April, 2004, Week 2

Home Up

April, 2004, Week 2 April, 2004, Week 3 April, 2004, Week 4 April, 2004, Week 5

Monday  April 5 , 2004

Growth in wisdom can be measured precisely by decline in bile.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

I took the GPS back to Circuit City... I will rely on my software and maps from AAA.

"B" twisted his ankle playing basketball.

Tuesday  April 6 , 2004

 

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

Joseph Addison, writer (1672-1719)

 

Christy took Calie and Christian to Newberry Park to visit the High School... I stayed home to wait for Ron L. to call. He has some books Christy wanted. I had a burger at Sutter's Mill... very lame... $9 for mediocre McD's Quarter-pounder... disappointing, and the server treated me as though I was an imposition on her gabfest... I'll try it again in a couple years. In 18 years I have never had a good meal or a positive experience there... the definition of Insanity is doing the same thing in the same way and expecting a different outcome. - Chinese Proverb

Christy got back at 1830... long day... I got her books but it was so late I couldn't get out... again... I seem to always be in a crunch for time... I am really looking forward to my trip.

Wednesday  April 7 , 2004

I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Calie had an interview, there is some organization that is testing Adopted Foster kids and trying to... well, I have no idea, Christy thinks it's worthwhile so .. we'll get the kids tested, I will have her explain it to me someday.

It's pretty appalling isn't it. The idiots in charge can't see that the whole country [Iraq] is rising up against them... old men and women children. One of our senior citizens, Walter Cronkite, a retired and very well respected newsman [don't smirk] wrote:

Published on Monday, April 5, 2004 by CommonDreams.org  

Secrets and Lies Becoming Commonplace

  by Walter Cronkite  

The initial refusal of President Bush to let his national security adviser appear under oath before the 9/11 Commission might have been in keeping with a principle followed by other presidents -- the principle being, according to Bush, that calling his advisers to testify under oath is a congressional encroachment on the executive branch's turf.

(Never mind that this commission is not a congressional body, but one he created and whose members he handpicked.)

But standing on that principle has proved to be politically damaging, in part because this administration -- the most secretive since Richard Nixon's -- already suffers from a deepening credibility problem.  It all brings to mind something I've wondered about for some time: Are secrecy and credibility natural enemies?

When you stop to think about it, you keep secrets from people when you don't want them to know the truth. Secrets, even when legitimate and necessary, as in genuine national-security cases, are what you might call passive lies.

Take the recent flap over Richard Foster, the Medicare official whose boss threatened to fire him if he revealed to Congress that the prescription-drug bill would be a lot more expensive than the administration claimed.  The White House tried to pass it all off as the excessive and unauthorized action of Foster's supervisor (who shortly after the threatened firing left the government).

Maybe.  But the point is that the administration had the newer, higher numbers, and Congress had been misled. This was a clear case of secrecy being used to protect a lie.  I can't help but wonder how many other faulty estimates by this administration have actually been misinformation explained as error.

The Foster story followed by only a few weeks the case of the U.S.  Park police chief who got the ax for telling a congressional staffer -- and The Washington Post -- that budget cuts planned for her department would impair its ability to perform its duties.  Chief Teresa Chambers since has accepted forced retirement from government service.

Isolated incidents?  Not really.  Looking back at the past three years reveals a pattern of secrecy and of dishonesty in the service of secrecy.  Some New Yorkers felt they had been lied to following the horrific collapse of the World Trade Center towers.  Proposed warnings by the Environmental Protection Agency -- that the air quality near ground zero might pose health hazards -- were watered down or deleted by the White House and replaced with the reassuring message that the air was safe to breathe.

The EPA's own inspector general said later that the agency did not have sufficient data to claim the air was safe. However, the reassurance was in keeping with the president's defiant back-to-work/business-as-usual theme to demonstrate the nation's strength and resilience.  It also was an early example of a Bush administration reflex described by one physicist as "never let science get in the way of policy."

In April 2002, the EPA had prepared a nationwide warning about a brand of asbestos called Zonolite, which contained a form of the substance far more lethally dangerous than ordinary asbestos.  However, reportedly at the last minute, the White House stopped the warning.  Why?  The St.  Louis Post-Dispatch, which broke the story, noted that the Bush administration at the time was pushing legislation limiting the asbestos manufacturer's liability.  Whatever the reason, such silence by an agency charged with protecting our health is a silent lie in my book.

One sometimes gets the impression that this administration believes that how it runs the government is its business and no one else's.  It is certainly not the business of Congress.  And if it's not the business of the people's representatives, it's certainly no business of yours or mine. 

But this is a dangerous condition for any representative democracy to find itself in.  The tight control of information, as well as the dissemination of misleading information and outright falsehoods, conjures up a disturbing image of a very different kind of society.

Democracies are not well-run nor long-preserved with secrecy and lies.

Walter Cronkite was anchor of "CBS Evening News" for 19 years.

Walter Cronkite: Secrets and Lies Becoming Commonplace... <http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0405-08.htm>

More and more people are seeing the light, I joined VVAW (Vietnam Veterans Against the War) and I get e-mail postings from members. They are articles from all over the world (the letter above is one of them) and here in the States.

 What Condoleezza Rice has to say could be enlightening... but I doubt it will be. She is a Party Hack... she has hung her future and her reputation on Bush and his 'vision'. I keep hoping one of the major players, like Rice or Powell, will step up to the pulpit and tell the truth... Clark did, but the 'spin machine' was on his ass before he was sworn in.

Rice is coming on the radio as I type... she is reading a prepared statement. Answering questions now... she is VERY good. She is not the least bit flustered... she did get a little mad though. I think it was a draw, Commission 0 - Condoleezza 0  

I sure hope Kerry can get the job done unfortunately he is going to need dynamite to get the SOB out of the Oval Office.

Thursday  April 8 , 2004

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

Joseph Addison, writer
(1672-1719)

I waited around for the Water Doctor to get here, Luckily for me he came at about 1000... Christy took Autumn to Therapy West to get on a program to test the affects of riding a tricycle on kids with CP, some will ride tykes, some will ride stationary bikes and some will just get regular therapy... no matter which control group she is in she will end up with a bike

ROF

Friday  April 9 , 2004

Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate.

Ulysses S. Grant

I spent most of the day working on the floor, the kids from Lancaster were home for Good Friday. they helped a little so I took them to the movies... we saw Hell Boy... I enjoyed it more than I thought I would...Ron Pearlman plays the title character... he was really good, makeup must have been a real chore.

Saturday  April 10 , 2004

Capital punishment is our society's recognition of the sanctity of human life.

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT)

I watched the kids while Christy, Calie and Cindy went to church, Mike had Saturday school, punishment for his defiance. 0800 to 1000... hardly much of a punishment.

I took Mike to Marks via Palmdale Kaiser to get Monica's medicine... it was closed, I went to the Lancaster Kaiser and got my Protonix and some ointment for Monica. I went to Home Depot to see if I can get more floor tiles... they were not nice people... no compassion for my predicament at all.

When Christy got home I went for a ride, I wend down to Valencia and then up Bouquet Canyon Rd to the poppy fields... there were no flowers in the canyon and very few in the desert... bummer.

Wage and Hour Department  

A man owned a small farm in West Texas. The Wage and Hour Department of Texas claimed he was not paying proper wages to his help and sent an agent to interview him.

"I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them," demanded the agent.

"Well, there's my hired hand who's been with me for 3 years. I pay him $600 a week plus free room and board. The cook has been here for 18 months, and I pay her $500 a month plus free room and board. Then there's the half-wit that works about 18 hours a day. He makes $10 a week and I buy him chewing tobacco," replied the farmer.

"That's the guy I want to talk to; the half-wit," says the agent.

The farmer says, "That would be me."

Sunday  April 11 , 2004

In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.

Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)

 We [Autumn, Monica, Calie, Cindy, "B" and Michelea and Lisa] went to Riverside for lunch with Karen and Blaine... We had a nice visit,

"B", Christian and I had a tussle, he and Christian were fighting and I got in the middle, I hurt my wrist... I hope it is just a sprain.

April, 2004, Week 2 April, 2004, Week 3 April, 2004, Week 4 April, 2004, Week 5

'The Shame' That Lincoln Steffens Found Has Not Left Our Country

By ADAM COHEN

Published: April 11, 2004

When Lincoln Steffens traveled the country in the early 1900's, most Americans blamed government corruption on immigrants and the poor. But after two years of putting big-city politics under a microscope, he disagreed.

"In all cities, the better classes — the business men — are the sources of corruption," Steffens wrote in "The Shame of the Cities," "but they are so rarely pursued and caught that we do not fully realize whence the trouble comes."

What opened the door to public corruption, Steffens concluded, was the blurring of the line between business and government. The average American "deplores our politics and lauds our business," Steffens wrote, and therefore wants more businessmen involved in government. But this impulse ignores what business is all about: generating profits. It is folly, Steffens argued, to expect businessmen to look after any interest broader than their own.

"The Shame of the Cities," one of the great works of American muckraking, turns 100 this spring, but it speaks uncannily to our times. In this age of Enron and Halliburton, of huge campaign contributions and reckless deregulation, its arguments about the corrosive effect of business on government feel up to the minute. Every bit as timely is its call to arms. Steffens believed, as his book title makes clear, that the shame of corruption lay not with those who engaged in it, who could hardly be expected to act otherwise, but with the cities, which is to say their citizens, for not actively stepping in and putting a stop to it.

Steffens was born in the Mission district of San Francisco in 1866, the son of a prosperous banker. In his youth, he considered becoming a preacher, but after college and some student days in Europe, he turned to journalism. Newspaper jobs came quickly, but he found them limiting. When S. S. McClure, the crusading editor of McClure's magazine, made him an offer, Steffens eagerly said yes.

McClure was a spellbinding figure and his magazine was fast becoming the progressive movement's house organ. Steffens joined a staff that included Ida Tarbell, author of classic exposés of the Standard Oil trust. McClure urged Steffens to see the world. But he did not go far, focusing on six cities in the Northeast and Midwest.

Novels of the day were experimenting with realism, like Theodore Dreiser's grim and gritty "Sister Carrie," and in the same spirit, a new breed of journalists started pulling back the curtain of American convention, to tell the stories of beaten-down laborers, grubby proprietors of speakeasies and graft-taking politicians. The January 1903 issue of McClure's alone contained three muckraking classics — Steffens on Minneapolis, Tarbell on Standard Oil and Ray Stannard Baker on mine workers.

"The Shame of the Cities," which was first published as a series in McClure's, was a collection of municipal portraits unlike any America had ever seen. Steffens's St. Louis was home to an improbably honest prosecutor, bent on putting much of its political and business establishment behind bars. His Pittsburgh was a corruption innovator, whose machine boss decided that rather than bribe city government, he would put his people in the key offices.

Wherever he traveled, Steffens found that businessmen of old American stock were deeply involved in the local corruption. The explanation was simple. Businessmen believed, in the end, that "whatever prospers my business, is good; it must be," and this narrow self-interest controlled their actions.

St. Louis's downfall, he found, began when the city's "big men" began to loot the city of valuable franchises. In Pittsburgh, he "saw a man who was laughed at for offering $17,500 for the slot-machine concession; he was told that it was let for much more."

The reason Steffens was so affronted by public corruption was that he saw it as subverting the very idea of America. Bribery, in his view, was "no ordinary felony, but treason," because "the effect of it is literally to change the form of our government from one that is representative of the people to an oligarchy, representative of the special interests."

In "The Age of Reform," Richard Hofstadter observed that there was an "enormous amount of self-accusation among Progressives." Although businessmen and corrupt officials are generally considered to be the muckrakers' primary targets, Steffens reserved his greatest outrage for Americans of good will who stood by and did nothing. His intention in writing "The Shame of the Cities" was not to persuade the wrongdoers to go straight, or prosecutors to file suit, but to awaken "the civic pride of an apparently shameless citizenship."

It is a rallying cry that resonates today. In a recent Los Angeles Times poll, 63 percent of those surveyed said President Bush is more concerned with corporations than workers, and it is not hard to see why. He has raised more than $180 million in campaign funds, much of it from corporate-minded contributors who want something from government - weaker environmental laws, lower taxes, government contracts - or have already gotten it. John Kerry and the Democrats, of course, raise money from many of the same sources. 

Steffens would not be surprised by the extent of the alliance between business and government today. But he would be disheartened if the American people did not start to follow his simple electoral prescription. "Vote in mass on the more promising ticket," he urged, adding that if the choices are equally bad, "throw out the party that is in, and wait till the next election and then throw out the other party that is in." If the voters did that, Steffens promised, "the commercial politician would feel a demand for good government and he would supply it."

 I was looking for Bill Moyers interview with John Dean and found this...

7.11.03

Transcript: Bill Moyers Interviews Jon Stewart
 

More on American Political Satire

MOYERS: When future historians come to write the political story of our times, they will first have to review hundreds of hours of a cable television program called THE DAILY SHOW. You simply can't understand American politics in the new millennium without THE DAILY SHOW.

For example, if you're my age, you no doubt remember the Lincoln-Douglas Debates as the epitome of political discourse. If you're a little younger, you were taught to study the Kennedy-Nixon debates for their revelation of strong opinions, strongly expressed.

But, Lincoln-Douglas, Kennedy-Nixon are nothing compared to a debate conducted recently on THE DAILY SHOW. Moderated not by Public Television's Jim Lehrer, but by a man many consider to be the preeminent political analyst of our time, the distinguished commentator and anchorman, Jon Stewart. Take a look.

[VIDEO CLIP]
Stewart: We're gonna have an honest, open debate between the President of the United States and the one man we believe has the insight and the cahones to stand up to him.

Thank you, Governor. Mr. President, you won the coin toss. The first question will go to you.

Why is the United States of America using its power to change governments in foreign countries?

Bush: We must stand up for our security and for the permanent rights and the hopes of mankind.

Stewart: Well, certainly that represents a bold new doctrine in foreign policy, Mr. President. Governor Bush, do you agree with that?

Bush: Yeah, I'm not so sure that the role of the United States is to go around the world and say, "This is the way it's gotta be."

Stewart: Well, that's interesting. Well, that's a difference of opinion, and certainly that's what this country is about. Differences of opinion. Mr. President, let me just get specific. Why are in Iraq?

Bush: We will be umm, changing the regime of Iraq for the good of the Iraqi people.

Stewart: Governor, then I'd like to hear your response on that.

Bush: If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us. I think one way for us to end up being viewed as the ugly American is to go around the world saying we do it this way, so should you.
[END VIDEO CLIP]

MOYERS: The masterful moderator of that demonstration of man's ability to hold two contradictory opinions is with me now. Jon Stewart has anchored Comedy Central's THE DAILY SHOW for four-and-a-half-years. A compendium of news, interviews and features, held up to a fractured mirror to reveal a greater truth. THE DAILY SHOW is many things, but most important, and simply, it is very smart and very funny. Welcome to NOW.

STEWART: Thank you very much. It's nice to be here.

MOYERS: I do not know… I have a confession.

STEWART: Alright.

MOYERS: I do not know whether you are practicing a old form of parody and satire.

STEWART: Uh-huh.

MOYERS: Or a new form of journalism.

STEWART: Well then that either speaks to the sad state of comedy or the sad state of news. I can't figure out which one. I think, honestly, we're practicing a new form of desperation. Where we just are so inundated with mixed messages from the media and from politicians that we're just trying to sort it out for ourselves.

MOYERS: What do…

STEWART: The show's a selfish pursuit.

MOYERS: What do you see that we journalists don't see?

STEWART: I don't think... I think we see exactly what you do see. And… but for some reason, don't analyze it in that manner or put it on the air in that manner. I can't tell you how many times we'll run into a journalist and go, "Boy that's…I wish we could be saying that. That's exactly the way we see it and that's exactly the way we'd like to be saying that." And I always think, "Well, why don't you?"

MOYERS: But when I report the news on this broadcast, people say I'm making it up. When you make it up, they say you're telling the truth.

STEWART: Yes. Exactly. It's funny. I was talking to Jayson Blair about this.

MOYERS: He's our next guest.

STEWART: Is he really?

MOYERS: Yeah. We use him as a kind of analyst of…

STEWART: Does he come in different disguises?

MOYERS: Right.

STEWART: For me it was just exciting to see fake news catching on like that. We don't… you know, it's interesting. I think we don't make things up. We just distill it to, hopefully, its most humorous nugget. And in that sense it seems faked and skewed just because we don't have to be subjective or pretend to be objective. We can just put it out there.

MOYERS: You certainly see journalists in a way we don't see ourselves. One of my favorite sketches of all time is about your far-flung correspondent whom you have now flung into Baghdad. Take a look at this.

STEWART: Yes.

[VIDEO CLIP:]
Stewart: Word here is that the attack will actually come in the form of a full blown assault on the city of Baghdad itself, a massive overwhelming strike that will instantly cripple the Iraqi infrastructure.

Carell: Really? I did not know that.

Stewart: Many of your colleagues have already fled the city and the country in anticipation of an immediate attack. Some believe it could be a matter of hours.

Carell: It would've been nice for one of my colleagues to fill me in about that. Left a message on my voicemail perhaps.

Stewart: Steve, please, while you're still there, tell us. Bush is still offering the option of exile for Saddam. Now, is that a possibility, or is Saddam going to hold firm on this?

Carell: Well, John, the possibility of Saddam accepting exile seems unlikely given his defiance and continued hopes that the Arab world will united behind him.

Stewart: Steve, what about the long-term damage to some of our key European relationships?

Carell: Will you hold on one second? Are you kidding me? I asked for Peppercorn Ranch, this is vinaigrette. And if this a sourdough roll, than I'm Walter Cronkite. Thank you.
[END VIDEO CLIP]

MOYERS: Where do you get these guys?

STEWART: These guys are very talented improv comedians and actors and writers. And we get lucky enough to cast a net and catch some of them to come over and work for us. And they're a tremendous troop of guys.

MOYERS: Which is funnier? CROSSFIRE or HARDBALL?

STEWART: CROSSFIRE or HARDBALL? Which is funnier? Which is more soul-crushing, do you mean? Both are equally dispiriting in their… you know, the whole idea that political discourse has degenerated into shows that have to be entitled CROSSFIRE and HARDBALL. And you know, "I'm Gonna Beat Your Ass" or whatever they're calling them these days is mind-boggling.

CROSSFIRE, especially, is completely an apropos name. It's what innocent bystanders are caught in when gangs are fighting. And it just boggles my mind that that's given a half hour, an hour a day to… I don't understand how issues can be dissected from the left and from the right as though… even cartoon characters have more than left and right. They have up and down.

I mean, how... it's so two-dimensional to think that any analysis can come from, "It's the left and it's the right and well, we've had that discussion and that's done."

MOYERS: You don't think of yourself as a social critic, do you?

STEWART: Social critic? No.

MOYERS: Media critic?

STEWART: No.

MOYERS: You don't?

STEWART: I think of myself as a comedian who has the pleasure of writing jokes about things that I actually care about. And that's really it. You know, if I really wanted to enact social change… I have great respect for people who are in the front lines and the trenches of trying to enact social change. I am far lazier than that.

I am a tiny, neurotic man, standing in the back of the room throwing tomatoes at the chalk board. And that's really it. And what we do is we come in in the morning and we go, "Did you see that thing last night? Aahh!" And then we spend the next 8 or 9 hours trying to take this and make it into something funny.

MOYERS: You mean something like this. Friday, front page headline: "War's Costs Bring Democratic Anger." I mean, these are the guys who voted for the war.

STEWART: You don't want to get the Democrats angry, because then they'll maybe meet in private. And you don't want that. If that's what it takes to get the Democrats angry, I feel badly for the Democrats right now. This is, Bush has raised $200 million. I mean, he's gonna raise $200 million. And he's gonna need all of that money to defeat this Democratic field. This is a rough…

I mean, think about it, you've got Senator Kerry who's like Gore but without you know all the charisma. And then you've got Lieberman, who is for the war. And thinks the tax cuts could really help. He's basically for people who want to vote for Bush but don't think Bush is Jewish enough.

Then you have Dean who's raised a tremendous amount of money. It's gonna be tough for Bush to defeat any of these guys.

MOYERS: Let's take a look at a recent clip about Dean on your show.

STEWART: Alright.

[VIDEO CLIP:]
Stewart: Speaking of the Democratic contenders — and someone's got to — Vermont Governor Howard Dean recently became the first to release a campaign ad.

Dean: I'm Howard Dean. It's time for the truth because the truth is that George Bush's foreign policy isn't making us safer.

Stewart: Wow, if you listen closely you can almost hear Al Gore saying, "Dude, Loosen up."

Dean: I believe it's time to put Americans back to work, to provide health insurance for every American. It's time for Democrats to be Democrats again. That's why I'm running for President. And that's why I approved this message.

Stewart: That's why I approved this message?! Alright! A can-do guy who's in charge of the things that comes out of his own mouth!
[END VIDEO CLIP]

STEWART: I'm looking forward to Dean as President. We haven't had a President whose neck is larger than his head in a long time. And it's time that changed.

MOYERS: Is that a healthy criterion for voting?

STEWART: It's a very healthy criterion for voting. To be fair, him saying, that's why I approved that message, is based on the new campaign laws. So.

MOYERS: You have to say at the end, "I paid for this message."

STEWART: "I paid for this message." Exactly. I don't know that you actually have to say, "I approved this message." I think if you're in the message, it sort of stands to reason that you might have approved it.

MOYERS: Which have been the best years for you? The Clinton years or the Bush years?

STEWART: Both were vexing but in somewhat different ways. I feel like the Clinton years were — and by the way, when you say great years, I feel awful about that because it does…

MOYERS: Best years. Funniest years.

STEWART: Funniest years is different. Because you do feel a little bit like, I don't know if you play craps. Have you ever been to Vegas with, let's say, Bennett? But, if you roll craps there's… you can bet with the line or against the line. If you bet with the line you're sort of betting with the table for everybody to do well. Or you can bet against the line. If a guy craps out, then you do well.

That's what it's like to be a comedian. You basically stand and stare at the world and hope it craps out cause that's a good year for you. So that's not a pleasant feeling. But the Clinton years were vexing in this idea that, here's someone who stands for values and interests that I think… that I would hold dear. And yet, throws it all away on appetites he can't control. And that's upsetting.

These years are upsetting because I feel like we're being gas lit as a country in that what we see going on is just being described as the opposite but relentlessly by, you know, the administration. So it's a different problem.

MOYERS: And what is the media doing to help us sort us out?

STEWART: Oh. they're not. Yeah, no. That's, yeah, they sat this one out. Yeah, they're not getting involved. It's very tiring. And they have weather reports to give. Nah, the media is not interested in fairness. The media is… Look, politicians have figured out the media. Let's face facts. When television first appeared it proved itself to be a vital insight into the process.

Nixon — you mentioned the Nixon-Kennedy debates. It was… at that point, politicians didn't know how to handle the media. So Nixon could say, "I look fine. I don't need make-up. These lights won't make me sweat. I'm sure I'll come off as calm and collected and eloquent."

And then, as he was sweating and looked, you know, maniacal, he ended up losing. Well, at this point… so at that point television was ahead of the game. Politicians have caught up. They understand that 24-hour news networks? They don't have time for journalism. They only have time for reporting. They only have time to be handed things and go, this is what I've just been handed by the administration. And they read it.

So now that the administration knows that, and they're very disciplined, they can manipulate what goes on the air and what sets the agenda. And that's what they do.

MOYERS: You were the first to call attention, if I remember correctly, to the fact that the war in Iraq was over as far as the media were concerned. Let's take a look at this clip.

[VIDEO CLIP:]
Stewart: What could it be? All that fanfare. I know the president is in the Middle East trying to jumpstart the peace process. Or they finally found those weapons of mass destruction we've heard so much about.

Commentator: Martha Stewart has been indicted.

Commentator: Nine count indictment.

Commentator: Martha Stewart has taken the walk into the Federal Courthouse.

Commentator: But it certainly is a tragedy.

Commentator: 10 years jail time.

Commentator: Bear with me here, because it's a pretty lengthy indictment.

Commentator: Martha Stewart knew what she was doing was wrong.

Commentator: After terrorism this is the number two priority for the Justice Department.


Stewart: Yes! Finally captured Martha Stewart. You know, with all the massive and almost completely unpunished fraud perpetrated on the American public by such companies as Enron, Global Crossing, Tyco and Adelphia, we finally got the ringleader. Maybe now we can lower the nation's terror alert to periwinkle.
[END VIDEO CLIP]

MOYERS: The war is over.

STEWART: It's over, baby. We're back to the business of scandal mongering.

MOYERS: THE WASHINGTON POST said, since the first of the year, the Laci Petersen case has been featured 79 times on Greta van Susteren's evening program on FOX news; 40 times on MSNBC's THE ABRAMS REPORT; 34 times on CNN's LARRY KING LIVE; and 20 times on HARDBALL.

STEWART: And I hope they get to the bottom of it. I hope they find out.

MOYERS: Is this why you're able to say, without any challenge, that we're being gas lighted? That we keep hearing one thing while something else is being done?

STEWART: No, there's no question. There is...in your mind...look, you know they always talk about the news wants to be objective. Leaving FOX NEWS out of it because that's sort of a different animal. And, by the way, a very entertaining animal. I enjoy watching FOX NEWS and I think every country should have their own Al-Jazeera.

MOYERS: They soon will.

STEWART: They soon will. But the other news networks, you know, they have this idea that they're being objective. But news has never been objective. It's always… what does every newscast start with? "Our top stories tonight." That's a list. That's an object… that's a subjective… some editor made a decision: "Here's our top stories. #1: There's a fire in the Bronx. #2: They arrested Martha Stewart."

Whatever… however you place those stories, is a subjective ranking as much as AFI's "100 Best Films in the World" is. So why not take advantage of that and actually analyze what you do think is important and make that… I will guarantee you, in the newsrooms across the country, they don't believe the Laci Petersen story is the most important story that they have to deal with. I guarantee it!

MOYERS: Why is it that President Bush has to go to South Africa to be asked a critical question about nuclear weapons of mass destruction?

STEWART: Because in the United States, he doesn't see anybody in the press. He's in a small room, with a treadmill, that he runs on. And a little brush to clear diorama. Like he is not exposed in any way.

You know what's great? Watch a Bush press conference, and then turn on Tony Blair and Parliament. Where he literally has to sit in front of his most vociferous critic. And that critic will say, "Sir, on the 13th, the dossier of the French...would not...the nuclear... You were hiding things. How do you answer, sir?"

"The distinguished gentleman is wrong. I can prove it in this way."

Contrast that with the press conference that Bush had on the eve of war. "Uh, okay, the next question is Jim. Is there a Jim here? Yeah. You got the next one."

"That is not the agreed upon question. We're gonna move on. Ralph, you got something?" It's an incredibly managed theatrical farce. And it's incredible to me that people are playing along with it. And they say that they're playing along with it because they're afraid of losing access. You don't have any access! There's nothing to lose!

MOYERS: People say, "Jon Stewart speaks for the middle man. He speaks for guys between the left and the right." And yet, I sometimes think you're letting the American people off too easily. They watch all of this cable stuff.

STEWART: No. But this is…

MOYERS: And they vote for these politicians.

STEWART: No. They vote… less than 50 percent of the country. The country is, look, the general dialogue is being swayed by the people who are ideologically driven.

The five percent on each side that are so ideological driven that they will dictate the terms of the discussion. The other 90 percent of the country have lawns to mow, and kids to pick up from schools, and money to make, and things to do. Their lives are, they have entrusted… we live in a representative democracy.

And so, we elect representatives to go do our bidding, so that we can get the leaves out of the gutter, and do the things around the house that need to be done. What the representatives have done over 200 years is set up a periphery — I think they call it the Beltway — that is obtuse enough that we can't penetrate it anymore, unless we spend all of our time. This is the way that it's been set up purposefully by both sides. In the financial industry, as well. They don't want average people to easily penetrate the workings because then we call them on it.

MOYERS: In the interest of full disclosure…

STEWART: Yes.

MOYERS: …I do want people to understand that you do not pass yourself off as Walter Lippman.

STEWART: No.

MOYERS: Am I right? Here's a clip.

[VIDEO CLIP]:
Stewart: But we are at war, and we here at THE DAILY SHOW will do our best to keep you informed of any late-breaking...humor we can find. Of course, our show is obviously at a disadvantage compared to the many news sources that we're competing with… at a disadvantage in several respects. For one thing, we are fake. They are not. So in terms of credibility we are, well, oddly enough, actually about even. We're about even.
[END VIDEO CLIP]

STEWART: I feel bad looking at that. I mean, I don't mean to disparage. There's tremendously talented, smart people in the news industry.

MOYERS: But I look at that, and I think there's no hope for me.

STEWART: Well, that's why I'm here today. This is really an intervention, Bill.

MOYERS: I'm ready.

STEWART: No.

MOYERS: You need a straight man?

STEWART: It's got to start. I am the straight man. That's the beautiful thing about being on my show.

I am surrounded by such talented people that I literally, I can just sit there, and advance the script. I am Dr. Exposition on the show. I just advance the script and then they take it from there.

MOYERS: Jon Stewart, THE DAILY SHOW. Thank you for joining us on NOW.

STEWART: Thank you very much. It was a pleasure to be here.

 

 

BILL MOYERS: You could barely keep up with the news about the 9/11 Commission this week. So tonight, we're going to talk to someone with a long range perspective...remember Watergate?

WATERGATE HEARINGS: "What did the President know and when did he know it?"

BILL MOYERS: 1973: The Watergate hearings mesmerized the nation and brought down a President of the United States, Richard Nixon. The star witness was a thirty-three year old John W. Dean.

JOHN DEAN: I began by telling the president there was a cancer growing on the presidency, and if the cancer was not removed, the President himself would be killed by it.

BILL MOYERS: John Dean came to the White House in 1970 as Counsel to the President, joining a team that included the equally young Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

When burglars hired by the Nixon Campaign for Re-election were caught breaking into the offices of the Democratic National Committee, Dean's role was to see that they got their "hush money" and kept their mouths shut. When the conspiracy began to unravel and it appeared he would be made the fall guy, Dean agreed to co-operate with the investigation Richard Nixon fired him in April 1973. Two months later, he made his dramatic appearance before the Senate committee investigating the scandal.

After five days of his testimony and cross-examination, there was no doubt that the cover-up started at the top, with the president himself.

To escape impeachment, Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974. John Dean pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice and served four months in prison.

Returning to private life, he began a successful career as an investment banker, lecturer and author. His books include three on the Nixon administration - and now, this one, with the title: WORSE THAN WATERGATE: THE SECRET PRESIDENCY OF GEORGE W. BUSH.

John Dean Interview

 

BILL MOYERS: John Dean joins me now to talk about secrecy in the White House.

Welcome to NOW.

 

JOHN DEAN: Thank you, Bill.

BILL MOYERS: Let's start with the news of the day. This morning we learn that President Bush has kept thousands of pages of secret documents from the Clinton years from being turned over to the commission investigating the 9/11 attacks. What do you make of that?

JOHN DEAN: Well, I think it's very typical. I think it's very consistent with his pattern. It goes all the way back to when Cheney put together his Energy Task Force, for example, and put a shroud over that and has refused, adamantly, to release any information from that. This is just more of that pattern where this White House has decided they're going to take total control of information.

And, they did it with the Joint Inquiry on Capitol Hill into 9/11. As John McCain said they were slow-walked and stonewalled on Capitol Hill by the administration. The families of 9/11 then urged that there be a commission created which we now have. And they've done the same thing. And brought it right into their own campaign.

BILL MOYERS: But these documents deal with al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, the Clinton team's reaction to the terrorist attack. Why wouldn't they want the Congress the investigating commission to have that kind of information if they're trying to put the whole story together?

JOHN DEAN: Well, I'm not sure they want the whole story together. There's always a situation that when you deal with an investigation you can either be aggressive or you can be passive. You can be offensive or defensive. They've decided to put them self in a defensive posture on this.

And I'm not sure that they haven't been forced to do it because they have something that they really don't want out about the way they've handled it. Mr. Clarke, his testimony indicates that they might have some things that they don't really wanna reveal to the public.

BILL MOYERS: Their efforts to stonewall, as you say, the investigations have failed. This is out today about they're holding back the documents from the Clinton years to the commission. But political pressure, public opinion have forced the testimony next week of Condoleezza Rice.

JOHN DEAN: Yes.

BILL MOYERS: So it's not working, is it?

JOHN DEAN: Well, it doesn't work.

They've obviously made a political decision that they cannot refuse to let Miss Rice testify. So he's agreed to let her do so. But there's still more information we don't know.

And he's also put, they put tight limits on her testimony. She's gonna do 2 1/2 hours. That isn't a lot of testimony. That's really not a lot at all.

BILL MOYERS: If Condoleezza Rice asked you to help her prepare for that testimony, what advice would you give her?

JOHN DEAN: Well, I'd say give lots of opinions. Because opinions aren't perjurious.

BILL MOYERS: They're not?

JOHN DEAN: No. They're not.

BILL MOYERS: Perjurious meaning?

JOHN DEAN: You're convicted of perjury for a false statement.

BILL MOYERS: Give me an example.

JOHN DEAN: Well, I'll give you an example with Clarke. Clarke has said that he can't believe that Bush is running on his record of terrorism. That's pure opinion. You can't be convicted for perjury on offering an opinion like that.

BILL MOYERS: You finished this book when? Back in January?

JOHN DEAN: I finished it in late-January.

BILL MOYERS: So, you actually finished the book before the last month of intense activities and disclosures, right?

JOHN DEAN: I did. But the pattern has been so consistent. And I wrote the book because no one's talking about these things. Now more with this issue has come up. But I, at times, felt sort of like a CIA analyst where I would take this fact, that fact, taking my inside knowledge as you could do as a former insider. And piecing it together and seeing patterns and understanding what they're really doing. And that's what this book lays out.

BILL MOYERS: You write that the administration has tried to block, frustrate or control any investigation into 9/11 using, quote, "well-proven tactics not unlike those used by the Nixon White House during Watergate." What tactics?

JOHN DEAN: Stall. Stall. Stall.

We knew that at the Nixon White House. Some of these are time-tested tactics. When the Congress put together its joint inquiry, a joint inquiry itself was self-defeating because it's much more difficult for a joint inquiry with its size, the lack of attention its staff can give to a group that large. It gets diffuse.

BILL MOYERS: So when you testified in Congress in the 70's there was a Senate Investigating Committee and a House Judiciary Committee, right?

JOHN DEAN: Right. Separate committees. Exactly. And they can get much more focused. So it was very effective. And Cheney and Bush were very involved. They didn't want any of the standing committees to do it. They put them together. And that was one of the first signs I saw that they're just playing it by… I think they found an old playbook down in the basement that belonged to Richard Nixon. And they said, "Well, this stuff looks like it works."

BILL MOYERS: Be specific with me. What is worse than Watergate?

JOHN DEAN: If there's anything that really is the bottom line, it's taking the nation to war in a time when they might not have had to go to war and people dying. That is worse than Watergate. No one died for Nixon's so-called Watergate abuses.

BILL MOYERS: Let me go right to page 155 of your book. You write, quote, "The evidence is overwhelming that George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney have engaged in deceit and deception over going to war in Iraq. This is an impeachable offense."

JOHN DEAN: Absolutely is. The founders in the debates in the states. I cite one. I cite one that I found, I tracked down after reading the Nixon impeachment proceedings when Congressman Castenmeyer had gone back to look to see what the founders said about misrepresentations and lying to the the Congress. Clearly, it is an impeachable offense. And I think the case is overwhelming that these people presented false information to the Congress and to the American people.

BILL MOYERS: John, I was, as you know, in the Johnson White House at the time of the Gulf of Tonkin when LBJ escalated the war in Vietnam on the basis of misleading information. He said there was an attack in the Gulf of Tonkin. It subsequently turns out there wasn't an attack.

Many people said then and have said that LBJ deceived the country and concealed the escalation of the war. You even say in the book that he hoodwinked Congress. Are you saying that that was not an impeachable offense but what is happening now is?

JOHN DEAN: No. I'm saying that was an impeachable offense. In fact, it comes up in the Nixon debates over whether the secret bombing would be an impeachable offense. That became a non-high crime or offense because Nixon had, in fact, told privately some members of the Congress. Johnson didn't tell anybody he was - the game he was playing to my knowledge.

And these are probably the most serious offenses that you can make when you take a country to war, blood and treasure, no higher decision can a President of the United States make as the Commander-in-Chief. To do it on bogus information, to use this kind of secrecy to do it is intolerable.

BILL MOYERS: After Congress delegated the authority to the President to go to war, it said, "Only, however, if you meet these two conditions. As you prove to us, you come back to us and determine that Iraq was involved with terrorism with al-Qaeda. And that there are weapons of mass destruction." And you say that Bush did not satisfy those two requirements?

JOHN DEAN: He did not. He explained. Had he merely sent his very general letter saying, "This is what I've determined." Keeping it very broad, not how he determined it or why he determined it, he might have been all right. But he accompanied that with an explanation of how he had done so. And it's a bogus explanation.

BILL MOYERS: Secrecy always accompanies war. Presidents can't do their job, frankly, in war, without secrecy. Citizens come to take their government's word that secrecy is essential.

JOHN DEAN: Yes.

BILL MOYERS: Is the war on terrorism going to confirm people in the tolerance of secrecy?

JOHN DEAN: The Bush-Cheney secrecy started long before 9-11. Started long before there was war. There has been only an acceleration and a use, and to me, an abuse, of secrecy using 9-11 as an excuse to make things secret that have no business being secret. This is what presidents do.

BILL MOYERS: You're especially agitated in here by what you call the dirtiest of dirty tricks, the role of the government in revealing that Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plane Wilson, was a covert CIA agent.

JOHN DEAN: As dirty a trick as I've ever seen, bar none.

BILL MOYERS: Dirtier than Nixon's?

JOHN DEAN: Dirtier. Nixon put no hits out on anybody that I nor did he pick on his enemies' wives. And this clearly was a dangerous leak. This woman, they knew she was at the CIA. They may or may not have known how much, how deeply involved she was. But there was always that risk when you reveal the identity of a CIA agent, particularly who's an operative.

BILL MOYERS: And you're satisfied this came from within the administration?

JOHN DEAN: There's no doubt in my mind. Where else could it have come from? Who else has privy to that kind of information? Who else tried to fan the fires once it got out there? They were after Wilson for telling the truth about whether or not Saddam Hussein had uranium from Africa. And it was not a true statement that the President was relying on in this effort to go to war.

JOHN DEAN: We don't have all the details. There's a grand jury that's now investigating that. Which, incidentally, Bill if that grand jury doesn't go beyond just the staff, and talk to and somehow get statements from both the President and the Vice President as to what they knew and when they knew it because this has been kept buried. And it has all the scent, but not quite the smell yet, of cover-up going on in there.

BILL MOYERS: In fact, you claim that this potentially involves a criminal conspiracy. Help me to understand that.

JOHN DEAN: Well, if it takes very little to create a criminal conspiracy. If you and I agree here this morning that we're gonna rob a bank, and you say, "Well, that sounds good to me," and I don't really tell you I go out and do it, you're just as guilty as I am. And it doesn't-- and oh, you can join a conspiracy as it goes along.

Obstruction of justice is probably one of the broadest, most ill-defined federal offenses I know of. I learned about it the painful way. I never had thought I wasn't trained as a criminal lawyer. I learned my criminal law the hard way. In fact, that was my one mistake. You needed, in that particular presidency, to be a very good criminal lawyer.

But, the point I'm making is that, you know, they have walked into a potential situation by not trying to flush it out right away. And Bush, for example, saying, "I don't think they'll ever catch the leaker." That's sending signals. Keep it you know, keep your head down.

BILL MOYERS: It's potentially a criminal conspiracy, isn't it, because two or more officials are involved?

JOHN DEAN: That's right.

BILL MOYERS: And the WASHINGTON POST has said, without identifying anybody, that there were at least two officials involved in this leak.

JOHN DEAN: That's right.

BILL MOYERS: You and I both worked for Presidents who were obsessed with secrecy. I mean, Lyndon Johnson could be paranoid about leaks. And you write in your book that of all the Cold War Presidents, none was more secretive than Nixon who, himself, admitted he became almost, quote, "a basket case with regard to secrecy." But you go on to write that when it comes to secrecy, quote, "never before have we had a pair of rulers like Bush and Cheney." What do you mean by that?

JOHN DEAN: The Nixon approach as opposed to this White House is much more open government. Nixon wanted to, he wanted to share. It's really during Watergate when he finds himself in very bad straights that he really becomes so secretive. But as I say, and I record in this book chapter by chapter and fact by fact, we've never seen secrecy like this.

BILL MOYERS: Why do you think the press has not been talking about it?

JOHN DEAN: I don't know. I find as I discuss in the book, that the media decided to give the Bush Administration a pass. One of the immediate after-effects of Watergate and having watched Presidencies before and after. After Watergate, a President was presumed to be doing the wrong thing. Now, he wasn't given the benefit of the doubt. Before, he was.

BILL MOYERS: Vietnam has to be an event--

JOHN DEAN: Vietnam--

BILL MOYERS: Vietnam and Watergate. Those were the two--

JOHN DEAN: No question that they are Watergate and Vietnam are very related in many ways. But so after Watergate, you have this very questioning media. You have a lot of investigative journalism. And this really runs right through the Clinton Years. And somehow, almost like a switch was hit. When the Bush Administration came into office somebody hit that switch. And no longer is there that doubt. No longer is that questioning.

BILL MOYERS: You say secrecy is out of hand.

JOHN DEAN: No question. It's out of hand because it's never been as severe. When these people moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, they closed the doors, they pulled the shades, and they put, in essence, a gag order out.

BILL MOYERS: John, what do you think about the fact that the commission, the 9-11 Commission, has agreed to allow the President and the Vice President to appear together before them, with only one staff member present to take notes? What's behind that?

JOHN DEAN: I just think that is so evident of the lack of George Bush's knowledge as to what's going on.

BILL MOYERS: How so?

JOHN DEAN: Well, he needs Cheney there to be the man who can get into depth. He's as good as his script.

BILL MOYERS: But of course it would also mean that they can keep their story straight.

JOHN DEAN: It can do that.

BILL MOYERS: You know, there is no way that we're not gonna be accused of Bush-bashing. Part of the temper of the times is that journalistically it's inevitable, I think, in this polarized country today. But what's beyond that? What is at stake here?

JOHN DEAN: Well, I'm not interested in Bush bashing. I'm really only interested in the truth getting out, people understand a very complex and sensitive issue. And that is secrecy.

In fact, I rely, if you notice in the book on every chapter I start with somebody who is of Mr. Bush's party, talking and complaining about his excessive secrecy. This isn't a partisan issue for me.

This isn't an issue of Republicans versus Democrats. This is an issue of good government versus bad government. This is an informed electorate and an uninformed electorate.

And I don't think there are any options here. And it's not to me, if the truth is bashing, I'll take the charge. If when I see people making wild and baseless charges, I find that to be bashing.

BILL MOYERS: Are there any sour grapes here? I mean could it be said that your White House career ended in disgrace, while the young Cheney and Rumsfeld went on from one success to another, not only in business, but in government? Is there something about-- of an old blood feud here?

JOHN DEAN: Not for me, anyway. Not in the slightest. Bill, this is a book I could have never planned on writing. I had written a number of columns. And it just kept getting worse and worse and worse.

And I said, "Nobody's speaking to these issues." I have no grudge against any of these people at all. I'm just I'm deeply disappointed in them. Deeply disappointed. And a bit frightened by them.

BILL MOYERS: You-- how so?

JOHN DEAN: That they absolutely won't, you know, what the world opinion is, is irrelevant to them. What the Americans' opinion, other than their base, is irrelevant.

They're on their own wavelength, and not listening. And they're men of zeal, while I think in their hearts they believe they're doing the right thing. This is the most dangerous kinda situation.

When you move in secrecy and you're not taking outside advice, when you get that bunker mentality, which I'm sure you saw in the Johnson administration, we saw in the Nixon White House. This is when you make bad decisions.

BILL MOYERS: I haven't seen you for many, many years. But I have noted that both of us are somewhat zealots ourselves about secrecy. And I know mine comes out of realizing too late what the price - that democracy really does die behind closed doors.

JOHN DEAN: Absolutely. Well, you know, Bill, I don't come at this as a partisan. I mean I really left those days long behind me. I'm a registered Independent. I vote for both Republicans, I vote for Democrats. I vote for the issues.

And you know, I didn't wanna get in the mix of a partisan thing. But I do think these are issues that must be on the table.

BILL MOYERS: You say in here that even more so than Nixon, they come after their enemies list, the people on their enemies list. I mean we see what's happening to Clarke. What's gonna happen to you again?

JOHN DEAN: You know, they can't hurt me at this point. I'm damaged material already.

BILL MOYERS: The book is WORSE THAN WATERGATE: THE SECRET PRESIDENCY OF GEORGE W. BUSH, by John W. Dean. Thank you for joining us on NOW.

JOHN DEAN: Thank you, Bill.