Watergate and the balance of power?

[question everything]

I have finally got around to read Evan Thomas cover story in last week Newsweek about Deep Throat http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8101507/site/newsweek/

What got my attention were these paragraphs:


Rather, Watergate was at heart a power struggle. Truth and justice played a part, but only a part. It was largely a behind-the-scenes contest for control. At times high-minded, at other times brutal and raw, the forces vying for control shifted the center of gravity in the nation's capital in profound and lasting ways. Only now, 35 years later, is the pendulum beginning to swing back.

The loss in Vietnam and the crime of Watergate gave a bad name to "national security" and "executive privilege," noble phrases Nixon frequently invoked to justify his illegal acts. The scandals had the effect of undermining executive authority—of dismantling what the historian and JFK adviser Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called "the Imperial Presidency." Power was, in effect, turned over from its traditional and most forceful executors—the White House, the Pentagon, the intelligence agencies—to the people and organizations that are supposed to function as a check on power: the courts, the press, congressional watchdog committees. The 1970s saw a rise of a new counterestablishment—populated largely by reporters and lawyers—all conjoined and interlocked in one giant scandal machine that, at times, seemed bent on bringing down anyone in an official position of authority for any peccadillo, no matter how minor or distant.

(snip)

But pendulums do swing, especially when they get a hard shove. Ever since 9/11, President George W. Bush has been trying to push back, and with some success. To much of the electorate, the lines have been drawn. Increasingly the press and Congress—or anyone who questions authority—are cast as the bad guys, as unpatriotic or irresponsible. Bush wants to restore the executive power that Nixon squandered. His critics think he has already overreached. His supporters cheer him for trying to save the country and for rolling back the antiauthoritarian excesses that were the legacies of the 1960s, of Vietnam and Watergate.

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On the one hand, I can see that in this country we do have the executive branch that is supposed to make decision, as opposed to a prime minister who is dependent on the agreements of the coalition partners. And I can see that debates in Congress could take forever to achieve anything.

On the other hand, when I read the sentence about the pendulum swings back I shuddered. Would I feel better if a Democrat were sitting in the White House now?

One more point. In the past 20 years or so, many pundits were saying how we, the voters, do not like to give any party complete control. Thus, Democrats controlled Congress during the Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Bush I regimes. Then, when Clinton took over, Republicans took control of Congress. But no one is saying such things anymore now.

What do DUers think?

[question everything]

1. Nothing to add? No comment?

[AX10]

2. Its' undemocratic and un American for sure.

[question everything]

3. Is it, really, un American?

Yes, intuitively we would think so, yet..

I am not a Constitutional expert, far from it, but didn't the "founding fathers" and the framers of the Constitution start from what we would now call and elitist attitude? Did they not think that the "masses" were incapable of making decisions, hence they - we - should vote for our representatives to make them? After all, until 100 years ago, I think, Senators were nominated, not elected.

Back to Watergate, when the White House defended its right not to release the tapes, they had several Constitutional scholars who claimed that a president had an absolute power for the four years duration.

And I think that even now, many would claim that Nixon abused its power that was rightfully his.

Even the Minneapolis Star Tribune, one of the last truly liberal newspaper, I think, dislikes voters referendum, saying that this is why we elect Representatives.