false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179173116m/883374.jpg 883374 7 The most facile presidential comparison one could make for George W. Bush would be his father, who presided over a war in Iraq and a struggling economy. Some "neocons" reject the parallel and compare Bush to his father's predecessor, Ronald Reagan, citing a plainspoken quality and a belief in deep tax cuts. But John Dean goes further back, seeing in Bush all the secrecy and scandal of Dean's former boss, the notorious Richard Nixon. The difference, as the title of Dean's book indicates, is that Bush is a heck of a lot worse. While the book provides insightful snippets of the way Nixon used to do business, it offers them to shed light on the practices of Bush. In Dean's estimation, the secrecy with which Bush and Dick Cheney govern is not merely a preferred system of management but an obsessive strategy meant to conceal a deeply troubling agenda of corporate favoritism and a dramatic growth in unchecked power for the executive branch that put at risk the lives of American citizens, civil liberties, and the Constitution. Dean sets out to make his point by drawing attention to several areas about which Bush and Cheney have been tight-lipped: the revealing by a "senior White House official" of the identity of an undercover CIA operative whose husband questioned the administration, the health of Cheney, the identity of Cheney's energy task force, the information requested by the bi-partisan 9/11 commission, Bush's business dealings early in his career, the creation of a "shadow government", wartime prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, and scores more. He theorizes that the truth about these and many other situations, including the decision to go to war in Iraq, will eventually surface and that Bush and Cheney's secrecy is a thus far effective means of keep a lid on a rapidly multiplying set of lies and scandals that far outstrip the misdeeds that led directly to Dean's former employer resigning in disgrace. Dean's charges are impassioned and more severe than many of Bush's most persistent critics. But those charges are realized only after careful reasoning and steady logic by a man who knows his way around scandal and corruption. <I>--John Moe</I> 36810 6 4 2004 Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush total:168|5:43|4:62|3:43|2:17|1:3| 168 629 268 20 4 0 false false Thu Apr 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Sun Oct 26 22:26:02 -0700 2008 Sun Oct 26 22:27:52 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Jun 16 14:47:37 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 16 18:41:18 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Sep 13 11:42:23 -0700 2007 Thu Oct 11 04:42:04 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Jul 12 17:59:55 -0700 2007 Thu Jul 12 18:06:03 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Apr 13 18:18:58 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 13 18:19:59 -0700 2009 1 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Jun 16 17:35:35 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 16 17:36:23 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Sun Sep 30 09:16:06 -0700 2007 Sun Sep 30 09:19:45 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Apr 24 01:00:56 -0700 2009 Sat May 02 23:25:18 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Mar 19 08:39:25 -0700 2008 Wed Mar 19 08:44:47 -0700 2008 more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Fri Mar 23 12:47:58 -0700 2007 Fri Mar 23 12:52:09 -0700 2007 4 0 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Jul 09 22:26:44 -0700 2007 Fri Oct 24 21:27:35 -0700 2008 3 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Mon Jul 23 13:24:56 -0700 2007 Mon Jul 23 13:27:21 -0700 2007 2 0 false false Tue Aug 28 11:50:45 -0700 2007 Tue Aug 28 11:50:45 -0700 2007 5 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Wed Sep 24 14:35:39 -0700 2008 Wed Sep 24 14:36:13 -0700 2008 3 0 false false Thu Apr 20 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Wed Jan 30 01:49:30 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 30 01:51:13 -0800 2008 4 0 false false Sat Oct 11 12:30:00 -0700 2008 Sun Nov 02 12:16:01 -0800 2008 ]]> 5 0 false false Wed Aug 01 04:39:26 -0700 2007 Wed Aug 01 07:55:36 -0700 2007 0 0 false false Tue Jul 22 17:54:35 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 22 17:54:44 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Sun Feb 10 07:48:20 -0800 2008 Sun Feb 10 07:48:31 -0800 2008
]]> 0 0 false false Sat Mar 01 08:41:21 -0800 2008 Thu Sep 20 18:57:27 -0700 2007 Thu Sep 20 18:57:27 -0700 2007 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=883374