During Thursday's hearings of the Armed Services Committee, several Republican Senators blamed the usual suspects for the shortfalls in Army and Marine recruiting. James Inhofe (R-OK) lambasted unnamed Senate colleagues, adding the potential recruits are being discouraged "because of all the negative media that's out there." Kansan Pat Roberts chimed in, "with the deluge of negative news that we get daily, it's just amazing to me that anybody would want to sign up."

But while these conservative Senators predictably pointed fingers for partisan gain, our military recruiting problem is not one of media or marketing. Instead, the military's recruiting woes can better explained in ways these conservatives should know well. Welcome to the theories of free markets and public goods.

Let's start with military service as classical labor market. Uncle Sam is learning first hand about homo economicus, the rational actor seeking to maximize his profit and pleasure in the open market. Here, opportunity-maximizing potential recruits offer their labor in exchange for military careers, pay, benefits, travel, and intangibles including pride, sense of service, and more. But as the costs grow (increasing possibility of death or serious injury, likelihood of extended duty and family separation), potential recruits make rational cost-benefit decisions and withhold their labor.

Viewed another way, the U.S. government is a seller offering military service as a "product" to possible recruits in the market to buy a career. To attract buyers, the armed forces are discounting the price of a military career, cutting the "costs" by offering better pay, bigger sign-up bonuses (perhaps as high as $40,000), shorter tours of duty and expanded educational opportunities. Sadly, Uncle Sam is finding that demand is price inelastic; lowering the cost of a military career doesn't get you any more takers.

All of which suggests that in a democracy, national defense is a public good. National defense cannot be privately produced. All citizens enjoy its benefits; by definition, its protection is available to each without limiting access to anyone.

But national defense, like a public park, does not require the contribution of each to be enjoyed by all. Thus, the free-rider problem. (As some conservative critics of Marx used to argue, the proletarian revolution itself was a classic free-rider problem. If the overthrow of capital and the supposed communist utopia to be enjoyed by all workers only required the actions of a core vanguard of proletarians, no one would go to the barricades to make the revolution.)

Which brings us back to today's shortfall in American military recruiting. We are witnessing market failure; as the costs of national service continue to rise, potential enlistees understandably look elsewhere. And viewed through the lens of the public good model, most of us are free-riders when it comes to national defense. We may pay taxes, but at the end of day, we are all blessed and privileged to enjoy the protection that only the bravest and most selfless among us choose to provide.

That is why during times of crisis, we must take national defense out of the realm of the market and avoid the trap of public good free ridership. It is time for politicians' carping and finger-pointing to come to an end. As I suggested in "Getting Drafty", it is time to reintroduce the draft.

President Bush delivered his much awaited speech on Iraq to an audience of soldiers assembled at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

As theater, the President's was a confident rhetorical performance. But if the intent was to rebuild American support for the Iraq war by showing accountability for the missteps to date, providing a plan for success and asking for needed sacrifices, George W. Bush failed miserably:

Bush's half-hour address showed the same story-telling and disingenuousness that has characterized his presidency and so undermined American confidence in the Iraq war effort. The President's devices included:

Creating a False 9/11-Iraq Continuum

As described in the Guide to the Bush Address on Iraq, the 9/11 Commission clearly concluded that the Bush administration was dead wrong in claiming in March of 2003 that Iraq was in any way part of the war against Al Qaeda. But it is certainly the central front now. Bush repeatedly leveraged this crisis of his own creation to invent an unbroken Al Qaeda threat from the Twin Towers to Baghdad:

"The terrorists who attacked us -- and the terrorists we face -- murder in the name of a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance, and despises all dissent."

"After September the 11th, I made a commitment to the American people: This nation will not wait to be attacked again. We will defend our freedom. We will take the fight to the enemy."

"The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of September the 11th, if we abandon the Iraqi people to men like Zarqawi, and if we yield the future of the Middle East to men like Bin Laden."

"After September the 11th, 2001, I told the American people that the road ahead would be difficult, and that we would prevail."

War Aims: The Fantasy of Democracy Expansion

As predicted, Bush stated that spreading democracy through the greater Middle East is the war aim of the United States. Democracy expansion was neither a primary rationale for the Iraq (see "The Myth of the Bush Doctrine") nor a realistic objective for the end-game throughout the Middle East. At this late date, success in Iraq should be seen as avoiding the creation of the next Somalia or Taliban Afghanistan.

Bush didn't stop there, moving on to gush about democracy and freedom. While we were spared his usual "God's gift to humanity" pablum, his speech featured:

"Across the broader Middle East, people are claiming their freedom. In the last few months, we've witnessed elections in the Palestinian Territories and Lebanon. These elections are inspiring democratic reformers in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Our strategy to defend ourselves and spread freedom is working. The rise of freedom in this vital region will eliminate the conditions that feed radicalism and ideologies of murder, and make our nation safer."

Missing in Action

What wasn't said was even more important than what was. Bush as expected refused to take ownership for the mistakes and misstatements which characterized the run-up to the war and the post-war planning. Bush made no mention of U.S. intentions relative to maintaining permanent bases in Iraq, the American role in the Iraqi oil industry, and most importantly, any signal that the U.S. would make the Israeli-Palestinian crisis its top diplomatic priority.

As for asking Americans to make the painful sacrifices to win the war, Bush could muster only this feeble plea:

"And to those watching tonight who are considering a military career, there is no higher calling than service in our Armed Forces."

Yesterday, I offered a lengthy preview of tonight's nationally televised address on Iraq by President Bush. In the Perrspectives Guide to the Bush Address, I highlighted the Five Things Bush Must Do to rebuild public support for the conflict in Iraq.

In that Guide, I also pointed out the rhetorical warning signs that Bush's rhetoric is unchanged, his plans unaltered and the prospects for American victory dimmed. Sadly, a preview of the Bush speech seems to contain them the most disingenous ones:

1. The 9/11 Connection

As in June 18th weekly radio address, the President plans to once again to shamelessly draw linkages between 9/11 and Iraq:

"The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of Sept. 11, if we abandon the Iraqi people to men like Zarqawi and if we yield the future of the Middle East to men like bin Laden."

2. Defining Success as the Spread of Freedom

As I described yesterday, Bush must be clear in defining "victory" and whether or not it is still achievable. Preventing Iraq from degenerating into the next failed state and terrorist haven like Somalia (or worse yet, Afghanistan), should be the objective. If the President uses language about democracy promotion, including his overused "God's gift the humanity line", we can be sure Bush has made no progress. Lo and behold, Bush echoes Mel Gibson's Braveheart William Wallace on the aims in Iraq:

"The terrorists can kill the innocent -- but they cannot stop the advance of freedom."

If Bush is to have any hope of restoring his credibility, he must take accountability for the path to war and the occupation, offer a plan for success and ask the American people to make the needed sacrifices.

If this sneak preview is any indication, I wouldn't hold your breath.

On Tuesday night, President Bush will take to the stage at Fort Bragg, North Carolina in a nationally televised address aimed at rebuilding public support for the war in Iraq.

And well he should. Recent polls (from Gallup and Rasmussen, respectively) show that only 39% of Americans approve of the war in Iraq and that more people in the United States blame Bush (49%) than Saddam (44%) for the conflict. The torrent of revelations in 2002 pre-war British documents confirm that the administration almost certainly manipulated intelligence to sell a war it had already decided to wage but after which it had made no plans. This President brought this crisis upon himself; the chickens are coming home to roost.

With rising casualties, an emboldened insurgency, his credibility in tatters, and no end in sight, regaining the support of the American people will be a tall order for President Bush. Difficult, but not impossible. George W. Bush may be able to win back the confidence of the people, but only if he is frank about past mistakes, crystal clear about the war’s objectives and brutally honest about the sacrifices required. Short of that, the American effort in Iraq is in deep trouble and with it, the Bush presidency.

The following is Perrspectives’ Guide to the Bush Iraq Speech. These are the five keys to watch for in his Tuesday address. Watch to see if Bush:

1. Tells the Truth About the Path to War and the Occupation
2. Provides An Honest Assessment of the Current Situation in Iraq
3. Defines "Victory" and State Whether or Not It Is Still Possible
4. Offers a Plan for Success and Ask the Nation for Sacrifices
5. Sends a Clear Message to the World About American Intentions

[Continue reading "A Guide to the Bush Address on Iraq."]

It has often been said that a gaffe is what happens when a politician speaks the truth.

In Senator Rick Santorum's case, the Catholic Crusader of the Keystone State he has spoken the truth about what he believes. For Santorum, liberalism, the Enlightenment and the scientific method are apparently a far greater crime in America than the thousands of children raped and sodomized by priests in his beloved Catholic Church.

As noted by the CapitolBuzz and Atrios, Santorum in a guest op-ed in Catholic Online in 2002 laid the blame for the clergy sex scandal not on the pedophiles and rapists so long protected by his Church, but on the broader permissive liberal culture:

The most obvious change must occur within American seminaries, many of which demonstrate the same brand of cultural liberalism plaguing our secular universities...It is startling that those in the media and academia appear most disturbed by this aberrant behavior, since they have zealously promoted moral relativism by sanctioning "private" moral matters such as alternative lifestyles. Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture. When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm.

In the three years since Santorum penned that abomination, the Catholic Church has paid out over $1 billion in settlements to thousands of victims nationwide. Just the Diocese of Covington in red state Kentucky is facing $120 million in payments. Several archdiocese are facing bankruptcy, including Portland, Tucson and Spokane, and more are expected. Virtually every major American city has been impacted, of course, because that's where the Catholics are.

Boston's unique and highly visible role in the exposure of the Catholic Church scandal had nothing to do with it being the "seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America." It had everything to do with greater Boston being perhaps the single most densely Catholic metro area in the nation, with Catholics even today still comprising over 50% of the population. Boston's closely intertwined Irish and Catholic traditions still run strong and permeate every aspect of culture, government and civic life in the Bay State.

In Rick Santorum's grotesque worldview, his beloved Church is an innocent, perverted by a culture of moral relativism. Santorum lives in a fantasy world of absolutes, where consensual sex between two men in a loving relationship is equivalent to the coercive rape of a young boy by his spiritual leader. For Santorum, in fact, the former is worse, as it causes the latter.

Mercifully for the United States, the vast majority of Americans disagree. Boston Catholics ran Cardinal Law out of town not because of his conservative politics, but because he perpetuated the scandal by approving the transfer of known pedophiles within his ranks. In his attempts to cover up the transgressions of his Archdiocese, Law banned the reform group Voice of the Faithful from meeting in his churches. The legacy for Law's successor Bishop Sean O'Malley is a devastated community of faith, with dozens of churches, schools, and other properties shuttered or sold off to pay for the misdeeds of the Archdiocese.

We can only hope that Rick Santorum will be tarred and feathered as was Law, as early 2006 polls suggest. (Law's punishment? He was booted upstairs to the Vatican.) Santorum, after all, has stated there is no constitutional right to privacy and that gay marriage, and not Al Qaeda, is the greatest threat facing the United States. Santorum, the same man who decried "man on man" and "man on dog" sex, can apparently try to explain away "man on boy" rape, as long as a wafer is involved. We should not expect Santorum to support adding the names of American priests to the proposed national sex offender registry.

In the end, it would seem that the devout Santorum does practice what he preaches. In the words of Acts 20:35, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."

UPDATE: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has issued words of praise for Santorum. Apparently, Santorum has been pushing legislation to ban puppy mills. Why? No doubt to prevent more canine temptresses from seducing American men into immoral "man on dog" action.

Ronald Reagan once famously said that presidents should "never say never" But when it comes to the reinstatement of the military draft, recent public opinion polls seem to suggest that the American people think "never" would be a fine idea, indeed. A recent AP/Ipsos poll showed only 27% of Americans favored conscription, with a whopping 70% opposed.

As the casualties mount and recruiting woes build from the Iraq crisis, both political parties continue to make this issue moot for the American people. President Bush and the Republicans consistently and staunchly opposed national service as part of their "free-lunch" marketing strategy for Iraq war. And with the exceptions of Representative Charles Rangel (D-NY) and rumblings from Delaware Senator Joe Biden, the Democrats have played to their base by playing on fears of the draft. (This fear mongering was one of many tactical mistakes of the Kerry campaign in 2004.)

But the time for a collective free ride on national service is over. Our overcommitted American military is stretched to the breaking point, with a terrible toll and unfair demands on active duty troops and reservists alike. As the situation in Iraq smolders, the prospect of twin crises in the Korean peninsula and Iran remain very real. All the while, the rise of Chinese economic, diplomatic and military power means the United States may once again have to pursue a strategy of continental containment in Asia. And the increasing needs for bolstered security at home and peacekeeping missions abroad mean the United States must make dramatic new investments in civil defense forces.

Those growing national security needs simply can�t � and shouldn�t � be met by a volunteer American military. The time has come for new, expanded American armed forces. Combining an enlarged professional fighting force with a new conscript-based Civil Defense Force (CDF), our new hybrid military would be prepared to face the challenges of the next decade. And by reintroducing national service, the United States might actually reinstill democratic values of shared defense and sacrifice across all sections of American society.

[Continue reading "Getting Drafty: The Hybrid Model of National Service"]

Question: What would be more ironic than George W. Bush's 2000 promise to to "uphold the honor and dignity" of the White House?

Answer: For Editor & Publisher magazine, "America's Oldest Journal Covering the Newspaper Industry", to publish a column possibly plagiarized from a one-year old blog.

That may be exactly what has happened to Perrspectives. On Monday, June 20, 2005, Perrspectives published a piece titled "DC Dick and Baghdad Bob", comparing the Dick Cheney's statements on Iraq to those of Saddam's Iraqi Information Minister, Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf. Four days later, on June 24th, E&P Editor Greg Mitchell published a column titled "Is Dick Cheney the New 'Baghdad Bob'?", comparing the Dick Cheney's statements on Iraq to those of Saddam's Iraqi Information Minister, Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf.

[Continue reading this post]

In Mississippi, where Ku Klux Klansman Edgar Ray Killen was convicted today of manslaughter in the 1964 civil rights murders, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal asks its readers a simple question:

Do you think the Edgar Ray Killen trial and guilty verdict will mend the old wounds of the 1964 slayings?

The simple answer? No.

No, the dark cloud hanging over Philadelphia, the state of Mississippi and the South won't be lifted by this single compromise verdict. The wounds certainly won't heal as long as:

• Mississippi Senators Trent Lott and Thad Cochran withhold their names from the Senate resolution apologizing for obstructing the passage of anti-lynching legislation.
• Southern Senators like George Allen and Bill Frist cynically use yesterday's racial politics to fight the battles of today and tomorrow. For Frist, who addressed the grotesque "Justice Sunday" event, the lynching apology is merely a part of the struggle over the judicial filibuster. The Senate Majority leader seeks to tar the Democrats, whose southern conservative members (now Republicans) blocked anti-lynching legislation 100 years ago, as the party of the filibuster. And for Allen, a possible 2008 presidential candidate, the apology is a thinly-veiled cover for his previous display of a noose and a Confederate flag at his home, as well as his past declaration of "Confederate Heritage Month."
• Leaders like South Carolina's Jim Demint, Missouri's Matt Blunt and Mississippi's own Haley Barbour condone the public display of the Confederate flag by state and local governments.
• Figures like Lott, Allen, and John Ashcroft offer tacit support to the successors of the White Citizens' Councils with statements praising the agenda of Davis, Lee and Jackson (Ashcroft), calling the Civil War "the war of aggression" (Lott) or referring to the NAACP as "an extremist group" (Allen).
• Hagiographers of Ronald Reagan take stock of the late President's campaign kick-off speech delivered in Philadelphia, Mississippi precisely to send a clear message about states' rights and race to the Republican primary electorate.

The people of Mississippi took an important and difficult step of atonement today. The stain of violent white racial hatred and a complicit public that produced the Cheney, Goodman and Schwerner killings, however, can never be fully cleansed. But all of us, white and black, North and South, can still be redeemed if we view today's verdict as the beginning, and not the end, of a process of deep reflection, positive change and a renewed sense of brotherhood.

While President Bush's statements on Iraq have entered the realm of the hallucinatory, Vice President Dick Cheney's chutzpah and mendacity in the just the last few weeks hasn't gone unnoticed, either.

Cheney, the same man said who instructed Senator Pat Leahy "go f**k yourself" on the Senate floor, criticized Illinois Senator Dick Durbin for his Gitmo comments. "For him to make those comparisons was one of the most egregious things I'd ever heard on the floor of the United States Senate." Earlier, Cheney told CNN's Larry King that the Iraqi insurgency was in "the last throes."

The magnitude of Cheney's outrageous attacks and staggering deceptions about the situation on the ground in Iraq brings to mind another recent government spokesman. The spokesman? Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, Saddam's former Iraqi Minister of Information, also known as "Baghdad Bob."

(Click here for quote sources.)

The Downing Street Memo and a host of new British documents are increasingly focusing national attention on the duplicity and incompetence of President Bush’s Iraq war planning. With criticism building, poll numbers plummeting and facing defections from his own party, the President used today’s weekly radio address to begin a new PR offensive to bolster support for Iraq policies.

If that performance is any indication, George Bush has moved from profound deception and deep denial to outright fantasy. In one short address, Bush resurrected the fiction that Iraq was somehow complicit in 9/11, while pretending his May 1, 2003 victory speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln never happened:

(Continue reading for quotes and sources.)

Across the nation this week, the Republican Party and its amen corner unleashed a tidal wave of dangerously irresponsible interventions into the most personal and intimate aspects of Americans' private lives. Whether they will pay a political price for their increasingly extreme - and unpopular - positions remains to be seen.

Let's begin in Madison, Wisconsin, where the state assembly voted to ban the distribution and use of the "morning after" pill on state campuses. By a 49-41 vote, the assembly voted to prohibit University of Wisconsin System health centers from advertising, prescribing or dispensing emergency contraception -- drugs that can block a pregnancy in the days after sex. The effort was led by Republican Representative Daniel LeMahieu, who declared the pill "chemical abortion." Democratic Governor Jim Doyle has vowed to veto the legislation if it is next approved by the Senate.

In Florida, Governor Jeb Bush decided to extend his perverse intervention in the Schiavo tragedy. In the aftermath of autopsy results conclusively demonstrating that Terri Schiavo suffered massive brain damage, blindness and was indeed in a persistent vegetative state, Governor Bush called for a new inquiry into her 1990 collapse. Despite clear scientific evidence and an overwhelming national consensus supporting the autonomy and sanctity of end-of-life decisions, Jeb Bush continued to pander to the most extreme elements of the conservative movement. In doing so, he joins the right-wing slander against Michael Schiavo.

Up in Massachusetts, Governor and obvious 2008 presidential candidate Mitt Romney continues his sharp right turn. This week, he announced his support for a state constitutional ban on both same-sex marriage and civil unions. In May, Romney vetoed a bill funding stem cell research in the state, only to be easily overridden. For Romney, whose on again/off again anti-choice credentials could prove costly in the GOP presidential primaries, fighting family equality is critical to his hopes of securing the nomination.

Back in the heartland, the Iowa Supreme Court today let stand a lower court decision dissolving a civil union between two women. The Court ruled against three state legislators and the Iowa Family Policy Center, declaring that "we fail to see how the district court's action in dissolving a civil union of another couple harmed in any specific way these plaintiffs' marriages and for this reason, they have shown no legally recognized interest or personal stake in the underlying action." The Court continued by rejected an argument by Matthew Wentz, pastor of the Church of Christ in Le Mars, that the decision threatened his ability as a minister to solemnize marriages."

These are only the latest battles of a power-drunk, anachronistic conservative movement in its expanding nationwide war. From pharmacists refusing to provide birth control and government agencies publishing bogus claims about abortion-cancer links to FDA stonewalling of the Plan B pill, the onslaught on personal privacy continues. But with solid public support for preserving Roe v Wade, stem cell research, and end-of-life autonomy, the Republicans comeuppance may arrive just in time for the 2006 mid-term elections.

In Washington, Congressional Republicans are waging yet another battle in their never-ending culture war. This time, the focus is on a constitutional amendment to ban desecration of the American flag. But if these hypocrites really want to honor and protect the symbols of the United States, they shouldn't be talking about Old Glory, but the Confederate Stars and Bars.

In the Senate, Bill Frist and the GOP leadership, aided by a few weak-kneed Democrats, are preparing for a very close vote. Over in the House, stalwarts like bribery suspect and California Congressman Randall Duke Cunningham are leading the charge to "protect" the flag.

An outraged Orrin Hatch, the Senate co-sponsor, summed up the Republican view, "It's important that we venerate the national symbol of our country. Burning, urinating, defecating on the flag - this is not speech. This is offensive conduct."

Leaving aside the obvious free speech implications of this debate, there is a much larger issue when it comes to honoring American ideals and venerating our national symbols. That issue is the display of the Confederate flag. And on that issue, the conduct of the Republican Party has been, to use Hatch's term, "offensive."

Only two weeks ago, Missouri Governor Matt Blunt ordered the Confederate flag flown for a memorial at a CSA cemetary. Across the South, Republican leaders have staunchly defended the flying of CSA flag and its variants in South Carolina, Mississippi and Georgia. Their ranks include Trent Lott, Jim Demint, George Allen, Haley Barbour and others who play racial politics by romanticizing the Confederate flag and symbols of the Southland.

So here's a new constitutional proposal, the Old Glory Protection Amendment:

No federal agency, state or local government may display the flag of the Confederate States of America over any building, facility, site or property of any kind. Similarly, no institution receiving funds from the federal, state or local government may display the Confederate Flag. The same prohibitions apply to any flag containing the CSA flag as a design element.

The Confederate flag is not a symbol of a proud, noble heritage, but of slavery, racial hatred, treason and secession. Over 600,000 Americans died in battle because of that banner. There can be no doubt that Confederate soldiers were courageous and even heroic. But their their cause was an abomination. To display and celebrate its symbols is an affront to all Americans, white and black.

In 1869, several Congressman sought to add to Capitol rotunda a huge mural depicting Lee surrendering to Grant at Appomattox. President-elect Grant would have none of it. "No, gentlemen," he said, "it won't do. No power on earth will make me agree to your proposal. I will not humiliate General Lee or our Southern friends in depicting their humiliation and then celebrating the event in the nation's capitol."

Today's Republican men of the South would do well to follow Grant's wise and sensitive counsel.

There's an old saying that justice delayed in justice denied. Well, we're about to find out in Mississippi.

Finally, 41 years after the fact, reputed Ku Klux Klansman Edgar Ray Killen will be tried for the infamous killings in Philadelphia, Mississippi of three Chicago civil rights workers. The three, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, were murdered while in Mississippi to register black voters as part of "Freedom Summer." With the complicity of the segregationist Neshoba County populace, no charges were ever brought - until now.

Regardless of Killen's fate, his trial comes at a time when some American politicians are trying to whitewash the history of the South. In Missouri, Governor Matt Blunt ordered the Confederate flag flown 10 days ago during a memorial service for CSA troops. And in Washington DC, Virginia Senator and GOP presidential hopeful George Allen, the same man who displayed a noose and CSA flag at home while governor, is now cynically pushing a resolution apologizing for past filibustering by southern conservatives of anti-lynching legislation.

Now would also be a good time to remember that the late Ronald Reagan, patron saint of the modern conservative movement, used the very setting of Philadelphia, Mississippi as the backdrop for his speech announcing his 1980 presidential bid. But Reagan was just one of many states' rights Republican icons with Confederates in his attic, as Trent Lott, John Ashcroft, Jim Demint, Haley Barbour and a host of others demonstrate.

Hopefully, the families of Cheney, Goodman and Schwerner will finally be able to experience some sense of justice and closure. For the rest, the least we can do is to remember the ideas they fought for and be ever vigilant against the abominable ideology of the people who killed them.

Back in December, I wrote a piece about the DNC chairman's race called "Dr. Dean: Wrong Prescription for Democrats." Six months and several Howard Dean gaffes later, many of the leading lights of the Democratic Party are apparently now having the same misgivings.

Dean's counterproductive if statistically correct labeling of the GOP as "pretty much a white, Christian party" is only the latest cause of damage control in Democratic circles. In the Senate, Joe Biden, Joe Lieberman, Dick Durbin and rising star Barack Obama have raised concerns over Dean's intemperate commentary. In the House, Nancy Pelosi, Harold Ford Jr. and Ellen Tauscher distanced themselves as well. And Virginia Governor Mark Warner, a 2008 presidential hopeful, worried that Dean's was not "the kind of tone a lot of the Democratic governors in mostly Republican states are using to get elected or to govern."

Across the liberal blogosphere, many of my usual allies have predictably rushed to Dean's defense. Anyone who simultaneously fires up the Democratic base and draws fire from the Republicans (or worse yet, centrist Democrats) must be doing something right, or so the argument goes. For example, Atrios claimed that, "Democrat insider attacks on Howard Dean are, frankly, an attack on all of us." Over at DailyKos, a diarist praised General Wesley Clark's support for Dean, "I guess this is just further proof that Clark isn't a real Democrat or isn't Democrat enough. If Biden and Edwards are examples of "real Democrats" then I'll take Clark's example because he and I....HAVE HOWARD'S BACK!" Besides, my friends argue, look at all the money Dean's raised.

But Dean's skills at fundraising and firing up the troops are not the issue here. What's ailing the Democrats isn't primarily about grassroots efforts in all 50 states (though that matters) or about not being "Republican lite." As I wrote in December:

Dean is focused on the symptoms, and not the disease itself. Democrats must be more than the Party of No. Democrats must say what they stand for and articulate a positive policy program for change, all in a way that is easily communicated.

Democrats need to take a deep breath, look in the mirror, and focus on who we're speaking to and what are our priorities. For all of the energy, outrage and intellectual horsepower being expended, what is the "meta-story", the unifying theme for groups like MoveOn and America Coming Together (ACT) on the left and the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and the New Democrat Network (NDN) in the center? When John Kerry lost every income group over $50,000 a year, was mauled both among white men (62-37%) and white women (55%-44%), and saw George Bush gets 42% of the Hispanic vote, who are we speaking to? Suburban voters (like "Office Park Dads", "Soccer Moms", or "Security Moms") or the mythical "ideopolis" of "creative class" professionals and urban minority voters? Have we created accidentally a de facto left-wing cacophony that obscures issues and confuses Americans as much as the right-wing noise machine we loathe?

As the old saying goes, ya gotta dance with who brung ya. So I'll continue to back Howard Dean. But I can't help but agree with a clearly frustrated Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford, Jr., who concluded, "his leadership right now is not serving any of us very well. We really don't have a message right now."

On the heels of Prime Minister Tony Blair's visit to the U.S. and the growing furor over the Downing Street Memo, a new British document promises to further highlight the Bush administration's deception and incompetence in preparing for the Iraq war.

The Washington Post reports that just two days before the Downing Street meeting, a July 21, 2002 intelligence briefing ("Iraq: Conditions for Military Action") showed British officials incredulous with the lack of planning for post-war Iraq by the Bush administration:

"The US Government's military planning for action against Iraq is proceeding apace. But, as yet, it lacks a political framework. In particular, little thought has been given to creating the political conditions for military action, or the aftermath and how to shape it."

"A post-war occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise...As already made clear, the U.S. military plans are virtually silent on this point. Washington could look to us to share a disproportionate share of the burden."

For the full text of the July 21, 2002 "Iraq: Conditions for Military Action" briefing, as well as the Downing Street Memo, the Robb-Silberman Report on WMD, and a host of other Iraq materials, visit the Perrspectives Document Library.

Over the years, Fox's Bill O'Reilly has accumulated an impressive record of distortions, lies, and even falafel lust. Now, it would seem, he's finally committed what should be a firing offense, even for Fox.

Less than a year after savaging Dan Rather over his use of dubious documents in the Bush National Guard case, The O'Reilly Factor massively - and without disclosure - doctored video to distort comments by Senator Joe Biden.

As reported on The Al Franken Show, O'Reilly butchered tape of an appearance on June 5th by Biden on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopolous. In that interview, Biden discussed legislation he had proposed to calling for an independent investigation of Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and the entire U.S. network of detention camps. Biden continued that while he personally believed the U.S. ultimately should close Gitmo, he felt that the President needed an independent investigation to drive a consensus conclusion.

That exchange is not what O'Reilly's viewers saw on June 7th in a segment called "The Truth About Guantanamo Bay." The Factor spliced Biden's comments, leaving out all mention of the legislation and his call for independent investigation. O'Reilly then not only savaged Biden for joining "the abuse chorus." He went on to claim as his own the very idea that "the Bush administration should set up an independent commission to investigate American detainee policy across the board."

It's about time that Bill O'Reilly was a non-factor.

UPDATE. To watch the actual Biden video clip spliced by The O'Reilly Factor:

• Click here.


• Click the "Video" tab next to the O'Reilly "Photos" link.


• Click "Watch the Memo."

Today offers yet another chapter in the ongoing attempt by the Bush White House to sell its policy program through manufactured news and faux science.

The New York Times reports that a White House official, a former oil industry lobbyist, modified U.S. government climate reports in order to downplay the linkage between greenhouse gases and global warming:

Philip Cooney, chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, made changes to descriptions of climate research that had already been approved by government scientists and their supervisors, the newspaper said, citing internal documents.

The NYT piece shows the Cooney's actual handwritten notes on the documents obtained by the Government Accountability Project. These examples of his surgical strikes shows the naked cynicism of the Bush White House:

In one instance in an October 2002 draft of a regularly published summary of government climate research, "Our Changing Planet," Mr. Cooney amplified the sense of uncertainty by adding the word "extremely" to this sentence: "The attribution of the causes of biological and ecological changes to climate change or variability is extremely difficult."

In a section on the need for research into how warming might change water availability and flooding, he crossed out a paragraph describing the projected reduction of mountain glaciers and snowpack. His note in the margins explained that this was "straying from research strategy into speculative findings/musings."

The White House for its part used cowardice as a strategy to deflect criticism of Cooney. White House spokesperson Michele St. Martin snipped, "We don't put Phil Cooney on the record. He's not a cleared spokesman."

Most Americans probably never thought they'd see a day when their President compared unfavorably to Joseph Stalin when it came to bogus science. Stalin's Lysenkoism, at least, was motivated by a pathological desire for national greatness and leapfrogging the West. In the Bush White House, fake science is just about accumulating power and rewarding its craven business interests.

The President and Secretary of State Rice took their Bush Doctrine cure-all to the meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Miami this week. Unfortunately for them, the assembled OAS delegates showed no interest in drinking the Bush Kool-Aid.

While President Bush touted the benefits of his troubled Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), Condoleezza Rice tried the make the case for democracy promotion and fighting against instability in countries like Bolivia, Ecuador and Haiti:

"We must act on our charter to support democracy where it is threatened. Wherever a free society is in retreat, a fear society is on the offensive. And the weapon of choice for every authoritarian regime is the organized cruelty of the police state."

Unfortunately for Rice and the administration, Bush policy has been and continues to be at odds with the lofty rhetoric of democracy promotion. The American confrontation with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez stems in large part from Bush administration support for the 2002 coup that briefly removed him from power. Chavez may well be a thug and friend of Castro, but he was democratically elected, prompting 19 OAS member states to denounce the coup. But in Washington, press spokesman Ari Fleischer blamed Chavez for his overthrow and signaled tacit White House support. Following the collapse of the coup, Condi Rice could only mutter, "I hope that Hugo Chavez takes the message that his people sent him that his own policies are not working for the Venezuelan people." It is no wonder Senator Chris Dodd protested the Bush policy in Venezuela, worrying that "to stand silent while the illegal ouster of a government is occurring is deeply troubling and will have profound implications for hemispheric democracy."

American policy towards Venezuela is not the only example of the Bush team undermining democratically chosen if distasteful governments. In 2003, the United States stood by as chaos swept Haiti, ultimately forcing President Aristide from power. A popularly elected if corrupt offical, whose election was made possible by the Clinton intervention in the mid-90's, was pushed aside by the Bush team.

The White House will no doubt press ahead with its democratization agenda in Central and South America. Its words, though, will likely continue to fall on deaf ears at the OAS, because the members have seen Bush's deeds with their own eyes.

Over the past two months, much of the euphoria over the supposed success of the Bush Doctrine has dissipated. Freedom may be "God's gift to humanity," as President Bush likes to say. In the Middle East, though, it just may not be the gift that keeps on giving.

In the wake of its spectacularly successful elections in January, Iraq took three months to form a government and is engulfed by an ever-bloodier insurgency. In Lebanon, despite the Syrian pull-out, political assassinations continue. And in Palestine, President Abbas has delayed elections, to the consternation of Hamas and an increasingly frustrated population.

The Bush administration may be about to learn the first lesson of democracy promotion: when given the opportunity to make choices, free people make choices you don't like. In southern Lebanon, Hezbollah swept to victory in elections there and immediately portrayed their strong showing as a challenge to the United States which has labeled it a terrorist organization. Mahmoud Abbas faces the very real prospect of a Hamas victory in the Palestinian balloting, whenever that comes. In Iraq, the Jaafari government may move forward quickly with the trial of Saddam Hussein, against the preferences of the U.S. And in all likelihood, the U.S. will not ever see Iraq as a haven for American military bases in Middle East.

This is not to say that American policy is necessarily posed to produce a repeat of the Algerian disaster of the 1990's. Facing victory by the Islamist FIS in the elections, the military government in Algiers voided the results and started a decades long civil war. But while the Bush administration may not have created the conditions for "one man, one vote, one time," the lofty rhetoric of the White House means the U.S. will have to accept some unpleasant outcomes on the ground.

Back in 1993, neocon mouthpiece and Bush Doctrine devotee Charles Krauthammer wrote of President Mubarak's crackdown in Egypt:

Mubarak is no doubt asking us, "Do you support me in my war against the fundamentalists?" Our answer has to be: Given the alternative -- yes...Are we not violating the very tenets of democracy that are supposed to be the moral core of American foreign policy? No. Because democracy does not mean one man, one vote, one time...That is why it would be not just expedient but right to support undemocratic measures undertaken to avert a far more anti-democratic outcome. Democracy is not a suicide pact.

Krauthammer was almost certainly wrong then and he is definitely wrong now. The simple reason is because the policy of the Bush administration has left us no wiggle room. By Bush's tenets, we must accept the choices of newly democratic peoples around the world:

Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity.

The 400 people in attendance didn't just lay roses and sing "Dixie." They raised the question as to whether the national Republican leadership is just whistling Dixie when it comes to celebrating the old South. The GOP leadership, from Trent Lott, John Ashcroft and Jim Demint to Haley Barbour, George Allen and President Bush himself, have refused to denounce the CSA flag for what it is, a symbol of racial hatred, treason and tragedy.

A quick history highlights the opportunism and racial politics of these born-again confederates. Let's start with Mississippi Senator Trent Lott, who lost his Senate Majority Leadership post for his praise of Dixiecrat and staunch segregationist Strom Thurmond. "I want to say this about my state: when Strom Thurmond ran for President, we voted for him." Lott boasted. "We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."

Lott has been very clear in myriad other ways that "the old times there are not forgotten." Lott was a speaker in 1992 at an event of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a successor to the White Citizens' Councils of Jim Crow days. Among its offerings in seething racial hatred is a "Wanted" poster of Abraham Lincoln. Lott's also offered his rebel yell in the virulently neo-Confederate Southern Partisan, where in 1984 he called the Civil War "the war of aggression."

Trent Lott is not the only Mississippi politician to support groups like the CCC and honor the Confederate flag. Former Republican National Committee Chairman and now Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour wore a lapel pin with the image during his campaign and attended a CCC barbeque in 2003.

Another neocon (that is, neo-Confederate) is former Attorney General John Ashcroft. Ashcroft granted a long interview to the Southern Partisan, in which he stated, "Your magazine helps set the record straight. You've got a heritage of doing that, of defending Southern patriots like [Robert E.] Lee, [Stonewall] Jackson and [Jefferson] Davis. Traditionalists must do more. I've got to do more. We've all got to stand up and speak in this respect or else we'll be taught that these people were giving their lives, subscribing their sacred fortunes and their honor to some perverted agenda."

Past presidential aspirant Ashcroft is joined by future 2008 GOP hopeful, Virginia Senator George Allen. Allen, who in 2005 co-sponsored a resolution apologizing for the Senate's past use of the filibuster against anti-lynching legislation in the 1920's, displayed a Confederate flag and a noose at his home. While governor of Virginia, Allen declared "Confederate Heritage Month" and branded the NAACP an extremist group."

Senate newcomer Jim Demint from South Carolina, epicenter of the Confederate flag controversy, is yet another supporter of the CSA flag. During his Senate primary campaign against Governor David Beasley, who was dogged by his opposition to the flag, Demint said of the South Carolina rebel flag, "it should stay right where it is and I don't think the state legislature or governor should spend any more time on it."

And what of President Bush? During the 2000 presidential primaries, he refused to call for the confederate flag to be taken down in South Carolina. And in the aftermath of Trent Lott's downfall, Bush again refused to use the opportunity to call for an end to the flag.

It is long past time for the leaders of both political parties to speak out against the Confederate flag and the hagiography of the Confederacy and its henchmen. No one is opposed to the sons and daughters of the South honoring their ancestors. "We recognize citizens have a right to honor their ancestors and heroes," said Harold Crumpton, president of the St. Louis branch of the NAACP. "But they don't have the right to use state funds and property to pass on the venom of their symbols of hatred."

Mr. Crumpton is spot on. The Confederate flag is not a symbol of a proud, noble heritage, but of slavery, racial hatred, treason and secession. Over 600,000 Americans died in battle because of that banner. There can be no doubt that Confederate soldiers were courageous and even heroic. But their their cause was an abomination. To display and celebrate its symbols is an affront to all Americans, white and black.

Looking back at the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appamattox Court House, Ulysses S. Grant himself said he was "depressed at the defeat of a foe who had fought so valiantly." He added, though, it was for "the worst cause for which anyone ever fought".

It is worth noting that Lee was overcome with gratitude by Grant's generous surrender terms. "General Grant, this will have the most happy effect upon my men."

It's long past time for the sons of the South to return the favor.

The truth, the saying goes, will set you free.

Not so for Massachusetts governor and certain 2008 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. In this week's National Review, Michael Murphy (Romney's version of Karl Rove) for once offered veracity to the public. About Mitt, Murphy said, "He's been a pro-life Mormon faking it as a pro-choice friendly."

As a former resident of the Bay State, I can attest to the truthfulness of Murphy's admission and to the dissembling of his recantation. During the dismal 2002 gubernatorial race (full disclosure - I helped the Reich campaign), Romney insisted he would not alter the abortion laws in choice-friendly Massachusetts. But then as now, Romney's record as a pro-life proponent from his days as Salt Lake Olympics savior in Utah belie his politically expedient moderation.

With the requisite campaign book already available, Romney has launched his 2008 campaign. The feigned outrage on same-sex marriage, the performance at the 2004 Republican National Convention, and the indignant (and overridden) veto of the Massachusetts stem cell research bill show a man quickly running back to the right in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, not Boston.

Soon enough, the rest of the country will see the slick veneer, the gleaming smile and charm of a man for whom political opportunism is as second nature as the Book of Mormon. Americans will be reminded of the words of the late Warren Zevon, "I saw [him] drinkin' a pina colada at Trader Vic's. And his hair was perfect."

What we won't see, though, is the real Mitt Romney. Not, that is, unless Michael Murphy accidentally tells the truth again.

The Center for American Progress has put together a devastating critique of Representative Chris Cox, President Bush's choice to succeed William Donaldson as chairman of the SEC. Cox's support for curtailing shareholder lawsuits, bill providing cover for Enron and his own checkered past show that Bush was never serious about his demand for corporate accountability.

Cox's confirmation seems assured, especially with the broad support he enjoys from the financial services industry. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said of Cox, "with a career dedicated to public service, Chris Cox has the expertise needed to handle the intricacies of securities regulation."

As part of the confirmation process, Cox should face the Harken Test. That is, he ought to answer one simple question:

"If Sarbanes-Oxley were in place 20 years ago, would George W. Bush have faced charges over his leadership of Harken Energy?"

As has been well-documented by the Center for Public Integrity and others, the answer should be "yes."

In 1990, Bush essentially pocketed $848,000 from insider trading activity at Harken. The key personnel at the SEC during his 1991 case, chairman Richard Breen and general counsel James Doty, were long-time Bush family friends and business associates from the law firm of Baker Botts. While the SEC in 1993 finally recommended that no action should be taken against Bush, it also noted that the investigation's termination must in no way be construed as indicating that the party has been exonerated or that no action may ultimately result.

Harken is, of course, old news which the Bush administration will say has "already been parsed." But as he goes about undoing the corporate accountability reforms of William Donaldson, Chris Cox at least could speak the truth about it.

The rejection of the EU constitution by French and Dutch voters this week has raised a host of questions about the future of the European project. But while Euro-optimism absorbed a body blow, Americans may be just waking up to the prospect of a transformed alliance.

Perrspectives has written repeatedly about the rise of the European Union as a economic and strategic counterweight to the United States. That development is tranforming the trans-Atlantic partnership, as growing economic competition (for example, Airbus' market leadership) and geo-strategic divergence (Iraq, arms embargo against China) strain the relationship between the United States and its traditional post-World War II allies.

The results of the voting in France and the Netherlands, though, bring to the fore critical challenges to the EU that have been lurking just under the surface during the recent years of optimism. The EU continued to face major demographic and social issues, even as as the expansion of the EU to 25 members and the rise of the Euro seem to augur a new era of European renaissance. This is reflected in the overwhelming "no" vote on the extremes of both the left and right.

Demographic trends have long been the Achilles' Heel of Europe. Stagnant birth rates in Western Europe and the rapid aging of the populations are offset only by massive immigration, particularly from Muslim nations in North Africa in the Middle East. The tensions have been growing for years in France as its Muslim population has reached 10%. The composition of neighborhoods and cities has changed, impacting schools and employment opportunities in a nation with a checkered past of racial and religious tolerance.

In Holland, the issue is perhaps even more dramatic. Once the European nation most open to immigration, Holland has seen a growing backlash against its burgeoning Muslim immigrant population. The anti-immigration party of the late Pim Fortuyn and the killing of Dutch film director Theo van Gogh by Muslim extremists brought this out into the open. The impact on the constitution vote was clear. The debate over Turkish membership will only highlight it further.

Perhaps more important, though, are considerations of class and the future of the unique Western European social contract. French voters, facing a unemployment near 10%, saw their job prospects and social safety net at risk from competition from workers in the new EU members of Eastern Europe. French and Dutch voters viewed with alarm the free movement of workers and goods across Europe. For them, incomes and education, health, unemployment and retirement benefits all would be jeopardized by the New Europe.

In the wake of the voting, the EU, if not in crisis, is at least pretty rattled. France's Chirac and Germany's Schroeder have been seriously weakened. Shaken ministers in Brussels are exploring alternative approaches for securing the needed unanimous approval of the EU constituion by all 25 member states. While the economic cohesion of the EU continues, the political integration has been delayed.

That delay could be very helpful to the United States. It may provide just the time - and breathing space - for Americans to come to grips with the new Europe and to plan for the future of the trans-Atlantic relationship.

As I wrote yesterday in "Gagging on Deep Throat", the mouthpieces of the conservative ascendancy have had two predictable responses to the revelation that former FBI #2 man Mark Felt was Watergate's "Deep Throat."

First, they rushed to Nixon's defense, seeking to rewrite history by calling his crimes no different in kind or degree than those supposedly committed by Kennedy, Johnson or Clinton, and his downfall the result of the perfidy of liberal media. (More on this topic in a subsequent post.)

The second tactic, of course, was to savage Felt himself. Far from calling him a hero, Watergate-era felons like Liddy and Colson, Nixon contemporaries like Kissinger, Stein and Buchanan, and Bush apologists like Coulter and Crowley used terms like "traitor", "criminal" and "troubled" to describe the man who helped the Washington Post make Nixon's crimes public.

Surely, then, the pundits of the Right must have spit the same venom at Linda Tripp, the woman who taped her conversations with her friend Monica Lewinsky back in 1998 and 1999. As Jon Stewart might say, um, not so much:

• Ann Coulter. The bombastic bulemic of the Beltway, who later called Bill Clinton "a very good rapist", had only praise for Tripp. "I do think she’s a great American hero. We never would have found out about the corruption and illegality at the very top of the government but for Linda Tripp. If you imagine what the world would be like if Linda Tripp hadn’t kept those tapes – a very different world."
• Pat Buchanan. On July 21, 1998, Nixon speechwriter and White House Goebbels-lite rushed to Tripp's defense, "What did Joe McCarthy ever do to Owen Lattimore to compare with what these thugs are doing to Ken Starr and Linda Tripp?"
• Jonah Goldberg. Goldberg, a fixture at the National Review owes much of his good fortune to his mother and Linda Tripp handler, Lucianne. Of Tripp, Goldberg gushed "Linda is waiting for her medal. Actually Linda is waiting for a single even-handed article in a major paper."
• Matt Drudge. Internet gossip monger Drudge dedicated a book to Tripp, stating, "She is somebody who took on the establishment. She is one lady in suburbia who said to the president of the United States, 'I'm going to get you, and I'm going to prove that you're a crook -- and I'm going to do it any way that I can.' We have a great American tradition of taking on people who abuse power and Tripp, whether you like her or don't like her, did just that. I'm sure most of your audience sees through a lot of the propaganda the mainstream press put out there -- where the first lady is a hero and Linda Tripp is the villain."

For the conservative movement, Linda Tripp for her role in Clinton's undoing is a martyr, a patron saint. An entire cottage industry supporting Tripp has emerged, including speaking opportunities in front of grateful, frothing-at-the-mouth conservative audiences.

Bill Clinton's infidelities and dissembling to the nation were grotesque and inexcusable, no doubt. In contrast, Nixon's crimes, including the Watergate cover-up, obstruction of justice, illegal invasion of Cambodia, and the constitutional crisis he spawned are qualitatively different, having posed a real threat to the Republic.

For conservatives apparently, Linda Tripp, the woman who made public her surreptitious tapes of her conversations with her friend, is a hero. (Not surprisingly, Bush friend and recorder Doug Weade is not.) And for the same people, Watergate source Mark Felt, the man whose risks may have saved the United States by stopping Nixon, is a scoundrel.

Bob Woodward has just published in the Washington Post an account of how the FBI's #2 man Mark Felt became Deep Throat. A key sound bite from Woodward's account, "There is little doubt Felt thought the Nixon team were Nazis."

For more on the demonization of Mark Felt by both Nixon and Bush apologists, see "Gagging on Deep Throat."

Karl Marx once remarked that historical events occur twice, the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce. When it comes to the scandal machines in the Nixon and Bush administrations, he could not have been more wrong.

The reactions of Nixon contemporaries and today's Bush sycophants to yesterday's Deep Throat revelations are predictably - and eerily - similar. But the Bush team's own overt war against anonymous single sources and brutal retribution against whistle-blowers is no joke. The tragedy for American democracy is very real indeed.

Consider the firestorm of rage and venom directed at Deep Throat Mark Felt by Nixon's henchmen, many convicted felons:

• Chuck Colson. The convicted Nixon aide and born-again prison minister said he was "personally shocked" and that "Mark Felt could have stopped Watergate. Instead, he goes out and basically undermines the administration."
• G. Gordon Liddy. The convicted Watergate burglar said that Felt, "violated the ethics of the law enforcement profession. If he possessed evidence of wrongdoing, he was honor-bound to take that to a grand jury and secure an indictment, not to selectively leak it to a single news source."
• Pat Buchanan. The Nixon press aide and speechwriter and currently MSNBC talking head called Felt a "traitor" and added, "His deeds are dishonorable, if not criminal."


• John Dean. The convicted White House counsel and failed Deep Throat sleuth asked, "The other issue that comes up is, indeed, has the man obstructed justice? Is that one of the reasons he remained silent?"
• Henry Kissenger. Nixon's national security adviser and later Secretary of State sniped, "'Hero' is not the first word that comes to my mind. I view him as a troubled man. I don't think it's heroic to act as a spy on your president when you're in high office."
• Ben Stein. The Nixon aide, conservative gadfly and erstwhile game show host cried when reflecting on Nixon's resignation. Of the Felt story and Nixon's legacy, Stein said, "That is his [Nixon's] legacy. He was a peacemaker. He was a lying, conniving, covering up peacemaker. He was not a lying, conniving drug addict like JFK, a lying, conniving war starter like LBJ, a lying, conniving seducer like Clinton -- a lying, conniving peacemaker. That is Nixon's kharma."

Predictably, the conservative commentariat took a similar line:

• Monica Crowley. The co-host of MSNBC's Connected and one-time Nixon presidential librarian said, "His predecessors were protected by a press, a liberal press that catered to the likes of John F. Kennedy, catered to the likes of Lyndon Johnson, who, frankly, did everything in the book while they were in the White House."
• Ann Coulter. On May 24th, the heroin unchic Coulter labelled the Johnson administration "the most skull-and-dagger, spying on its opponents, corrupt administration, I mean, up until the Clinton administration."
• Rush Limbaugh. The most celebrated pill-popper of the Right weighed on the "real" significance of the Deep Throat story. "It's important to understand this because the template for going after Bush was forged right here with Watergate. W. Mark Felt and the whole press push to force a president out of office survives to this day. Whenever another Republican gets into office, the same tactic is employed. Watergate is the template."

Most observers see Felt's role as critical in bringing the Watergate scandal to light and its perpetrators to justice. 9/11 commissioner and then Watergate counsel Richard Ben Veniste summed it up, "the importance of whistle-blowers shouldn't be underestimated, particularly when there are excesses by the executive branch of government -- which in this case went all the way to the executive office." And Carl Bernstein, Woodward's collaborator at the Post, himself noted Felt's significance for Americans today, "There's a principle involved. Reporters may be going to jail today for upholding that principle, and we don't and won't belittle it now."

Which brings to the Bush White House. Thirty years after Nixon's resignation, the Bush team is waging a more subtle and successful war against the media. The most paranoid, secretive and vengeful White House since Nixon has sought to create its own news reality through bogus science, fake news, fake reporters, staged events and scripted interviews. Retribution against leakers, whistle-blowers, and objective truth itself is certain, swift and severe. Just ask General Shinseki, Paul O'Neil, Richard Clarke, Richard Foster or Joseph Wilson.

In the wake of the Newsweek fiasco, the uproar over the Amnesty International report, and the unending revelations from Guantanamo Bay, the Bush White House attacks the messenger, just as Nixon did 30 years ago. Scott McClellan argued, "This was a report based on a single anonymous source that could not substantiate the allegation that was made. The report has had serious consequences." And an "outraged" President Bush merely said the allegations came from "people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble -- that means not tell the truth. And so it was an absurd report".

Robert F. Kennedy once famously said, "Richard Nixon represents the dark side of the American spirit." Well, RFK never met George W. Bush.

UPDATE: Bob Woodward has just published in the Washington Post an account of how the FBI's #2 man Mark Felt became Deep Throat. A key sound bite from Woodward's account, "There is little doubt Felt thought the Nixon team were Nazis."