# Bush & Co.: Worse Than Nixon? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 6, 2004, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-co-worse-than-nixon/238568 "2004-04-06T15:55:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-co-worse-than-nixon/238568/21 "2004-04-07T03:09:56Z")
Since the book was released just yesterday, I doubt that many of us have read it yet. I did see an interview with John Dean that was chilling. Just for the record, John Dean is neither a liberal nor a Democrat. He was Nixon’s man, but testified against the President in the Watergate hearings. I was in my early 30’s when Nixon resigned. It has been my opinion for the last year that the Bush Administration is more _dangerous_ to the country and to the Constitution than Nixon. Nixon was corrupt, abused his power and conspired to obstruct justice. He _could_ have been prosecuted criminally if President Gerald Ford had not pardoned him. He was also mentally unbalanced toward the end and generally disliked for his sullenness. I don’t know how he is perceived _now_ in Europe, but by the early 1970’s he he was enormously disliked in Northern Europe because of the war. I think Bush is more dangerous because he is ignorant, vindictive, shallow and stubborn. He is also much more likeable than Nixon in a frat-bro sort of way. That makes him easier to accept by the naive. He is too easily influenced by willful men with devious agendas and a love of war games. I think he is in way over his head and that the Administration is in chaos. Lies (not just from Bush, but from the Administration as a whole) have become more and more obvious. There seems to be no shame – perhaps because there is no grasp on reality. He is the most truly _unpatriotic_ President in my lifetime. (I began with FDR.) * * * In memory of the White Rose ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-co-worse-than-nixon/238568/22 "2004-04-07T04:23:39Z")
speaking of patriotic and it is KILLING me to write this, but wheares dub cheerfully stole the presidency, Nixon knew that jfk had stolen chicago and hence Illinois and hence the presidency, but he rejected calling for a recount because (supposedly, and I have to take it at face value) he thought it would be bad for the country… gagmewithaspoon… ---
**Author:** ![CTB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@CTB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CTB)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-co-worse-than-nixon/238568/23 "2004-04-07T13:22:15Z")
> [@SimonX](#): > > I don’t want to slow any one up, but… > > But what exactly are the criteria that Mr. Dean uses to render his judgement, Worse Than Watergate? Are the criteria relevant, meaningful criteria or seemingly arbitrary? > The criteria may well be a signifigant determiner of the quality of Mr. Dean’s judgement. Well, I am only about half of the way through, but his primary focus is on secrecy within the administration, and the extra-constitutional powers the current administration has used to keep things hidden under the rubrik of national security and executive privilege. Given that this administration is making drastic changes to long standing foreign and domestic policy, I think it is reasonable to be concerned. I will try to add some of his arguments more clearly when I can get the book in front of me this evening. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-co-worse-than-nixon/238568/24 "2004-04-07T13:24:26Z")
> [@CTB](#): > > Well, I am only about half of the way through, but his primary focus is on secrecy within the administration, and the extra-constitutional powers the current administration has used to keep things hidden under the rubrik of national security and executive privilege. Given that this administration is making drastic changes to long standing foreign and domestic policy, I think it is reasonable to be concerned. I will try to add some of his arguments more clearly when I can get the book in front of me this evening. That would be very kind of you. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-co-worse-than-nixon/238568/25 "2004-04-07T13:30:14Z")
Every so often, I see a post that cannot be improved on. Zoe hit the nail squarely on the head. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-co-worse-than-nixon/238568/26 "2004-04-07T13:34:53Z")
You don’t have to suffer, **alaric**. It ain’t necessarily so. > [@](#): > > Completed Dec. 9, the recount of 863 precincts showed that the original tally had undercounted Nixon’s (and Adamowski’s) votes, but only by 943, far from the 4,500 needed to alter the results. In fact, in 40 percent of the rechecked precincts, Nixon’s vote was _overcounted_. > … > A recount did wind up changing the winner in one state: Hawaii. On Dec. 28, a circuit court judge ruled that the state—originally called Kennedy’s but awarded to Nixon after auditing errors emerged—belonged to Kennedy after all. Nixon’s net gain: -3 electoral votes. _(that’s actually -6 net, and Kennedy won by a comfortable 303-219 electoral votes, “which are all that matter” - EL)_ > > The GOP’s failure to prove fraud doesn’t mean, of course, that the election was clean. That question remains unsolved and unsolvable. But what’s typically left out of the legend is that multiple election boards saw no reason to overturn the results. Neither did state or federal judges. Neither did an Illinois special prosecutor in 1961. And neither have academic inquiries into the Illinois case (both a 1961 study by three University of Chicago professors and more recent research by political scientist Edmund Kallina concluded that whatever fraud existed wasn’t substantial enough to alter the election). > > On the other hand, some fraud clearly occurred in Cook County. At least three people were sent to jail for election-related crimes, and 677 others were indicted before being acquitted by Judge John M. Karns, a Daley crony. Many of the allegations involved practices that wouldn’t be detected by a recount, leading the conservative Chicago Tribune, among others, to conclude that “once an election has been stolen in Cook County, it stays stolen.” As for Nixon’s mythical graciousness, that was spin, too. > [@](#): > > First, Eisenhower quickly withdrew his support for a challenge, making it hard for Nixon to go forward. According to Nixon’s friend Ralph De Toledano, a conservative journalist, Nixon knew Ike’s position yet claimed anyway that he, not the president, was the one advocating restraint. “This was the first time I ever caught Nixon in a lie,” Toledano recalled. > > More to the point, while Nixon publicly pooh-poohed a challenge, his allies did dispute the results—aggressively. The New York Herald Tribune’s Earl Mazo, a friend and biographer of Nixon’s, recounted a dozen-odd fishy incidents alleged by Republicans in Illinois and Texas. Largely due to Mazo’s reporting, the charges gained wide acceptance. > > But it wasn’t just Mazo who made a stink. The press went into a brief frenzy in the weeks after the election. Most important, the Republican Party made a veritable crusade of undoing the results. Even if they ultimately failed, party leaders figured, they could taint Kennedy’s victory, claim he had no mandate for his agenda, galvanize the rank and file, and have a winning issue for upcoming elections. > > Another man, too, believed Nixon was robbed: Nixon. At a 1960 Christmas party, he was heard greeting guests, “We won but they stole it from us.” Nixon nursed the grudge for years, and when he was criticized for his Watergate crimes he would cite the Kennedys’ misdeeds as precedent. ---
**Author:** ![BJMoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5fc32e/32.png) [@BJMoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BJMoose)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-co-worse-than-nixon/238568/27 "2004-04-07T14:51:22Z")
First, responding to **alaric** ’s issue, I think Nixon would still have lost in 1960 even with Illinois, but I’m relying on memory here and won’t be a bit hurt if that is wrong, but I think it’s right. Anyway, back to John Dean. His sources on the present administration are mostly published works, augumented by correspondence with some insiders, most of whom desire to remain anonymous (yes, that old problem); though the public sources are probably sufficient for his purposes. His thesis is that the Bush administration is far more secretive than the Nixon administration (but acknowledges that no scandal comparable to Watergate has [yet] attached itself to Bush). Such secretiveness, says Dean, is destructive of democratic government. I’m about a third of the way thorugh the book. So far, the case for secretiveness is pretty good; whether it’s bad enough to topple the American Way of Life is, of course, eternally debatable. ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-co-worse-than-nixon/238568/28 "2004-04-07T17:09:19Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > You don’t have to suffer, **alaric**. It ain’t necessarily so. > > As for Nixon’s mythical graciousness, that was spin, too. well, I am vastly relieved… Altho, “the dead can dance (all the way to the polls)” made a catchy tune. That said, I’m gonna come down on the nixon bad bush worse side, because altho both presidents were mentally unbalanced, only dub thinks he’s crusader rabbit. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-co-worse-than-nixon/238568/29 "2004-04-07T18:26:57Z")
> [@BJMoose](#): > > His thesis is that the Bush administration is far more secretive than the Nixon administration (but acknowledges that no scandal comparable to Watergate has [yet] attached itself to Bush). Damn slacking liberal media! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![BJMoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5fc32e/32.png) [@BJMoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BJMoose)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-co-worse-than-nixon/238568/30 "2004-04-07T18:34:25Z")
Yeah, the republic just hasn’t been the same since Bob Woodward became famous. . . . ---
**Author:** ![chula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a4c791/32.png) [@chula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chula)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-co-worse-than-nixon/238568/31 "2004-04-07T21:16:04Z")
> [@Apos](#): > > Most people don’t seem to know this, but outside of America, Nixon is seen as one of our greatest Presidents, second only to Truman. Where are you getting this? Clinton is very popular with my European friends, and I have run across many places in foreign countries named after JFK, and Carter won the Nobel Prize, so I would guess those are our most popular presidents abroad. Never heard anything good about Truman; I can’t imagine he’s very popular in Japan, for one. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-co-worse-than-nixon/238568.md?page=1)