posted 04-05-2004 08:40 AM            

(Filed: 04/04/2004)

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/04/04/
wnix04.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/04/04/ixnewstop.html

John Dean, Richard Nixon's legal counsel who was jailed for his part in the Watergate scandal, has accused the Bush administration of trumping even the Nixon regime in secrecy, deception and political cynicism.

In the latest book to attack the conduct of the current United States administration, Mr Dean says that it has created potentially the most corrupt, unethical and undemocratic White House in history.

His Worse than Watergate, the Secret Presidency of George W. Bush is published this week by Little Brown.

"Bush and [Vice-President Richard] Cheney are a throwback to the Nixon time," Mr Dean, 65, told The Telegraph last night. "All government business is filtered through a political process at this White House, which is the most secretive ever to run the United States.

"This is not in the public's interest. It's in the White House's interest, and the interest of Bush's re-election. The White House is being run like a private business, with the difference that it is not accountable to the shareholders - in this case the voters."

His attack follows a torrid month in which the Bush administration has faced accusations from Richard Clarke, its former chief intelligence officer, that it failed to take the threat of terrorism seriously enough before September 11.

Mr Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, initially refused to testify before a public inquiry into the events of September 11. Under intense pressure, the White House has agreed to let her testify this week.

posted 04-05-2004 01:26 PM            

By Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy on Monday accused President Bush of having created at home and abroad "the largest credibility gap" since the Watergate scandal drove Richard Nixon from the White House 30 years ago.
vote Kerry: poll
AFP - 35 minutes ago

Kennedy, a key backer of fellow Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry campaign for the party's presidential nomination, also charged Iraq has become "George Bush's Vietnam," the war that divided the United States and helped force Lyndon Johnson from the presidency.

In addition, Kennedy said, Iraq has "diverted attention from the administration's deceptions here at home -- especially on the economy, health care and education."

In delivering perhaps his harshest assessment yet of Bush, Kennedy described the Republican president as someone who cannot be trusted on a host of fronts.

Kennedy, the leading liberal on Capitol Hill, renewed his charge that the administration had misled the American people and Congress into the Iraq war, straining relations with allies worldwide.

He also accused the administration of having knowingly sold an unsound tax-cutting economic plan that resulted in the loss of millions of jobs, a faulty Medicare prescription drug law that will cost far more than it acknowledged when the measure won final congressional passage late last year and an education program that Kennedy said Bush has refused to adequately fund.

"Sadly, this administration has failed to live up to basic standards of open and candid debate," Kennedy said in a speech at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

INVENT 'FACTS'

"They repeatedly invent 'facts' to support their preconceived agenda -- facts which administration officials knew or should have known were not true," Kennedy said.

The senator said, "As a result, this president has now created the largest credibility gap since Richard Nixon," who was forced to resign as president in 1974 as a result of the Watergate scandal that exposed abuses of power.

In challenging Bush's credibility, Kennedy repeated a central them of Kerry's own attacks on the incumbent.

Just months ago, Kennedy helped pump new life into Kerry's then sputtering campaign for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. Kennedy has since remained a force in Kerry's bid to unseat Bush in the November elections.

Kennedy went after the Bush administration for pushing what he called misleading policies, as well as for attacking critics of those policies.

"Iraq. Jobs. Medicare. Schools," Kennedy said. "Issue after issue. Mislead. Deceive. Make up the needed facts. Smear the character of any critic."

"It is undermining our national security, undermining our economy, undermining our health care ... undermining our very democracy," Kennedy said. "We need change. November can't come soon enough."

posted 04-09-2004 05:47 PM            

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More Death in Iraq; Bush Vacations
Lying for the President: C. Rice and J. Dean
Emergency Anti-War Demonstrations
Help Spread the Call to Impeach Bush NOW

Dear VoteToImpeach / ImpeachBush Member,

Having sent thousands of people to their death in Iraq, it is a disgrace that George W. Bush can retreat in the face of the growing conflagration to the safety and privilege of his expansive ranch in Crawford, TX. Here is a leader who opted for war, with all of its attendant misery and suffering, not as a last resort, but as a first choice. Throughout history such leaders have been held accountable by those whose lives were treated as nothing other than cannon fodder.

Today is April 9, the first anniversary of the fall of Baghdad. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld know they were lying about weapons of mass destruction and about Saddam Hussein's purported links to September 11 and to Al Qaida when they launched their blitzkrieg-type invasion. They were betting on the fact that they could roll over Iraq, proclaim victory and create a functional U.S dictatorship in Iraq -- one that would quickly be able to find an Iraqi face as a diplomatic cover. One year later, the number of people being killed in Iraq has not subsided but on the contrary is growing at an alarming rate. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed. Soon there will be 700 young men and women in the U.S. armed forces who will have died in Iraq as a consequence of this criminal endeavor.

The crimes of the Bush administration and their long term repercussions make Watergate seem like a very minor episode in comparison. In fact, John Dean, the White House counsel to Nixon, has stated in his new book "Worse than Watergate: the Secret Presidency of George W. Bush," that Bush must be impeached. Dean served prison time for his role in the Watergate affair in the early 1970s. Dean agreed to testify that Nixon was guilty of lying to Congress about Watergate, even though he knew that testimony would lead to his own imprisonment.

This week we have all witnessed the performance of Condoleezza Rice embracing her role as the voice of the administration, openly carrying forward the lies and recalcitrance of the Bush administration as she testified before the September 11 Commission. But even the Commission is looking the other way regarding the Bush administration's lies about the war in Iraq and its ongoing campaign of deceit designed to mislead and convince the U.S. public that Iraq had something to do with September 11. In advance of the war, Rice filled the airwaves warning of the impending "mushroom cloud" that would be unleashed by Iraq if the U.S. government did not immediately attack and bomb that hobbled and impoverished country. What can be done about an administration that is this criminal in its nature and conduct? It is clear that the force for change will not come from appointed commissions, nor from looking away and swapping in alternate "leadership" that backs the same policies. The real force for true accountability is coming from people demanding the one Constitutional mechanism for dealing with criminal conduct committed by those who obtain the highest offices in the U.S. -- demanding impeachment.

While the fighting rages in Iraq on the first anniversary of the fall of Baghdad, people in the U.S. are taking to the streets in emergency demonstrations between April 9 and 12th. They are outraged by the carnage still taking place in Iraq. They know that the bloodshed in Iraq will only end the way it ended in Vietnam when the U.S. forces were compelled to withdraw from Vietnam by the worldwide antiwar movement. People taking to the streets are also demanding that the U.S. Congress utilize the Constitutional mechanism available to impeach the president and other high officials for their high crimes.

The demonstrations called just two days ago are taking place in more than 50 cities across the country (see below for more information). Please help get the word out. Come to the demonstrations, put up lawn signs and bumper stickers available at the Impeach Bush Resource Center, where you can also get T-shirts, make the call to Impeach Bush! as visible as possible. More and more people are asking the question: "what do we do?" You can help answer it.

Keep the Pressure On!

All of Us at VoteToImpeach / ImpeachBush.org

T-shirts and sweatshirts Lawn signs and sign riders Bumper stickers

Emergency demonstration information:

Washington, DC: Saturday, April 10
12 noon - White House (Lafayette Park), march to follow
202-544-3389

Los Angeles: Friday, April 9
5 pm - Westwood Federal Building (Wilshire & Veteran)
213-487-2368

San Francisco: Saturday, April 10
12 noon - UN Plaza (Market St. between 7th St. and Hyde. Civic Center BART)
415-821-6545

New cities are announcing their plans by the hour - Albuquerque, NM; Atlanta, GA; Augusta, ME; Baltimore, MD; Binghamton, NY; Birmingham, AL; Boston, MA; Buffalo, NY; Carlsbad, CA; Cedar Falls, IA; Charlotte, NC; Chicago, IL; Detroit, MI; Fayetteville, AR; Ferndale, MI; Gettysburg, PA; Grand Rapids, MI; Kingston, NY; Long Island, NY; Los Angeles, CA; Massachusetts, MA; Middletown, NY; Mill Valley, CA; Minneapolis, MN; Mountain View, CA; New Haven, CT; New York, NY; Portland, OR; Providence, RI; San Diego, CA; San Francisco, CA; San Jose, CA; Sarasota Springs, NY; Seattle, WA; Springfield, MA; St. Petersburg, FL; Washington, DC; & more!

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