Free Republic

by Mark Finkelstein July 13, 2006 - 22:45 Valerie? Joe? Are you listening? Let me offer some well-intentioned advice. When liberal Larry O'Donnell - he of the infamous anti-Swifty meltdown, goes on Keith Olbermann's Countdown and calls your lawsuit 'very weak' and even the Olber-meister won't ride to your defense, its time to fold your tent, toss in your hand, throw in the towel and quietly slink away. This has to go down as the bigggest busted flush of a lawsuit-cum-publicity stunt in recent memory. Let's put it this way. Zinedine Zidane would have a better shot suing Materrazi for...

Editorial Reviews From Publishers Weekly In his seventh book, Dean, the former Nixon legal counsel whom the FBI has called the "master manipulator" of the Watergate coverup, weighs in with a rebuke to Christian fundamentalists and other right-wing hard-liners. A self-described Goldwater conservative (indeed, Goldwater had planned to collaborate on this book before his death), he rails against the influence of social conservatives and neoconservatives within his party. Suffused with bitterness stemming from the controversies in which he has been embroiled, Dean's book paints a thin social science veneer over a litany of mostly ad hominem complaints. Purporting to...

The leftists are in such a funk with their string of electoral losses over the past few years that they are desperately searching for their political Holy Grail that will show them how to win again or at least explain why they are constantly losing. Thus we have a plethora of books such as by George Lackoff explaining that the real reason the Democrats keep losing is that they have lost control of the use of the language and need to "frame" the debates differently. This explains why we have constant yakety-yak lately about "framing." And now we have...

On Monday's Countdown show, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann hosted former Nixon White House counsel and frequent Bush administration critic John Dean to talk about his latest book attacking conservatives, titled Conservatives Without Conscience, which the Countdown host labeled "an extraordinary document." Olbermann, who has a long history of bashing President Bush's tactics in the war on terrorism, provided Dean with a sympathetic, nonchallenging forum to argue that modern conservatives are moving the Republican party toward "authoritarianism" as Dean tagged some conservatives as having an "authoritarian personality," and labeled 23 percent of the population as "right-wing authoritarian followers" who are willing...

“Judge Judy, also known as Judge Judith Sheindlin, is celebrating her 10th year on television, and she has never been more popular. She has one of the top programs in syndication, earning her a reported $30 million a year. Her books, with titles like "Don't Pee on My Leg and Tell Me It's Raining," and "Beauty Fades, Dumb Is Forever," have been best sellers. And she has some serious fans. Last summer, both the novelist Kurt Vonnegut and the Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen made semi-serious suggestions that she should be considered to fill Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's seat on...

The Senate heard the first detailed arguments on the merits of formally censuring President Bush during a frequently testy committee hearing Friday that highlighted Republican opposition and Democratic ambivalence toward the idea. Five legal experts appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss the resolution that Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.) introduced in mid-March to censure Bush for authorizing a domestic spying program by the National Security Agency that operates without court warrants. John W. Dean III, the former White House counsel for President Nixon, provided the session's most dramatic moments with testimony favoring the resolution. Dean, a key player...

WASHINGTON – Nixon White House counselor John Dean, testifying in behalf of a Democratic resolution to censure President Bush, asserted today that Bush's conduct in connection with domestic spying exceeds the wrongdoing that toppled his former boss from power. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, fired back by telling Democrats: "Quit trying to score political points." The Senate, Dean said, should censure or officially scold Bush as proposed by Sen. Russell Feingold's resolution. But if that action carries too much political baggage, some senatorial warning is in order, Dean said. "The resolution should be amended, not defeated, because the president needs to...

WASHINGTON –Nixon White House counselor John Dean asserted Friday that President Bush's domestic spying exceeds the wrongdoing that toppled his former boss from power, and a veteran Republican snapped that Democrats were trying to “score political points” with motion to censure Bush. “Had the Senate or House, or both, censured or somehow warned Richard Nixon, the tragedy of Watergate might have been prevented,” Dean told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Hopefully the Senate will not sit by while even more serious abuses unfold before it.” Testifying to a Senate committee on Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Russell Feingold's resolution to censure Bush, Dean...

Washington - Watergate figure John Dean is one of two witnesses tapped by Sen. Russ Feingold to testify at a hearing Friday on Feingold's resolution to censure President Bush. Dean was White House counsel under President Nixon at the time of the Watergate scandal, and he testified before the Senate committee investigating the events that ultimately led to Nixon's impeachment. Dean wrote a recent column comparing Bush's conduct to Nixon's, saying both authorized warrantless wiretapping and both broke the law. Feingold (D-Wis.) said his other choice for a witness is constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein, who served under President Reagan and...

John Dean's memory - and Scooter Libby's November 14th, 2005 John Dean’s testimony about Richard Nixon’s words in the Oval Office brought about Watergate, and the fall of an American president. That is what our media believe; it’s the biggest story of their lives. They have beaten their chests about it ever since. The only trouble is that it is a half-truth at best. In critical details, Dean’s testimony did not match the tape recordings of those Oval Office conversations. John Dean mixed up the dates and content of conversations, pointing the finger at Nixon and clearing himself. A memory...

Joe Wilson Outed His Wife, Media Ignores October 26, 2005 Download Windows Media PlayerListen to Rush Conduct Broadcast Excellence (Highly recommended by poster) BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: So I'm minding my own business last night as I usually do, bothering no one, and all of a sudden -- what time was this? I think it was before the World Series games. By the way, do you know that the Houston Astros don't have any black players? (interruption) They ought to be losing. They don't have any black players on the team. Well, I'm not saying this. Joe Morgan is saying...

It is difficult to envision Patrick Fitzgerald prosecuting anyone, particularly Vice President Dick Cheney, who believed they were acting for reasons of national security. While hindsight may find their judgment was wrong, and there is no question their tactics were very heavy-handed and dangerous, I am not certain that they were acting from other than what they believed to be reasons of national security. They were selling a war they felt needed to be undertaken. In short, I cannot imagine any of them being indicted, unless they were acting for reasons other than national security. Because national security is such...

No, not Howard. The Dean whom Democrats have tapped to represent them at John Roberts's confirmation hearings this week is John W. Dean III, White House Counsel to President Nixon and one of the architects of the Watergate coverup. This isn't the first time Mr. Dean will be appearing in the Caucus Room of the Senate's Russell office building. In 1973, he sat at the witness table during the Watergate hearings and testified about a "cancer on the Presidency." This was shortly before he spent two years in jail for obstruction of justice. This paragon of the law is now...

As the scandal over the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity has continued to unfold, there is a renewed focus on Karl Rove -- the White House deputy chief of staff whom President Bush calls his political "architect." Newsweek has reported that Matt Cooper, in an e-mail to his bureau chief at Time magazine, wrote that he had spoken "to Rove on double super-secret background for about two min[ute]s before he went on vacation ..." In that conversation, Rove gave Cooper "big warning" that Time should not "get too far out on Wilson." Rove was referring, of course, to...

(FindLaw) -- As the scandal over the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity has continued to unfold, there is a renewed focus on Karl Rove -- the White House deputy chief of staff whom President Bush calls his political "architect." Newsweek has reported that Matt Cooper, in an e-mail to his bureau chief at Time magazine, wrote that he had spoken "to Rove on double super-secret background for about two min[ute]s before he went on vacation ..." In that conversation, Rove gave Cooper "big warning" that Time should not "get too far out on Wilson." Rove was referring, of...

Speaking out for the first time since the Watergate scandal ended his career, former acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray revealed Sunday that documents the White House ordered to him to hide implicated President John F. Kennedy in political and sexual misconduct. Appearing on ABC's "This Week," the 88-year-old Gray described a June 28, 1972 White House meeting with Nixon counsel John Dean, where Dean handed him a mysterious envelope. "Dean told me that this envelope contained papers that were removed from [Watergate co-conspirator] E. Howard Hunt's safe, [saying], 'They have nothing to do with the Watergate investigation - but...

One of the main culprits of the Watergate scandal, John Dean, who spent 4 months in prison, surfaced as a media hero. He has also surfaced as an expert on the alleged scandalous behavior of the Bush Administration. He wrote the book, Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush. But the facts, which have survived several challenges in court, indicate that Dean had a much bigger role in Watergate than reported by Woodward and Bernstein. The book Silent Coup argues that the Watergate break-ins were really meant to cover up embarrassing information about a call-girl ring whose...

The Bush Administration prosecutes government officials who leak sensitive information, even when that information is not classified -- as I noted in my column on Jonathan Randal. The Administration is also prepared to send reporters to jail when they refuse to reveal their sources to a grand jury, as I noted in another column. I doubt the Justice Department will go after W. Mark Felt -- the ninety-one-year- old former Deputy Director of the FBI - even if he is the greatest leaker in American political history. Still, in the context of the Administration's stances on leaking, the surfacing of...

For your interest, I just heard Lisa Bloom, sitting in for Catherine Crier on COURT TV. She announced that in the coming hour (5 PM EDT: 2 PM PDT), John Dean will discuss Mark Felt and the "Deep Throat" revelations. Char

Deep Throat is Mark Felt, the former deputy associate director of the FBI — except for the parts of Deep Throat that clearly aren't Mark Felt, like all the stuff Throat supposedly confirmed after Felt left the FBI in June, 1973. Well, that's going to be something of a problem, isn't it? Dean analyzed the meetings Woodward describes in All The Presidents' Men and methodically analyzes what others have glossed over. For Woodward's version to be literally correct, his source had to be able to have access to specific information (and disinformation — Dean estimated last night that half of...