Conservatives Without Conscience
Jul 29th, 2006 at 9:37 am by Susie
I haven’t read Dean’s book yet (link) but everyone I know is reading it and it sounds like a good one:
LOS ANGELES - John Dean, the White House lawyer who famously helped blow the whistle on the Watergate scandal that drove Richard Nixon from office, says the country has returned to an “imperial presidency” that is putting the United States and the world at risk.
In his new book, “Conservatives Without Conscience,” Dean looks at Republican-controlled Washington and sees a bullying, manipulative, prejudiced leadership edging the nation toward a dark era.
“Are we on the road to fascism?” he writes. “Clearly, we are not on that road yet. But it would not take much more misguided authoritarian leadership, or thoughtless following of such leaders, to find ourselves there.
“I am not sure which is more frightening,” he adds, “another major terror attack or the response of authoritarian conservatives to that attack.”
Dean, who served 127 days in prison for his part in the Nixon administration’s Watergate cover-up, recently talked to The Associated Press about the ascendancy of the conservative right and the two-fisted style of political leadership he says was central to its rise.
“We have returned to the imperial presidency,” he said. “We have an unchecked presidency.”
Dean was on the local NPR station a couple of weeks ago. What he had to say was frightening, to say the least.