John Wesley Dean III (born
October 14,
1938) served as
White House Counsel for
United States President Richard Nixon from July
1970 until
April 1973. In this position, he became deeply involved in events leading up to the
Watergate burglaries and the subsequent
Watergate scandal cover-up. He was referred to as the "master manipulator of the cover-up" by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (
FBI). He pleaded guilty to a single felony count, in exchange for becoming a key witness for the prosecution. This ultimately resulted in a reduced prison sentence, which he served at
Fort Holabird outside
Baltimore, Maryland.
Dean is currently an author, columnist, and commentator on contemporary politics, strongly critical of conservatism and the
Republican Party, and is a registered
Independent who supported the efforts to impeach
President George W. Bush.
In
2001, Dean published The
Rehnquist Choice, an exposé of the
White House's selection process for a new
Supreme Court justice in
1971, which led to the accession of
William Rehnquist to the
United States' highest court. Three years later, Dean authored a book heavily critical of the administration of
George W. Bush, entitled
Worse than Watergate, which called for the impeachment of
Bush and Vice-President
Dick Cheney for allegedly lying to
Congress.
His subsequent book, released in summer
2006, is titled
Conservatives without Conscience, a play on
Barry Goldwater's book
The Conscience of a Conservative. In it, he asserts that post-Goldwater conservatism has been co-opted by people with authoritarian personalities and policies, citing data from
Bob Altemeyer. According to Dean, modern conservatism, specifically in the
Christian Right, embraces obedience, inequality, intolerance, and strong intrusive government, in stark contrast to
Goldwater's philosophies and policies. Using
Altemeyer's scholarly work, he contends that there is a tendency toward ethically questionable political practices when authoritarians are placed in positions of power, and that the current political situation is dangerously unsound because of it. Dean cites the behavior of key members of the
Republican leadership, including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney,
Tom DeLay,
Newt Gingrich, and
Bill Frist, as clear evidence of a relationship between modern right-wing conservativism and this authoritarian approach to governance. He places particular emphasis on the abdication of checks and balances by the
Republican Congress, and of the dishonesty of the conservative intellectual class in support of the
GOP, as a result of the obedience and arrogance innate to the authoritarian mentality.
After it became known that George W. Bush authorized
NSA wiretaps without warrants, Dean asserted that Bush is "the first
President to admit to an impeachable offense".[16] On March
31, 2006, Dean testified before the
Senate Judiciary Committee during hearings on censuring the president over the issue.
Senator Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), who sponsored the censure resolution, introduced Dean as a "patriot" who put "rule of law above the interests of the president." In his testimony, Dean asserted that Richard Nixon covered up
Watergate because he believed it was in the interest of national security. This sparked a sharp debate with Republican
South Carolina senator
Lindsey Graham, who repeatedly asserted that
Nixon authorized the break-in at
Democratic headquarters. Dean finally replied, "You're showing you don't know that subject very well."
Spectators laughed, and soon the senator was sputtering mad.[17]
Dean's 2007 book
Broken Government: How Republican
Rule Destroyed the Legislative,
Executive and Judicial Branches is, as he wrote in its introduction, the third volume of an unplanned trilogy. In this latest book, Dean, who has repeatedly described himself as a Goldwater conservative, built on Worse Than Watergate and
Conservatives Without Conscience to argue that the Republican Party has gravely damaged all three of the branches of the federal government in the service of ideological rigidity and with no attention to the public interest or the general good. Dean concludes that conservatism must regenerate itself to remain true to its core ideals of limited government and the rule of law.
In 2008, Dean co-edited
Pure Goldwater, a collection of writings by the 1964 Republican presidential nominee and former
U.S. Senator from
Arizona Barry Goldwater, in part as an act of fealty to the man who defined his political ideals. His co-editor was Goldwater's son
Barry Goldwater, Jr.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dean
- published: 11 Mar 2015
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