Vanity Fair exclusive: Senate Hearings on Bush, Now (by Carl Bernstein)

[ProSense]

Senate Hearings on Bush, Now

In this VF.com exclusive, a Watergate veteran and Vanity Fair contributor calls for bipartisan hearings investigating the Bush presidency. Should Republicans on the Hill take the high road and save themselves come November?

By CARL BERNSTEIN

Worse than Watergate? High crimes and misdemeanors justifying the impeachment of George W. Bush, as increasing numbers of Democrats in Washington hope, and, sotto voce, increasing numbers of Republicans—including some of the president's top lieutenants—now fear? Leaders of both parties are acutely aware of the vehemence of anti-Bush sentiment in the country, expressed especially in the increasing number of Americans—nearing fifty percent in some polls—who say they would favor impeachment if the president were proved to have deliberately lied to justify going to war in Iraq.

John Dean, the Watergate conspirator who ultimately shattered the Watergate conspiracy, rendered his precipitous (or perhaps prescient) impeachment verdict on Bush two years ago in the affirmative, without so much as a question mark in choosing the title of his book Worse than Watergate. On March 31, some three decades after he testified at the seminal hearings of the Senate Watergate Committee, Dean reiterated his dark view of Bush's presidency in a congressional hearing that shed more noise than light, and more partisan rancor than genuine inquiry. The ostensible subject: whether Bush should be censured for unconstitutional conduct in ordering electronic surveillance of Americans without a warrant.

Raising the worse-than-Watergate question and demanding unequivocally that Congress seek to answer it is, in fact, overdue and more than justified by ample evidence stacked up from Baghdad back to New Orleans and, of increasing relevance, inside a special prosecutor's office in downtown Washington.

In terms of imminent, meaningful action by the Congress, however, the question of whether the president should be impeached (or, less severely, censured) remains premature. More important, it is essential that the Senate vote—hopefully before the November elections, and with overwhelming support from both parties—to undertake a full investigation of the conduct of the presidency of George W. Bush, along the lines of the Senate Watergate Committee's investigation during the presidency of Richard M. Nixon.

How much evidence is there to justify such action?

more...

http://www.vanityfair.com/features/general/articles/060417fege08

[marmar]

1. Carl Bernstein was clearly the good egg in that pairing...

:think:

[NYC]

3. The good egg

and the interesting writer.

[MasonJar]

2. Good job, Carl. Tell the truth and contrast your vision with the

current version of investigative journalism, your ex-partner in real news journalism, Bob.

[ProSense]

4. Conyers on Berstein article

Tuesday, April 18th, 2006

Carl Bernstein, lends support to Congressional Investigation of Bush White House

Carl Bernstein, whose investigative reporting with Bob Woodward broke the Watergate scandal, has now called for a congressional investigation of the Bush White House in his recent Vanity Fair article.
Is incompetence an impeachable offense? The question is another reason to defer the fraught matter of impeachment (if deserved) in the Bush era until the ground is prepared by a proper fact-finding investigation and public hearings conducted by a sober, distinguished committee of Congress.

We have never had a presidency in which the single unifying thread that flows through its major decision-making was incompetence—stitched together with hubris and mendacity on a Nixonian scale. There will be no shortage of witnesses to question about the subject.

This is a fascinating article, drawing many comparisons of the abuses of power prepetrated by Nixon and Bush. Bernstein suggests that the creation of a special committee, like the Ervin Committee in the Nixon era, is the best way to address these abuses. While he does not mention House Resolution 635 by name, I am very pleased to have Mr. Bernstein endorse my legislative proposal.

http://www.conyersblog.us/archives/00000427.htm