While President Bush has seen better days his approval numbers in the AP-IPSO poll are at 33%. (www.ipsos-na.com/news/client/act_dsp_pdf.cfm?name=mr070913-1topline.pdf&id=3634) It is worth noting that the poll was concluded the day before I went to hear Dean speak. John Dean might think Democrats have repaired Congress but the American public doesn’t agree.
Second, Dean erroneously claims in Broken Government that Lewis “Scooter” Libby “leaked Valerie Plame Wilson’s covert CIA identity.” This has never been established as fact. Perhaps Dean should speak with his friend Bob Woodward. Plame’s identity as a CIA officer was unintentionally leaked to Woodward by former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. That Dean would omit this information indicates to me that he is more concerned about sullying the Bush Administration than he is with the democratic process.
Third, during his talk at the Old South Meeting House, Dean called on the U.S. Senate to block the appointment of Ted Olson as Attorney General. Alberto Gonzales’ resignation takes effect on September 17th and Solicitor General Paul Clement will serve as AG on an interim basis. As of this writing, President Bush has not appointed Ted Olson nor anyone else to succeed Gonzales on a permanent basis. The fact that Dean would call on the Senate not to confirm Olson as Attorney General before he has even been nominated is troubling as it echoes the sentiments of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who has publicly declared that Olson will not confirmed by the Senate. Who does Dean think Bush should appoint as Attorney General? Chuck Schumer?
Fourth, although Dean was a Republican for most of his life it is clear to me that he simply does not understand conservatives. During his speech he said, “Conservatives given their conscience to their leader. They don’t want to hear the other side. They are bullies who like to pick on groups they think that are weak such as homosexuals.” In every group there are inflexible people who aren’t interested in the opinions of others. But such a statement implies that conservatives do not have philosophical disagreements with one another and worship at the altar of President Bush. Clearly Dean has not read conservative anti-Bush sentiment, especially where it concerns illegal immigration. And just because a conservative happens to oppose gay marriage does not mean they would accost someone who is gay or lesbian.
Fifth, enter Rudy Giuliani. In Broken Government, Dean characterizes Giuliani as a “high authoritarian.” Whatever this means. During his talk, Dean claimed that Giuliani needed to “frighten people into voting for him.” It seems to me it is John Dean that is frightened of Rudy Giuliani.
Yet it is clear that John Dean misreads Rudy Giuliani on two points. First, Giuliani is no fundamentalist. If Dean has been watching the GOP race as carefully as he claims he might have noticed there are conservatives leery of Giuliani because of his positions on abortion, gay rights and illegal immigration. It is far from guaranteed that Giuliani will win the GOP nomination next September in Minneapolis.
Second, Dean claims that “conservatives have few guiding principles relating to effective governance.” Yet it was under Giuliani’s leadership that New York City became a better place than how he had found it. Dean might want to read Fred Siegel’s The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life, which was published by Encounter Books in 2005. Siegel points out that before Giuliani second attempt at running for mayor in 1993, he became a fan of David Osborne, who co-wrote the 1992 book Reinventing Government along with Ted Gaebler. Reinventing Government not only had a profound effect on Giuliani it would influence a Governor from Arkansas by the name of Bill Clinton.
Osborne argued that the issue wasn’t about more government or less government but better government. This usually meant having government agencies compete with the private sector in an effort to provide better results for the functions they performed and Giuliani was interested in having the New York city government work again. Siegel recounted that after Osborne spoke with Giuliani observed it was the “most interesting conversation I’ve ever had with a politician.” Osborne went on the describe Giuliani as a keen student of government who knew how to ask the right questions. While Siegel described Giuliani as an “immoderate centrist” with an autocratic streak, Giuliani’s positions on social issues and governance does not fit Dean’s archetypal profile of an authoritarian conservative. Yet if Giuliani does become President then I think Dean might write yet another book.
Finally, Dean claimed that if Bush and Cheney were unhappy with the results of the 2008 Presidential race they might decide they “were going to stay” after January 20, 2009. This claim is absolutely absurd. Dean is clearly grasping at straws. Unlike Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe who intend to be Presidents-for-Life regardless of their populace’s wishes, as sure as the sun rises in the east, Bush and Cheney will leave the West Wing never to return. You would think that would be sufficient to end John Dean’s long national nightmare.
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