Watergate witness and turncoat Nixon White House Counsel John Dean has a novel suggestion to try and shame George Bush into preserving and disclosing his presidential papers: the Nixon treatment
Dean surveys the damage done to date and proposes that if Bush won’t preserve his papers he’ll have to pay for his own library.
“Cheney has all but confirmed that he is already destroying his papers. Since there are no sanctions if Bush and Cheney do as they wish with their papers – except for an outstanding restraining order preventing them from destroying backup records of emails – no doubt they will do just that……the lawsuit that might have forced Bush and Cheney to comply with the 1978 law and might have overturned Executive Order 13233 is comatose …there is only one thing that yet might be done: Democrats could advise Bush that if he does not comply with the 1978 law, they will not fund his presidential library when it is turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)… NARA is essential for presidential libraries, as the Nixon Library discovered. Before it agreed to play by the rules, the Nixon Library was fast going into financial failure, barely supporting itself by renting out a mock East Room of the White House for weddings…Democratic Congressional leaders should warn Bush and Cheney that if they insist on ignoring the law, then there will be consequences: There will be no NARA funding for the administration of the George W. Bush Presidential Library.”
Too soon to tell if a man who plans to raise half a billion dollars towards his greater glory will be phased by this notion.
Former Vice President Dan Quayle got quite a run out of attacking a fictional single mother. The head of Quayle’s Vice President’s museum aims lower, victimizing a 5th grade girl in order to make some point about media bias.
United States Vice Presidential Museum Executive Director Dan Johns was leading Schererville Indiana students through a mock election when he chose to trip up candidate Maddy Martin by focusing hard questions on her while giving her opponent Roger Kaufman a pass.
According to The Times of Munster Indiana,
“Johns took credit for Martin’s loss. He told the children that he was going to act as the media and Internet. During the debate, he rephrased questions to put her in a bad light. He prodded her for further explanation of her answers but left Kaufman untouched…He wanted to prove a point that information sources influence the election process.”
Johns also explored the mysteries of the Electoral College with the youngsters.
“He used ice cream to explain how electoral votes work. In a group of six student presidential candidates, five preferred chocolate, and the sixth preferred strawberry. But because the group could have only one of the flavors, their delegate was directed to buy chocolate for the group.”
No word if he explored what happens if chocolate fans get only 3/5ths of a vote.
Looking at the indictment of BFF Bernard Kerik, Rudy Giuliani turned to the comforts of history.
Of a sort.
Down through the ages, what American political figure best compares to the allegedly mob-friendly, home improvement scamming, Judith Regan boffing dirty cop?
Richard Nixon is summoned from the shadows:
“Richard Nixon had this very serious problem, but his breakthrough with China was one of the historical things that happened in the 20th century. You can’t take that away from him.”
Ohio Representative Ralph Regula’s retirement announcement raised hope in some quarters [all right, here anyway] that the gifts he showered upon his wife’s “National First Ladies Library” might cease. But the New York Times reports the old warhorse is going out with a bang, asking for a $130,000 earmark for the library. Because after all,
“Members of Congress are infinitely more familiar with the needs and priorities of their communities than unelected, federal bureaucrats in Washington and should be allowed to direct funding to important local initiatives.”
On the other hand, maybe the Library’s Laura Bush mask makes it all worthwhile
Representative Regula also serves America by leading the fight to keep the name of Canton Ohio’s own President McKinley on a mountain in Alaska, despite what Alaska thinks about it.
the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence
A dispute with Stanford faculty and students over Donald Rumsfeld appointment as a Hoover Institute Fellow is reminding Southern Methodist University of what may be in store for them when/if President Bush’s Fantastic Freedom Institute opens on campus paired with the prospective Bush Library.
Opponents lack the two/thirds majority needed in the Stanford undergraduate senate to condemn the Rumsfeld slot, but faculty grumbling continues., according to the Dallas Morning News.
  The Hoover does what it likes despite nominally being part of Stanford, but at SMU…
“…while it’s unknown exactly what the relationship between the university and library will be, there is general agreement that the library’s policy institute will be more independent than the Hoover Institution.”
The News quotes Southern Methodist Anthropology Professor David Freidel as to what fantastic freedom is all about:
“If it’s entirely independent of us yet part of us,” he said, “the implication is that it can represent us in any way it wants to.”
Watergate witness and turncoat Nixon White House Counsel John Dean has a novel suggestion to try and shame George Bush into preserving and disclosing his presidential papers: the Nixon treatment
Too soon to tell if a man who plans to raise half a billion dollars towards his greater glory will be phased by this notion.
