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Column: Stop Bush Before He Makes Nixon Look Good

by P.M. Carpenter

Mr. Carpenter is a writer and doctoral candidate in American history at the University of Illinois and a columnist for HNN.

Richard Nixon is beginning to look pretty good. Presidential payoffs to bad guys, enemy lists, misuse of government agencies, even obstruction of justice are taking on the pleasant emergence of wistful nostalgia--a real stroll in the park--compared to the sweeping and open violations of public trust being committed by George W. Bush & Company. One longs for the likes of that brooding president sitting hunched over a tape recorder in the dark of night, snuffing and resnuffing the few puffs of a smoking gun, as opposed to the happy-go-lucky personality who has done more lasting harm in one year than Dick Nixon in six.

At least our 37th president specialized in committing outright political crimes, which by their very clandestine nature were necessarily limited in scope. George W., on the other hand, traffics in legal political vice, which, given the rightward turn in this country since the late 1970s, can be practiced on a widespread scale openly and even boastfully. And legal or not,"vice" is the only way to describe the wholesale political indecency pushed by this White House. Behind virtually every move--whether on the budget, an economic stimulus package, the environment, defense spending, you name it--lies the fundamental motive of padding the pockets of its own socioeconomic class. To hell with others and to hell with the future. There either ain't no tomorrow, or if it does come, at least those at the top won't be burdened by today's consequences.

A jaw-dropping $4 trillion of your money in the form of federal budget surpluses has gone up in smoke, or rather, 41 percent of it into the pockets of W.'s friends. Before ramming through its tax cut last year, the administration was all a-giggle about surpluses now and as far as the eye could see. In fact, projected surpluses were, if anything, too small according to administration officials."There are convincing reasons to assume that higher revenues are more likely than lower revenues and a larger, not smaller, surplus lies ahead," said the White House. Furthermore, it said we'd have a happy $231 billion surplus this year instead of the $106 billion deficit we're now running and the $80 billion bill we'll be handed next year. And just to remind you, it said that fully aware of the recession then in progress.

Odds are a reasonably intelligent orangutan with a pocket calculator could have come up with something closer to today's figures than the White House's had he been hired by the administration a year ago. And it's for damn sure the ape of Borneo would have been more ethical in releasing his findings. Unless W. spends each day absolutely and thus excusably stoned on goof weed, he knowingly lied. That much is clear. But of far more gravity, his lie will cost you and your plucky descendents hundreds of billions of dollars. Nixon's lie only cost you the price of a few prosecutors.

Of course Bush is getting away with it by doing a number on Abe Lincoln's analytical skills: it is indeed possible to fool most of the people most of the time. Or at minimum, you can fool them long enough to get what you want as a plutocratic puppet, then retire to your nice new house on your Texas spread. Abe would be mortified to witness the level of political humbuggery possible today through mass communications, slimy spinsters and slick media advisors--all of which have been about the only things propping W. up.

Yet on deeper reflection one shouldn't dismiss the contributions made by our hard-hitting media, as illustrated by NBC's corporate puff-piece last week on the Bush administration, inanely titled the"Real" West Wing. Rather than airing anything real, the thing appeared to be a remarkable example of the Heisenberg Principle in play; that is, one cannot observe an object without necessitating a change in its behavior. For instance, it was no surprise to see that everyone there had a jam-packed schedule, but this oddly included George. No time for football and pretzels with a camera crew hanging about. So there he was on the phone with good-buddy Tony Blair, letting us know beforehand of his" customary habit" to call. Next Brokaw allowed the vice president to explain politely that what went on in White House policy meetings was, in effect, none of the public's damned business. Good enough. Cut to commercial. I made it through maybe 10 minutes before realizing all the programmed niceness was causing my dinner to back up on me. Sheer survival instinct spurred me to turn it off.

Nevertheless that's what the administration is selling and that's what the public is buying. In the place of even the semblance of sound fiscal management we get artificial pleasantries and stiff upper-lips through which a barely concealed grin beams out,"And we're getting away with this?" Yes, in the face of this White House wrecking crew, Dick Nixon and his indictable offenses are beginning to look pretty good.