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Summary: Lie detectors
Review: There is severe Machiavellian chill coming from this new book by John Dean. Beyond the actual facts a sense of dread haunts an author who certainly has some experience with the phenomenon of governmental deception. And really that's what the book is, a sense of the ominous about this government, important information by itself. As the author notes, those who exhude the atmosphere of public deception are those with something to hide and those with something hide are most probably about some business against the best interests of the public.
A warning.
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Summary: How about a special prosecutor?
Review: Sounds like it is time again to get someone with credentials such as ken starr to do an investgation into the behavior of the white house.From what john dean says, it should be a slam dunk to impeach AND remove BUSH.
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Summary: Bush is mendacious, vengeful, and unpatriotic
Review: I salute John Dean for having written this book and find everything it it very believable and most important for all of us to know. Four years ago, I did what my contract with the US government expressly called for: reported my suspicions that a felony may have been committed in the course of administering a strategically important US grant. The Department of Defense (very reluctantly) conducted an audit that proved my main allegation: disappearance of $20M that caused the entire program to lose its functionality and eventually to close. After my letter was received, I was immediately blacklisted for US assistance positions, my bank accounts were frozen for seven months without any reason whatsoever, and my family was driven to penury, having to pawn all our possessions. The program died quietly, most of its money stolen or mismanaged, but there is one thing left to do: take credit for this program's "success". In his recent speech at the National Defense University, Bush said, "We're helping former Soviet states find productive employment for former weapons scientists." Bush is referring to Defense Enterprise Fund (DEF), a venture capital fund financed by the US Congress. DEF was supposed to convert Russian WMD establishments while simultaneously realizing profit from high-technology joint ventures. Please use the words "Defense Enterprise Fund" if you wish to find the relevant website. According to the Audit that I forced the Department of Defense to conduct, having sacrifices my professional career, if not my life, for it, DEF spent half of its grant on itself, which is twenty five times the industry average. As far as DEF's investment portfolio of $30M, $20M disappeared from it under very suspicious circumstances, exactly as I alleged. Defense Threat Reduction Agency ("DTRA") maintains a DEF-related webpage. This page used to state that the number of former Soviet WMD scientists converted by DEF to peaceful pursuits was 3370. I questioned this figure and DTRA reduced it to 1250, which is a 66% reduction. But the real figure could not be more than 200 Russian scientists. This is how Bush tells you "the truth"! And these are precisely the scientists we wanted to keep away from Al Queda! DEF was closed as of December 31, 2003, its entire $67M grant lost, and nobody was punished, except the whistleblower. Remember the anthrax scare? Well, the world's biggest producer of militarized anthrax and small pox (even scarier), the Vector Plant of Novossibirsk, Russia, came to DEF asking for just one million to convert itself. But the money was already gone! Read the audit! $100K for a golf club, $150K housing allowance swindle, Concorde flights, and on, and on, and on - until all the money is gone! Does that look to you as conversion of the Russian weapons of mass destruction? As DEF employee I did everything I could, in house, to prevent DEF's demise, and wrote my letter only when there was no other option. I wanted to save this program, save American lives, and because of it I am being destroyed, assassinated by this Administration. I am a Republican, and I like the idea of small government and individual liberties. But Bush is no Republican as he stands for Big Surveillance and an even Bigger Lie. If you care about America being secure from weapons of mass destruction, please remember my story when you vote in November.
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Summary: The tip of the iceberg
Review: As we've seen in books by Paul O'Neill, Richard Clarke and others, the Bush administration's deceit is finally coming to light. Who better to open the windows than John Dean? "Worse than Watergate" is an important addition to this surfeit of new books revealing the inner workings of the current White House. For those of us weaned on Watergate, Dean's book recalls the days of the exposure of a growing scandal in the Nixon White House. The author's main thrust is secrecy as he compares both administrations and finds, rather surprisingly to himself at first, that what the Bush/Cheney "co-presidency" is engaging in is far worse than what Nixon ever concocted. From the war in Iraq to stonewalling to attempts to intimidate Congress, Dean constructs an argument that is most persuasive. He adds to his list the environment, Cheney's secretive and shady business practices, and attempts through various means to make the executive branch more imperial than ever. Dean makes some basic premises with regard to why Bush's obsession with secrecy and duplicity is worse than Nixon's. He reserves his worst case for the exposure of Valerie Plame, (former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife) which in an attempt to discredit Wilson could have ended up with her death or compromised national security. As many of us continue to wonder why the press hasn't been more aggressive, Dean criticizes some in the press for not being harder on Bush and cites the important role of the media for garnering and disseminating information to the public, especially with an administration that is bent on wrapping themselves in a shroud. The fourth estate, he suggests, is doing a less than adequate job. In August, 2002, we awoke to hear that suddenly Iraq had become a threat to our national security. Since then, so much of what the Bush White House told us regarding the need to go to war has proven to be false. Dean points out that if Bush/Cheney get re-elected in November (he refers to them not as "leaders" but "rulers") their path toward further secrecy may very well lead to their ultimate demise at a great cost to the United States. John Dean offers many memorable quotes throughout "Worse than Watergate" and I think my favorite and the one most apropos is a quote from Woodrow Wilson. Wilson said, "the only truly self-governing people is that people which discusses and interrogates its administration." So far we haven't had much of that interrogation of Bush and Cheney, but I have a feeling that we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg. This spring and summer may be the Bush administration's "winter of discontent".
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Summary: Our Worst President Ever
Review: John Dean's WORSE THAN WATERGATE is an amazing, intensely fascinating portrait of a thoroughly repulsive scoundrel. The scandal-ridden presidency of George Bush is contrasted with the equally infamous misdeeds of the Nixon days, and it is Dean's logical conclusion that our current resident of the White House has easily caused the greater damage. Indeed, this book presents an overwhelmingly depressing view of the future of the U.S., as Dean makes a powerful case that Bush's incompetence and corruption may have crippled this country in such a way that it could take decades to drag us out of the wreckage. The case against Bush is simply overwhelming. Dean doesn't make allegations, he simply presents the facts, and the facts are irrefutable: "Dumbya" is a president who has refused to be held accountable for his actions because he truly seems to believe he is above the law. His offenses will continue as long as he is allowed to remain in the White House. And as this book proves, a Bush second term would be an absolute catastrophe for the United States and the world.
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Summary: Secrecy kills freedom
Review: A thoroughly researched and well documented polemic, this should serve as a wakeup call for all freedom-loving Americans, independent of ones political persuasion. This book should be on your reading list.
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Summary: Daniel Ellsburg, White house tapes-Nixon compared to Bush
Review: The basic theme of this book is the fact that Nixon lied during his presidency concerning the Watergate break in, over Daniel Ellsburg and tried to cover up his lies with more lies, yet no one was killed, and the Nation did not go to war over Nixon's lies. That we all know is a fact as the Nixon tapes have revealed. John Dean takes the reader back to the beginning of the Bush administration, and give us dates, quotes and witness's of those times. Dean fully explains the secrecy of the Bush administration, which he terms more secretive than the Nixon administration. The very fact that this Nation is currently in war in Iraq, over information the public and Congress received from the Bush administration (Imminent threats of Weapons of Mass Destruction), is also a fact that the honest reader can not deny. This book is good to review the time table of the Bush administration, and Dean certainly compares it to the Nixon administration, (which he served under), and in my opinion is qualified to make his assertion that "Worse than Watergate" is an apt description of the Bush administration. This Nation did not go to war over Nixon's lies; Yet US soldiers are dying in Iraq over false, mis-led and "Creative" information, from the Bush administration. This is a good book, and a fairly quick read.
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Summary: Dean and Davie both bang-on Bush-bashers
Review: Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Dean's book is its relentless expose of a clearly wrong-headed approach to politics that plays on people's fears to achieve a self-serving agenda.
Dean pulls no punches in examining how and why Bush puts his own selfish interests first, at horrific cost to America.
Also highly recommended is Bushwhacked (ISBN: 0973195614) by Michael B. Davie as this book also thoroughly analyzes the Bush unilateral approach to politics, but from an outsider/Canadian perspective. Davie provides a clear assessment of how Bush penalizes and enrages the friendly nations America needs in her corner with his isolationist and unstatesmanlike conduct.
Both books provide compelling, thought-provoking evidence as to why Bush should not be returned to the White House.
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Summary: Mostly false claims
Review: This book claims that the Bush white house is more corrupt then the Nixon administration and it claims to know the truth since its by an insider from the Nixon years. One problem though. The Bush administration hasn't done anything corrupt. The Bush administration hasn't hired crooks to break into hotels, the way the Nixon administration did. The Bush administration hasn't planted documents, firebombed think tanks, released psychological records the way the Nixon administration did to its enemies. And unlike the Clinton administration the Bush administration hasn't used the IRS to probe peoples private lives. And last of all, None of the Bush administration cabinet members or staff will ever go to prison for deeds done while in power, unlike Halderman, Ehrlichman and John Dean, all of which were convicted of various crimes under Nixon and many of whom served prison terms. This book is simply false. IT is mostly a wild claim aimed at getting you to open the cover, when the allegations and innuendo are not proved and few facts are given and the arguments, weak at best, are never fleshed out. Unlike the Nixon years when the crimes were clear, it just wasn't clear who ordered them. Bush and his men have done nothing of the sort and neither are they accused of any crimes that parallel the Nixon, Clinton or Kennedy years. Seth J. Frantzman
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Summary: This argument needs to be had
Review: At what point should Congress impeach a president for lying? John Dean examines the question thoroughly, and if the title gives away his conclusions, it is still a well researched argument on the nature of this administration and its failures.
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