Feingold, John Dean: Bush Scarier than Nixon

Report on the 3/31/06 Feingold Hearing re Censure
The Progressive, courtesy BLR

(Here is a link to the Senate Judiciary Hearing itself.)

Bruce Fein, who was in Reagan’s Justice Department, joined Feingold in denouncing Bush’s secrecy. “President Bush’s intent was to keep the program secret from Congress and to avoid political or legal accountability indefinitely,” Fein testified. “Secrecy of that sort makes checks and balances a farce.”

Fein also argued that Bush’s theory of his inherent powers would justify him in “employing battlefield tactics on the sidewalks of the United States.”

Feingold did not limit himself to Bush’s NSA scandal. He put it in the context of Bush’s assertions of executive power with regard to torture and preemptive war.

“What we have here,” Feingold said, “is one of the greatest attempts to dismantle our system of government that we have seen in the history of our country.”