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Summary
Summary
Nobody knows more, both from first hand experience and legal expertise, about the abuse of presidential power and their dangers than John Dean, former counsel to President Nixon. In Worse Than Watergate, Dean delivers a stunning indictment of the current Bush administration, and issues an urgent alarm to the nation: the Bush team's obsession with secrecy and their willingness to deceive make them even more dangerous than Nixon's. Dean brilliantly explores Bush's emphasis on image over substance; his angry, mistrustful personality; his excessive fear of leaks; his reversing the work of his predecessors in opening up government; his imperial governing combined with deeply flawed decision making; and his serious abuses of national security secrecy. From refusing to explain the precarious health of the powerful vice president to hiding the identity of those setting the nation's energy policy, from obstructing 9/11 investigations to unprecedented secrecy in the name of fighting terrorism, Dean exposes the dangers of a presidency that is using weapons of mass deception against the American public.
Author Notes
John W. Dean was born in Akron, Ohio on October 14, 1938. He received a B.A. from The College of Wooster in 1961 and a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1965. He served as the White House legal counsel to President Nixon for a thousand days. He also served as chief minority counsel for the House Judiciary Committee and as an associate deputy attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice. He has written numerous non-fiction books including Blind Ambition, Lost Honor, Conservatives Without Conscience, The Rehnquist Choice, Worse than Watergate, Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Branches, and The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This title?s accusation bears particular weight coming from the man who warned the super-secretive Richard Nixon that there was a cancer on his presidency, and Dean, who was Nixon?s White House counsel, makes a strong argument that the secrecy of what he dubs the ?Bush-Cheney presidency? is ?not merely unjustified and excessive but obsessive,? and consequently ?frighteningly dangerous.? Some of the subjects he touches on have been covered in detail elsewhere, and his chapter on the administration?s stonewalling of the September 11 commission isn?t fully up to date. But few critics have as effectively put the disparate pieces together, linking them to what Dean says is a broader pattern of secrecy from an administration that does its best to control the flow of information on every subject?even the vice president?s health?and uses executive privilege to circumvent congressional scrutiny. Dean?s probe extends back to Bush?s pre-presidential activities, such as his attempt to withhold his gubernatorial papers from public view, and Dean?s background as an investment banker adds welcome perspective on Bush?s business career (as well as Cheney?s). Dean ultimately identifies 11 issues (such as the secrecy around the forming of a national energy policy and what Dean calls Bush?s misleading of Congress about war with Iraq) on which the White House?s stance could lead to scandal, and warns that allowing the administration to continue its policy of secrecy may lead to a weakening of democracy. Despite occasional comments about Bush?s intelligence that will rankle presidential supporters, Dean (Blind Ambition) is generally levelheaded; his role in Watergate and the seriousness of his charge in the national media that Bush has committed impeachable offenses has popped this onto bestseller lists. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal Review
If former White House counsel Dean of Watergate notoriety is alarmed by Bush's obsession with secrecy, then you know there's a problem. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Preface | p. ix |
| I Surprisingly Nixonian | p. 3 |
| II Stonewalling | p. 22 |
| III Obsessive Secrecy | p. 54 |
| IV Secret Government | p. 93 |
| V Hidden Agenda | p. 131 |
| VI Scandals, Or Worse | p. 178 |
| Appendix I | p. 199 |
| Appendix II | p. 207 |
| Chapter Notes | p. 211 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 241 |
| Index | p. 243 |